3rd party credit card processors

Can anyone recommend a 3rd party credit card processor for product sales. I've looked at CCnow and PayPal both will allow me to sell my product. Are there any other alternatives or advice you can give me.

We've setup our merchant account through WellsFargo and haven't had any problems with them. (They also came highly recommended.)

Sorry, I forgot to mention I'm in Canada, and Wells Fargo is only for US based businesses.

Any other other suggestions or ideas. I want to sell in US dollars since most of my customers will be from the states.

In Canada it's best to setup your own merchant account with one of our dull stupid and completely uncompetitive banks, and process your own credit cards.

If you don't, all of the payment Gateways will hold back a rather hefty amount of your funds.

You'll need to setup both US dollar and Canadian accounts. The bank will provide you with a payment gateway. Problem is, you may need some help to modify the code for your shopping cart to work with "their" payment gateway.

However, I personally don't use a payment gateway, I simply have a secure shopping cart setup to collect credit card info. I then use a special purpose software program (PCCHARGE PRO) that connects to the bank and charges in bulk when orders are ready to ship, and not at the time of sale.

I do offer paypal payment as an option, however I would not want it to be my only option. The customer must "join" the paypal network and pay a small fee, not to mention provide all their shipping details again.

For low volume sales, if you are just starting out and just don't want to open your own merchant account, I recommend you take a look at CCNOW, here is a review,
http://www.wilsonweb.com/reviews/ccnow.htm

Or if you do open your own merchant account at a Canadian bank, and anticipate low volume sales because you are just starting out. Simply charge in Canadian dollars. You can still list your price in US dollars, but charge a few percentage points below the current exchange rate. It will still show on their US credit cards as US dollars and no one will complain if charged a few cents less than they expected to pay. Doing it that way is the cheapest and easiest solution to set up, and you can get the current rate of the dollar at anytime from Yahoo.

http://quote.yahoo.com/m5?a=50.00&s=USD&t=CAD&c=0

Thank you unreviewed,

You have just confirmed what I thought was my best option to start this endeavor.

I am planning on using both CCNow and PayPal as my processing options to start and eventually move to my own merchant account when volume picks up.

Are there any issues using both CCNow and PayPal as payment options on the same webpage?

[ Message was edited by: ImageGuy 07/20/2003 09:44 am ]

You would need to have 2 separate "buy" buttons for each service. I highly recommend you don't do that. It will just be confusing and not do anything for your credibility. Honestly, if I had to choose, I'd go with paypal.

Another option for you to consider would be to use a free hosted shopping cart such as http://www.mals-e.com

With it, you can have paypal as an option and use http://www.internetsecure.com that also handles Canadian customers that do not have their own merchant account. You can read Mal's info on them here, http://www.mals-e.com/support/isecure.htm

Setting up a Mal's shopping cart is exactly the same process coding wise as the others. You can use simple "buy" buttons or html forms to allow for more options.

I think we have a winner! I'm calling internetsecure first thing Monday.

From what I can see internetsecure does it all...I might not need Mal's.

Thanks

http://www.2checkout.com & http://www.paysystems.com work well.

[ Message was edited by: advantage1 07/20/2003 01:29 pm ]

"I might not need Mal's"

True. But if you do use Mal's and later want to switch to your own merchant account or to another gateway, you can do so in your cart settings in 60 seconds, without needing to change the coding on your web site. Just a thought.

Hi,

I was using Total Merchant Services working with Authorize.net. They were a pain to work with. The discount rates were good but they'd tack on all kinds of additional charges and there were monthly minimums that would hurt a business just starting out.

The main reason I switched is they would not allow me to use my merchant account on more than one domain. The wanted a new account for each domain and I have several.

I'm using Paysystems now and am happy with them.

I run everything through Marketer's Choice/1shopping Cart, which will work with a number of payment processors including Paypal. I do a lot on eBay and eBayers like to use Paypal. What's been surprising is that 20% of my website visitors prefer to pay with Paypal. Running it through my cart system doesn't require separate payment buttons for Paypal. It's all done within the cart. Besides the reasons already given for not using two payment buttons, here's another, with this system, all my customers are added to my follow-up autoresponders, they're all in my database plus they're all tracked through my affiliate program.

If you have affiliates (or plan to), they don't like to see two payment options when one of them (paypal) won't be tracking affiliate sales. Through this system, there's no way an affiliate can send you a sale and not get credited for it.

All the best,

Bill Hibbler



[ Message was edited by: Bill Hibbler 07/26/2003 08:43 am ]

I recommend going with a real merchant account. Paysystems, 2Checkout and others make it really easy for you, but their rates can be double a merchant account. I have recently gotten an Echo-inc.com account that includes electronic check acceptance. [not live yet]

If you do search for a merchant account, make sure that you have gateway, SSL, shoping cart, and security certificate covered. These can add additional hassles and expense. Echo offers an option through their own company [Merchant America] to do all of this for a charge of $20/months only when you have activity. I am sure others have this available also.

I had used Paypal, and then a friend asked if I was losing any sales because of the hassle of getting a Paypal account. It made me start thinking that I most likely was. I was always apologizing to people who weren't signed up, and frequently feeling bad for what I had put them through.

