Payment and shipping charge

[ecomguru]

Hi

I want to set up a payment system - what is the best, reliable and cheap way of doing this - Payment Terminal Solution i.e. icverify.com (please tell me of any other providers as well) or component based solution? Do these both require setting up a merchant accounts. Which bank (in the UK) offers best service

As for shipping charge - I'm aware that IISCARTship component that can be used - is this able to retrieve local post charges ?

Cheers

[chenzhu]

www.ikobo.com (http://www.ikobo.com)
www.paypal.com (http://paypol.com)
www.2checkout (http://2checkot.com)
You can visit these websites. All of them can meet you requirement. All of them are reliable. But ikobo is the cheapest. You can visit their websites for more details.

[dorian]

There's also moneybrookers to add to that list, although their fees are quite high. In ikobo's case, I know because I use it, you can set up the merchant account for free. You can customize shipping options to suit your needs, split fees with your customer and so on. They also issue you a visa card to withdraw your money from any visa ATM.
Just a suggestion...

[AaronC]

One of my clients uses authorize.net. I don't know if they're available in the UK, but they seem pretty good from the work I've done so far.

Haven't compared their fee structure however.

[dorian]

I think authorize.net is a payment gateway, hence it's got gateway fees and maintenance fees and all of that.

[Jason]

Originally posted by dorian
I think authorize.net is a payment gateway, hence it's got gateway fees and maintenance fees and all of that.

Authorize.net requires the independent acquisition of a merchant account by the vendor, and is simply a service that allows a merchant to process through their own merchant account on the web through a secure interface. A good alternative to authorize.net is http://www.worldpay.com.

[niceman]

I think that www.ikobo.com is much better (low fees, large coverage ........). If you want details don't hesitate to post here.

[dorian]

Originally posted by Jason
Authorize.net requires the independent acquisition of a merchant account by the vendor, and is simply a service that allows a merchant to process through their own merchant account on the web through a secure interface. A good alternative to authorize.net is http://www.worldpay.com.
Sounds a bit too complicated. Anyway, I agree about worldpay being a good alternative; that is if you're willing to come up with the $399 fee in order ti set up your account. Seems like quite a large fee, especially at the beginning of a small business.

[niceman]

Small business or large business, nobody should throw 399$ out of the window just to use worldpay when there are a great number of options to choose from. I know I wouldn't :)

[dorian]

Yeah, I suppose you're right. Why spend the much money when there are other companies out there which don't charge any setup fees and are perhaps even better at what they offer. It's just not a good business decision IMO!

[putts]

I have yet to set up the parts of my site that will be doing this, but I am planning on using Paypal.

Many people I know have a Paypal account (due to its involvement with eBay) and so I'd feel that more people would be willing to use it because they have an account and are familiar with the site.

Customer's always right sort of thing :D

[niceman]

Originally posted by putts
I have yet to set up the parts of my site that will be doing this, but I am planning on using Paypal.

Many people I know have a Paypal account (due to its involvement with eBay) and so I'd feel that more people would be willing to use it because they have an account and are familiar with the site.

Customer's always right sort of thing :D

Yeap, you are right but only partially and I will explain you why. You can make a PayPal account only if your future targeted clients will be from the USA , Canada and UK. But man, if you plan to have clients from all over the world then it's a big mistake to make a PayPal account. You may easily choose a payment processor (which in my opinion is better than PayPal even in USA, Canada and UK) like epassporte, ikobo.com, moneybookers and a few others. That's my advice. You do what you think is best for you. Good Luck!

[dorian]

I agree with "the customer is always right part". What I don't agree on is using paypal. However that is your choice and I respect it, but with them you are bound to have some problems somewhere in the near future. The amount of bad press related to them is good enough a reason for me to stay away from them.
Like, niceman said, there are other alternatives out there. Why not try one of those?

[putts]

Originally posted by dorian
I agree with "the customer is always right part". What I don't agree on is using paypal. However that is your choice and I respect it, but with them you are bound to have some problems somewhere in the near future. The amount of bad press related to them is good enough a reason for me to stay away from them.
Like, niceman said, there are other alternatives out there. Why not try one of those?

It's sorta like the M$ effect.

Until they're unthrowned by the large companies like eBay, you still have to angle toward them because of the power they have in the market.

Put it this way, give people an option to use Paypal or all the other payment methods and the percentage will look similar to the percentage of visitors who use IE even though it may not be the best browser out there.

[niceman]

You could be right but if someone doesn't need to use eBay I think he or she should look for something else that could be a much cheaper and safer solution. And, thanks to competition, there are lots of options on the market. As long as I don't need to use eBay or other stupid things that require paypol I will continue to use my currnet payment service which is cheaper and has a lot more coverage than paypal.

