Ecommerce Shopping Cart Blog by InstanteStore » merchant account

Payment Gateways – We Put 2 More Under The Spotlight

desmond — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:48:49 +0000

There are many payment gateways to choose from, just as there are tons of online shopping carts. Choosing the right one for your store is equally important with both as well. If you sign up for InstanteStore’s free ecommerce hosting shopping cart trial, you can see from the “Configure Online Credit-card Processing” page that InstanteStore is integrated with an extensive list of payment gateways. Most gateways are easily integrated into online shopping cart software packages.

In this article, we follow up on our previous article in which we took a look at Authorize.net and 2Checkout by going over the features of 2 more popular payment gateways that are integrated with InstanteStore as well as other online shopping carts.

PayPal Website Payments Pro

PayPal is owned by eBay. It offers a rather unique service – the ability to send and receive money fast without sharing financial information, thus making it safer too. It has more than 75 million active accounts worldwide in 190 markets covering 19 currencies, making it one of the most sought-after payment methods.

PayPal Website Payment Pro is a separate offering from PayPal that’s different from PayPal’s standard payment system. With PayPal Website Payments Pro, customers of an online store do not need to be redirected from the store to PayPal’s website where they’ll log into their PayPal accounts to pay for their order. Instead, merchants who use Website Payments Pro can integrate it with their store via Website Payments Pro API. This provides a seamless checkout experience for customers who can pay for their orders directly at the store they’re shopping at.

Website Payments Pro allows you to accept payment by phone, fax and mail as well. All major credit cards are accepted as well as PayPal balance and bank transfers. With this solution merchants can look forward to all the benefits of a merchant account and gateway in just one package.

Here is a breakdown of PayPal Website Payments Pro’s pricing:

Monthly fee – $30.00
No set-up fees
No cancellation fees
Transaction fees – 1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 (Rate dependent on monthly sales volume)

If you need any assistance, you can try emailing PayPal’s customer service department, calling them (via an international telephone number where international calling rates apply. Their Limitations Department is available Monday to Friday 9:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Their Claims Department is available Monday to Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.), or you can get immediate help from their “automated customer service rep” (provided your questions are of a general nature). PayPal also has numerous forums where you can seek help for technical issues.

First Data Global Gateway

First Data Global Gateway (formerly known as LinkPoint International), is the gateway arm for the electronic commerce and payments solutions giant First Data Corporation. This gateway comes complete with essential features like recurring billing, a complex fraud protection method (which uses risk ratings, the behavioral approach, or a combination of both), tax and shipping calculation and echeck processing.

Their price structure is as follows:

Setup Fee – $75 to $300
Monthly Fee – $15 to $25
Transaction Fee – Nil
Recurring Billing – Included with no extra charge
Fraud Protection: Approximately $25 per month (if it goes gold)
eCheck – No setup fee, a $10.00 monthly fee, 2.00% discount rate and a 25 cent transaction rate

Merchants are privy to an FAQ page if they need any information. If more help is needed, a whole list of customer service phone numbers are available here.Recent Posts:

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Payment Gateways – We Put 2 Under The Spotlight

desmond — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:34:57 +0000

The definition of ecommerce is commerce that is transacted electronically over the Internet. Ecommerce allows customers to purchase goods online, mostly via credit card, within the comfort of their own homes. Payment gateways play an important role in this process. They securely validate credit card transactions in real-time. Payments from successfully charged cards are then automatically debited into merchant accounts.

Most of the best shopping cart software solutions (such as InstanteStore) support quite a number of payment gateways. If you are looking to buy shopping cart software, make sure that it supports (or can be easily integrated with) the payment gateway (or gateways) of your choice.

When choosing payment gateways, merchants usually want to know 3 things: How long has the payment gateway been around, how much do they charge, and what are the services that they provide. In this article, we will take a look at the features of 2 payment gateways that are integrated with InstanteStore.

Authorize.net

Authorize.net has been around since the mid 1990s, 1996 to be exact. Together with its owner, CyberSource Corporation, Authorize.net processed 1.1 billion transactions in 2006 with a value of US$65 billion. Authorize.net boasts a merchant base of 248,000. Their solution is easy to integrate and they offer merchants (web-based and retail outlets) a few methods to link their stores to Authorize.net’s payment gateway.

Here is a breakdown of their pricing (suggested retail price only):

Gateway Setup Fee – $99.00
Monthly Gateway Fee – $20.00
Transaction Fee – $0.10
Batch Fee – $0.25
Virtual Terminal (to process phone orders) – FREE
Customer Support – FREE
Fraud Prevention Tools, Address Verification Service (AVS), Card Code Verification (CCV) – FREE
(multiple) Connection Methods - FREE
Advanced Fraud Detection Suite™ (identifies suspicious online orders) – $9.95 monthly (optional)
Automated Recurring Billing™ (ARB) (subscription billing tool) – $10.00 monthly (optional)
Customer Information Manager (CIM) (simplifies storage of sensitive customer data) – $20.00 monthly (optional)

In terms of customer service, Authorize.net provides free customer support via 3 methods. They are toll-free calls, e-mail and online chat. Representatives are available from Monday to Friday, 5 AM to 5 PM Pacific time. They are closed on major holidays.