A problem with going with one of the traditional merchant
accounts over a service like Paysystems or 2checkout is that
if you're doing less than $1500 to $1750 per month in sales,
you won't save money.

For one thing, unless you have a track record in retail and
can go through a bank directly, the 3rd party services like
Cardservice Intl. charge anywhere from $200-400 in startup
fees. They'll typically waive one fee while charging you
another but you usually end up paying at least $200 plus it
can take 2 to 3 weeks to complete the approval process. With
Paysystems, I paid $49 and was accepting payments the day
after calling them.

Traditional merchant accounts charge a lower discount rate
and transaction fee but they charge a monthly statement fee,
a gateway fee and monthly minimums. With Total Merchant
Services, for example, you'll pay $45 a month even if you
don't process a single transaction. And their basic fees
only cover Visa/Mastercard. You'll have to apply and pay
extra for Amex, Discover or echecks. Amex added another $5
in monthly fixed fees. They also would tack on a .25 batch
deposit fee which would add another $7.50 to the monthly
bill. So, you're looking at a minimum of $57.50 a month.

Another thing they don't tell you is that the discount rate
you're offered isn't universal. For certain kinds of cards,
it was higher. The way they process their statements makes
it very difficult to see exactly how much you're paying.

Doing a volume between $1200 and $2200 a month, I end up
paying about the same but I have a statement that's very
straightforward and there's no monthly fees or minimums. A
downside is that they pay me once a week rather than daily
deposits but I can live with that.

I'd say that if you're just starting out and you're not
doing over $1500 a month, you're better off with a service
like Paysystems.

All the best,

Bill Hibbler



[ Message was edited by: Bill Hibbler 07/26/2003 08:44 am ]

For small volume, I would recommend paysystems, they provide telephone support for a start.

We now use Worldpay and their service is exemplery. We pay 1% extra for insurance against chargeback and that had been well worth it. Although our chargeback rate is now less than 0.5%, the extra time required and anxiety in screening for fradulent transactions makes the 1% charge well worth it.

I have an email that I have now posted in my profile about this issue. My provider is CardService International, and they have been good, however I believe they are only US too. I will also speak well for Wells Fargo, as I setup address verification for comapanys as a consultant, and they are known to be good. You should go to Overture or Yahoo Canada and type in "merchant providers". Then you can see the real companies that are willing to bid on the terms : ) good luck.

I'd be very careful with Cardservice Intl. A number of marketers have had MAJOR prodlems with them. Rob Frankel, a fairly well known branding expert had a nightmare experience and I recently saw marketer Jason Cox have all his funds frozen because he ran a successful promotion that generated around $15k in a few days. His account is frozen, he can't pay his affiliates and joint venture partners and they want to hold his money for 90 days or more. I've heard similar stories from other merchants where they were forced to make huge cash deposits with the company merely because they were successful. I've heard lots of horror stories about credit card merchant providers. I believe 90% of them pertained to Cardservice Intl.

I am a total newbie to 3rd party CC processors and just got tired of using AVS networks for my websites. Im expecting to have a very modest start on my own, what or which solution is not costy and would let me charge/manage a few subscription based customers? (approx 20 members at 5.99/month) Need to specify im in Canada. Thanx in advance!

If it's about selling tangible products the most currently available 3rd parties with easy to integrate shopping cart and low Commissions are 2checkout and paysystems ,every one of them has it's advantages and disadvantages ,2checkout was always has a problems about customer support while they're trying to improve the hole service now and they have a very good Shopping cart while paysystems has a good customer support service and shorter payment period, so try to search Google for "2checkout VS paysystems"

myPaySystems handles Canadian and U.S.A. businesses with offices in Canada, U.S.A and Europe. I have been trying to research and categorize all the 3rd party processors on the web and I've been finding more each day. You can see my most recent roundup on web at www.4mywebecash.com. Several cover international businesses including iKobo and FastPay. FastPay is for businesses with a UK address.

I agree that if you can afford it, a regular merchant account is probably better for your business. Some customers look down on merchants who use 3rd party processors. It also is inconvenient to deal with signing up and getting your card approved.

If you need to see which 3rd party processor is better for you cost-wise, I have designed a monthly cost calculator called the Maculator. The monthly costs may be lower or higher for some of these processors based on different monthly sales volumes and average ticket amounts. The Maculator allows you to enter a projected monthly sales volume and select two providers to automatically compare their monthly costs. You can also save the results and select more providers to see a view of many different providers at various monthly sales volumes.

Best of luck on your new business...

For foreign language support MultiCards has support on the order page for 7 languages: English, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French, German and Russian. The accepted currencies are GBP, EUR and USD. The rate formula for MultiCards is a little complex. There are several plans based on different setup fees. You pay more up front for lower transaction rates and fees. You can compare rates based on your expected monthly sales for different MultiCards plans on www.mgoldmine.com. For most businesses, it appears that the better deal is to pay the higher setup (Partner) fee.

If you are just starting I'd suggest Paypal, 2checkout or CCbil.
They've been in business for quite long, they have a lot of added value (shopping cart, some advanced fraud screening etc.) and their fess are not that bigger than having your own merchant account. If you get to sell over $5K / month just there start thinking in your own merchant account.
If you use Paypal, take special care to FULLY comply with agreement you accept when you sign up since they can freeze your account without prior advice.
Carlos