[putts]

It's one of the circular problems.

Large companies won't go away from the industry standard, and industry standards are the standards because Large Companies use them. :rolleyes:

My advice is to try to educate the public.

My philosophy as to how the general public sees a site that doesn't use the standard:
"geez, this guy is using some small name piece of junk - doesn't he know that EVERYBODY uses [blah]"

So, even though you're using a better product, visitors to your site don't think so.

However, if you make Paypal (or whatever) a payment option and then say that the Preferred method is something else and then have a little help page as to why it's better, the general opinion will prolly be more like:
"huh.....he has Paypal, but he prefers [blah], I wonder why that is.....I'm gonna read up on this stuff"

Now, the next time they're at some site that uses Paypal they think: "Geez, this company still uses Paypal....sheesh.....they should really try to keep up with [your site here]"

:D

[dorian]

I couldn't agree more with you. That's a pretty good idea you have, only that I'm pretty sure not many webmasters will take to it and actually apply it. Most are pleased with what they have, and think any change is for the worst. Pretty much the "if it ain't broke don't fix it", but it may become broken with time and then it would be too late to fix it.
Anyway, great post, really love it, maybe people will actually put your idea into practice because all of this paypal/eBay monopoly is really starting to annoy me.
We'll just have to wait and see I suppose...

[Paul]

I agree what has been said about Pay Pal. Personally I think it should be an alternative payment method, not the main one. A very small percentage of internet users actually have a pay pal account and the odds of them taking the extra effort to sign up for one simply to buy a product from you is slim.

I currently use Card Services (http://www.linkpoint.com) for my card processing. The features are decent but the down time for their services is a little too much for me so I will be in the market for a new company soon.

[dorian]

Well I would have a couple of suggestions for you:

E-gold, I believe.

Stormpay, works with countries that paypal doesn't support.

Moneybookers, they're also supposed to be good, I'm not that familiar with them.

Ikobo, what currently use.

Then there's always a payment processor or merchant account and your favorite credit card.

There are more I'm sure, but that's all I could think of right now.

[putts]

Originally posted by Paul
A very small percentage of internet users actually have a pay pal account and the odds of them taking the extra effort to sign up for one simply to buy a product from you is slim.


I'm not sure on that Paul.

Take a headcount of people on eBay and you have a starting point for the number of people who have a Paypal account (I'd say about 80% of eBayers have a Paypal account from my experiences).

Then, understand that people who are on eBay may not be a "majority" of web-surfers, but they may be a majority of the e-shoppers out there.

Not programming for something like Paypal is like not programming for IE or voting for Ralph Nader - sure, you're trying to make your point and that's cool and everything, but, in the end, it's not gonna matter :D

I hold strong to my suggestion of offering a number of payment options and see the percentage that use paypal. :D

[Paul]

Originally posted by putts
I'm not sure on that Paul.

Take a headcount of people on eBay and you have a starting point for the number of people who have a Paypal account (I'd say about 80% of eBayers have a Paypal account from my experiences).

Then, understand that people who are on eBay may not be a "majority" of web-surfers, but they may be a majority of the e-shoppers out there.

Not programming for something like Paypal is like not programming for IE or voting for Ralph Nader - sure, you're trying to make your point and that's cool and everything, but, in the end, it's not gonna matter :D

I hold strong to my suggestion of offering a number of payment options and see the percentage that use paypal. :D
Actually I think you would be amazed. On an ecommerce site I manage only about 5% of the orders are through pay pal and about 90% of those 5% screw something up and never actually order as they don't finish the paying process. I am not saying that someone shouldn't offer Pay Pal as a payment form but I think it should be secondary, not primary.

However, the amount of users that will use Pay Pal will greatly depend on the site content. The site I was talking about above sells products that are for older, less internet knowledgeable people. On a site that offers web templates the number of people that have Pay Pal could be as much as 80%.

[dorian]

Well, you're right, many people aren't too good at this (internet, computers, ecommerce whatever) and thus they're bound to screw something up. I'm not saying that's only the case with paypal, for example I got paid (a small amount that's true) by using moneybookers and I can't even create an account because I don't have a credit card. It's quite frustrating but there's not much I can do about it. Maybe someone knows what I can do. I can only use ikobo in my country.
Anyway, paypal should be provided as a payment option but definitely not as the only one.

[niceman]

You got paid by using moneybookers? That's strange ... I didn't heard something like this before. I don't understand why people still use paypal. Today it is a lame service, used by the people who don’t know much about internet and its diversified offers regarding payment services. No offense to the people who use paypal. I just state my opinion.

