Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Can anyone explain the process that takes place when you sell something off of your website.  My basic understanding is that your website must contain a "shopping cart" option.  That I assume, communicates with a merchant services company.  They in turn, process the transaction and make the deposit into your business account.  Right, so far?  That being said, can anyone reccomend a merchant service provider for processing the orders?

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Anthony Calvert
PODillow, Inc.

Hi acal,

Yes, the process is something like this, at least from a non-technical point of view. But it is not necessary to have a shopping cart if you are selling just a few items. You can just insert simple buttons or html links (code provided by the payment processors) on your web page. When your customers click on one of these buttons/links, they are directed to the payment processor’s secured payment page where they can submit their credit card info. Shopping carts, however, offer a better customer experience and manageability if you sell a lot of items online.

Some of the well known merchant account/service providers are:

Cardesrvice Internation, Inc. ( http://cardservice.com )
PayPal (http://paypal.com )
2checkout, Inc ( http://2checkout.com )
MoneyBookers ( http://moneybookers.com  ) : UK based
ClickBank ( http://clickbank.com ) : Only Digital Products

All the above providers, except CardServices, Inc, offer just the payment processing service ( not your own Merchant Account). I have used CardServices, Inc & 2checkout  and found them both to be excellent. You may also check this similar post to know more.

Good Luck
Nat

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Let Us Cut Your Costs & Boost Your Profits!

For merchant account provider, I recommend Paymentech. For shopping carts, you can purchase and install cart software, which is not for the faint-hearted. Or you can pay a monthly rate to a shopping cart application provider. 1ShoppingCart.com is a big player in the application provider business.

Hope this helps!


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Design & Consulting | | Water Harvesting

Thanks for the information.  I appreciate you taking the time to respond.    It looks like PayPal is going to be my best option.

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Anthony Calvert
PODillow, Inc.

Or you can contact Vince Creazzo at Spads.com , http://www.spads.com . He can assist in helping you determine exactly which type payment gateway and shopping cart solution will suit your needs.

I highly recommend him ... as both GoTruckStop.com , http://GoTruckStop.com , and Beth Downey`s BoxerHaus.com , http://BoxerHaus.com , utilize his AppleCart Shopping Cart and Data Base.

Best of Luck.

Read the fine print at paypal.com

IMO it is the BEST option for small to mid-range business looking to get this sort of thing done a working fast. also the costs per transaction and over all cant be beat!

The process ot taking credit cards online can follow several different routes, depending on a number of factors.

For most of my beginning customers, who may only have a very few items to sell, Paypal buttons, the "Paypal shopping cart", are usually their best option to paying merchant account application fees, monthly fees, and all the other hidden costs. The down side is that some people just don`t like Paypal, so you may lose some customers as a result.

If you want to have your own merchant account, I found this a very helpful site when I was looking for my own merchant account:
http://www.merchantseek.com/reviews/
They explain a lot of the charges that you can incur through your merchant account and that can be quite helpful in determining which account works best for you. I personally chose ECHO, mainly because at the time, they had a "sale" on their monthy fee so it was only $10/month, and unlike any other merchant account I have seen, they only charged that monthly fee (plus the other usual charges) when you actually ran a charge that month. Great for seasonal businesses.

Another merchant account I found for a customer that had very reasonable rates was here: http://www.intelli-collect.com/.

However, all this aside, here`s the disclaimer: you must choose your own account, based on your particular needs and budget. No one can make this choice for you, and no one but you can be responsible for that choice. Remember that this is basically a credit application with a bank providing this service, and they extend you a set amount of credit against your sales. It`s serious business, don`t look at it any other way.

As to how this works with a shopping cart... First, make sure you have use of a good shopping cart that can process cards securely and encrypt the information your customers send you. Good ones will use a code that you put into the cart as the encrypt "key", meaning that only you will be able to see that information. you can check out various carts for security purposes using http://secunia.com/ to see if there are unpatched vulnerabilities in the cart that interests you. Not every cart is rated here (security only, not usability, etc.), but a great many are and it`s worth checking. You also want a secure certificate installed on your site if you are processing cards yourself, so that information is sent to you securely. And you want someone available to you who knows about how to install a cart with a secure certificate, to make sure it`s done right.

So you have your cart and it`s taking customer information securely, but now you need to process credit cards. There are various ways to handle this. You can process cards "offline", meaning you process them manually at your place of business just as you would for someone walking in off the street. For a startup this is the least expensive way to handle credit cards until you start getting a lot of orders online... once that happens, you`ll probably want to process cards "realtime", using a bank`s "Gateway"--an electronic connection by which credit card information is sent to the bank directly and authorized, all you have to do is fill your orders.

But be careful with any merchant account, because there are ways people can use "chargebacks" (a refund of the customer`s money) to get your merchandise AND get their money refunded at the same time, so that you end up losing. Some people are expert at this....I have a customer who has long sold antiques, and he ran into this about a year ago (before he came to me, but this is not something I could have prevented because of the way it`s done) a guy who makes his living pulling a scam for an amount that is not worth pursuing in court, but which can really hurt a business.

Make sure you have policies in place, viewable online (many merchant accounts will require this if you`re doing business online, and they WILL review these and tell you where they want changes made), and make sure you have, and follow, a set procedure for dealing with any dissatisfied customers. Make sure you follow up immediately if you have a customer complaint (should go without saying...), and protect yourself as much as you can. Document EVERYthing when dealing with your customers--you never know when this may come in handy, and this includes email. I`ve archived all my emails to and from customers (other than spam, of course) going back 6 years now... and in one instance it saved a customer about $2000 because I had proof of something that concerned their business in my email archive.

Summarizing... research a mechant account and shopping cart setup based on your particular needs, make sure it`s set up correctly and securely by someone who knows what they`re doing (i.e., has done this before successfully), document everything you do, and make sure you take care of any problems immediately.

thanks for the tip , Pat. I didn`t know that they`re so many other alternatives other than PayPal.  I run an online store selling origami roses, i`ll be sure to use some pointers from you.

Thanks again


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I like Pay Pal Pro - which is different than just Pay Pal. Pro costs $20 a month if I remember right and allows your customer to choose to pay via Pay Pal, or pay with a credit card (Visa, MC, Disc, AmEx) totally separate from Pay Pal. When the customer chooses to pay via credit card, it does not show any sign of being Pay Pal. It`s totally separate. The fees are comparable. They might be slightly more percentage-wise than some, but there is a wonderful shipping feature that saves me so much time. When a customer enters their name and address into the cart, Pro holds it. When you are ready to ship, you can go on the site and hit the "ship" button. Then you choose whether you want UPS or USPS (you need accounts with them) and the label is automatically filled out for you. I love this feature! It makes it worth the slightly higher fee.

I have been using PayPal for over 2 years now and love it.  The free version allows users to pay using a PayPal account or using a credit card (without PayPal).  I simply generate buttons to purchase one product at a time.  PayPal also has shopping carts.  I even took it a step further and offer custom volume discount logic with my buttons. 

After a purchase is made through PayPal, I use their IPN (Instant Payment Notification) system and a web service that I created to post customer info to a database and send me and them a confirmation email.  You would be amazed at how much automation you can do for free!  Of course the PayPal merchant account is free, however PayPal charges you a very minimal fee per transaction.

I would be happy to help anyone accomplish automated payment processing through PayPal.

Shauno