2CO or 2CheckOut

2CO has been around since 2000. They not only provide global online payment solutions but are also the authorized reseller for thousands of both hard and soft products and services. In 2008, 2Checkout’s processed transactions amounted to US$213 million.

Here is a breakdown of their fees:

Signup/Account Establishment Fee – $49 (one time)
Transaction Fees – 5.5% commission on each transaction, plus a 4 charge per transaction
Application fees – None
Monthly fees – None
Statement fees – None
Leases – None
SSL certificate – No need to purchase
30 Day money back guarantee

2CO provides a toll-free number for those in the US and Canada for those who need help. Alternatively, customers can consult 2CO’s knowledge base, open a support ticket or join their community. Their customer service department is always open.

You can find out more about 2Checkout in this previous article.

The best shopping cart software is feature-rich and user-friendly, somewhat like the best payment gateways. Each payment gateway has their own pricing structure, and their own pros and cons. Some gateways may be more suited to smaller businesses, whereas others appeal to larger businesses. Choosing the right payment gateway for your online store is important. List down your requirements for a payment gateway, do some research and shortlist a few payment gateways, then compare these gateways to see which one best suits your business before making a decision.Recent Posts:

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Starting Your Own Online Business Tips: Accepting Payments

karen — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:44:40 +0000

Once you’ve made sure that your store offers the right products and services and you’ve taken all the necessary steps to market your store successfully, you’ll need to prepare your store to start handling orders. A key aspect of starting your own online business is deciding how you will accept payments from your customers.

Getting customers to purchase your products and to feel comfortable spending money at your online store is essential. There’s no point attracting customers to your store and convincing them to purchase your products if you do not provide them with convenient and secure ways to actually pay you for their orders.

So what are your options when it comes to accepting payments online?

There are a few basic options that you can provide your customers to pay you for their purchases. Generally you’ll need a merchant account with a bank to allow your business to accept payments by debit or credit cards. There are payment gateways and payment processors that do not require merchant accounts though, so this is an alternative option as well.

Among the factors that you should take into consideration when deciding which merchant account to sign up for are monthly fees, the discount rate, processing and chargeback fees, the ease and speed of processing, as well as how you’ll be able to access the money that your customers have paid you.

Additionally, certain merchant accounts may restrict the credit card types that you can accept. As such, you should ensure that your merchant account allows you to accept all major credit cards. Credit card types that you should definitely accept include MasterCard and Visa. It’s also important to make sure that your merchant account is able to accept credit cards internationally if your store caters to a global target market.

If you have an existing merchant account but do not have a payment gateway to accept online payment directly, you can provide “offline” payment options to your customers. These include providing your store’s telephone and/or fax numbers so that your customers can call in or fax you their credit card details, which you can then process offline through a credit card terminal, for example. This “offline payment” option is also very useful especially for customers who are still wary or conservative about using their credit cards to make payments online.

Being able to accept online payments directly without the need for further “offline” processing would of course be most convenient for both you and your customers, as automatic online payment processing will eliminate any delays between payment and delivery. You’ll also be able to focus on order fulfillment instead of spending a lot of time on additional payment processing.

This is where payment gateways come in. Payment gateways provide a means for your customers to pay for their orders online with credit or debit cards. Payment gateways will also process payments automatically and accept or decline transactions on the spot. Payment gateways can be integrated into your secure shopping cart either via seamless API (Application Programming Interface) integration, in which your customers will never have to “leave” your store to make payments, or customers will be redirected to the payment gateways to pay.

Some payment gateways require merchant accounts, and others do not. There are also merchant account providers that offer payment gateway services as well. It’s essential that you choose a reputable and secure payment gateway in order to provide your customers with the safest and most assured shopping experience. Other factors to consider are start-up fees and per-transaction fees.

Customers can also pay for their orders using other payment options besides credit or debit cards. PayPal is a very popular and common method of payment where customers can pay for their purchases into your store’s PayPal account using funds from their PayPal account. There are also numerous alternative payment options such as online checks and digital cash.

Ideally your store should provide your customers with a variety of online and offline payment options. It’s important that all your store payment pages where your customers need to enter their billing information must be secure HTTPS pages. Your store and your secure shopping cart solution must provide your customers with a strong sense of security when they make orders at your store, so that your customers feel confident about buying from you. It can also be helpful to include testimonials from previous customers at the checkout process to reassure buyers further.

Whichever payment options you choose to offer, make sure to do your research well so that you pick the best, most secure, and most affordable solution for your customers and your store.Recent Posts:

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