[Paul]

Originally posted by niceman
You got paid by using moneybookers? That's strange ... I didn't heard something like this before. I don't understand why people still use paypal. Today it is a lame service, used by the people who don’t know much about internet and its diversified offers regarding payment services. No offense to the people who use paypal. I just state my opinion.
Can you please back up your statement? I really don't see how it is a lame service especially since it's probably the easiest and safest way of sending money online. The fees are a little much, but that is really the only problem I have with them.

[niceman]

I don't want to throw money out of the window just because some people say they are using them. But I respect your opinion. Besides the fact they charge too much for transfer fees as well as merchant, my country isn't even listed in their coverage list (like other hundreds of countries all over the world) so I am still going to use my current payment provider simply because is the best for my needs.

[dorian]

Yeah I suppose you're right. I wouldn't know too much about their fees since I couldn't even create an account with them. You said it was strange that I got paid. Actually, I didn't get paid, it's just virtual money I can't get my hands on because I don't have an account!

[niceman]

I believe we discuss two different problems. In my opinion paypal can be easily used by the people who live in USA and another few countries. But, regarding the rest of the world, the list of payment services has a couple of names that deserve the attention. If I think about the immigrants who left Eastern Europe for example to work in western countries with much higher economical growth I realize that they can't use paypal, but can easily use ikobo or moneybookers. These two services have coverage in Eastern Europe and also charge much lower fees.

[putts]

Originally posted by niceman
I believe we discuss two different problems. In my opinion paypal can be easily used by the people who live in USA and another few countries. But, regarding the rest of the world, the list of payment services has a couple of names that deserve the attention. If I think about the immigrants who left Eastern Europe for example to work in western countries with much higher economical growth I realize that they can't use paypal, but can easily use ikobo or moneybookers. These two services have coverage in Eastern Europe and also charge much lower fees.

You're also not looking at it from all view points.

To me, the fact that they don't just open it up to everybody means that they actually do certain research and security settings for each new country.

The most thorough companies are also usually the slowest moving as far as adding and expanding services.

It's almost impossible to find a company that's great on both speed and quality - just what I've noticed.

[afterburn]

One of the other reasons that processors do not open up in a country is that there are trade sanctions against the country which prohibit them from doing business in that country. Like US and Cuba. US companies can not sell or trade anything to them...

[niceman]

But what about other countries that do not have embargo or similar rules. I think some companies use this excuse to hide their incapacity of having a larger coverage. In my opinion there are three companies that have a real large coverage that really works. Others, just advertise it but ... their coverage sucks.

[dorian]

That may be true. Anyway I don't think there are that many countries with trade sanctions set against them... That's just how I see things.

[afterburn]

there are lots of trade sanctions against countries, it just depends on the country your from.

There are about 40 or 45 countries that US can not send to...

[dorian]

Exactly! Depends upon the country you're from. For example I'm from Europe and it's a different situation form the US. There aren't as many countries I cannot send/receive money to/from as there may be in the US. Truth is the US sure made a lot of enemies over the past few years.

[afterburn]

I do not think that any of the enemies that they have made are very big spenders for commerical companies. Besides that fact I doubt that there were any added to the list in the last few years. In fact, several are being removed. Libya is one of them. But then again most of the UK and UN had that one as a result of PAM-AM bombing over scottland 1983.

Iraq is removed.
Iran is being removed. on Both US and UK.
Isreal is on UK not US.


The largest trade sanctions against a country in the US are not against general business, but more so of military contractors. Prohibiting the sales of ARMS.

This is way of the conversation... I was just trying to inform people of why you can not sell items to certain countries .....

I am sure that most of the UK has made enemies also. Certainly UK with its Iraq roll.

The other major factor that plays into this is that the processing company must set up contracts with the banks in that country, not to mention the Central Bank. Central bank processes the request from the Processor, then credits/debts account from there it posts it to the issuing merchant bank. There is a wide circle of how money actually changes hands ....

[niceman]

I think that from the point of view of Europe, there are very few countries that we (I am from Europe too) cannot send money to. I think that even Iraq and Iran should have the possibility to send/receive money soon. They are trying to clean up the mess in their countries and integrate with the world economy.

[dorian]

Yeah, I suppose you're right. Anyway, can someone tell me what should I do if I want to send someone money using my ikobo account? I've only used it to receive money so far but I sort of need to send some as well. Thanks in advance.

[LessZoa]

*bump*

Found this thread to be most interesting. Although by reading here, I see many of the opinions as coming from an idividual business perspective (auctioniers, mom & pop business, etc.)--not a robust ecommerce business.

We use Ekkon (http://www.ekkon.com)'s MerchantSpace, an ecommerce solution by the Canadian company. It contains modules which are customizable for all kinds of things (believe me, I know this!), including shipping types and rates.

E-xact (http://www.e-xact.com/public) is a credit card processor with whom our ecommerce site works with. They process almost all of our site's money exchanges which is all CC, including JCB and AE. We also offer PayPal as an option, simply because they ARE the largest money handler in the US (outside of banks) and they DO take very serious security measures with regards to the countries they service.

The firm I work for caters to all countries on the Pacific Rim. That includes N & S Korea, Japan, China, Philippines, Microneasian Islands (ALL of them), Peru, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand....

You get the idea.

We also offer customers who are registered and have a standing account with us to buy without using "money" as they will be invoiced. This is especially true for some of our Micronesian customers.

The pros and cons of any internet money handler depend on the security risks any merchant is willing to take.

On a personal level, I registered with PayPal when it was still new. Used it to send money to family all over the country. It was fast, cheaper than Western Union, and for then mostly reliable. I just never kept money in an account there with them. Simply put in the amount my sister or brother needed, then sent it off to them.

eBay's acquisition of PayPal has streamlined auction purchases and given PayPal the "boost" in business it needed. The recent class action suit against PayPal (regarding insured deposits and scams) has sent ripples through the Virtual Money chain.... and will be changing how things are done with PayPal.

Is something people will want to pay attention to..... and not just disregard because of the rumors and hearsay.

From a business aspect, not many of our clients have used PayPal. They prefer to use a CC straight up, or even apply for an account with us directly. We are considered a small business, believe it or not. With less than 150 employees, I am still floored that we are doing so much to such a broad range of clients.

[afterburn]

Again that goes on the route of the country your located in. If you had a location in the US you would be prevented from doing business with NK.... what I question is why Canada isn't following the UN with sactions do not do business with them? Odd but doesn't surprise me with canada....

[dorian]

What LessZoa is true indeed. Moving money over the net is somewhat risky, especially if you aren't too careful about what you are doing. It's also true what was said about paypal, they pretty much did what they pleased and I guess it took a class action lawsuit to make them reconsider, although they're not entirely "good" not. You can still read a lot of bad reviews with paypal as their subject. I can understand why a lot of people hesitate tu use them, I should know since I'm one of them.

[afterburn]

Once a method is setup, there is nothing to do except plugging another central bank into the process. The risks do not change between country to country, you have the same amount of surface area if the same methods and standards apply across the board.


I do not see how transfering money with in the US, is any different than clear across the world. Banks do not take security lightly. The create standards and insure that they are met.

Encryption is still going to be 128 bit, the connection to a major peer is mostlikely a point-to-point, no middle tier connection just purchase a T1 from AT&T to get it were your going and your done closing the loop on it would be a minor issue.

[dorian]

You are right, but that goes for banks, once you go online it's a different story. Paypal for example doesn't follow any banking regulations, so, as I said, they pretty much do as they please. Ikobo for example is partner with the Sun Trust and Bank of America and that's a little more comforting to know. For me at least.

[afterburn]

The partner aspect only comes into play with the merchant bank that the payment is going to be deposited. Rather than that of any central bank. so they are not the cause for it. PayPal is regulated by the Federal bank, as escrow and banking items like that are required to be tracked by the Fed Bank in NY, DC, KY, WA,CA and a few other states.

[niceman]

I know for sure that ikobo has its funds FDIC insured and they are member of the Better Business Bureau besides having as partners the Bank of America and Sun Trust. I say it's pretty safe working with them.

[niceman]

I know for sure that ikobo has its funds FDIC insured and they are member of the Better Business Bureau besides having as partners the Bank of America and Sun Trust. I say it's pretty safe working with them.

[dorian]

Well, if it's true what you say then it is quite reassuring. Of course that doesn't mean that some hacker can't steal your account information, but most of these things happen because the user isn't careful enough to whom he/she gives their personal info.

[niceman]

About the frauds hackers do I can only say that PayPal is like a magnet for this kind of actions. If you don't live in USA stay away from it because you can easily get caught in a situation when a hacker steals all you money from the paypol account.

[dorian]

So if I'm from USA I won't get ripped off? I beg to differ, not because I am from the states, but because I've also read a lot of bad stuff about paypal and it's US users. Bottom line, doesn't matter where you're from, as long as you use paypal you're exposed to great security risk.

[niceman]

After all everyone can choose whatever payment system she or he likes because from this competition the customers have major benefits.

[dorian]

Originally posted by niceman
After all everyone can choose whatever payment system she or he likes because from this competition the customers have major benefits.
Sure can, where would we be if that wasn't possible. I suppose we'd all be using paypal and complaining about how we got ripped off. No thanks, there are others out there, and so far ikobo seems to do it for me.