Cheapest way to accept online payments

5limJim

Marketest wrote: »

The only thing I can tell is that being able to accept payment by credit card with your bank takes time!

do you mean that it takes a while for your own bank to trust you to take credit card payments?

sjcollett

we use Google checkout and have found it to be brilliant. I think the fees are lower than paypal (i use paypal for ebay and i really notice the fees there!). It was a bit difficult to start with as google use help pages rather than email facility if you have any questions but now we have overcome that hurdle i would tell you it;s well worth it!

1jim

If you are used to asking people to post cheques do you have a lot of repeat custom? if so could you ask them to pay by bank transfer and use invoice number as reference so you can keep track, I dont think this would cost anything for a lot of accounts??? Im not upto speed with faster payment bank transfers so dont know if they would help?

digp

Google checkout v paypal, which?

wuckfit

ukbill69 wrote: »

The person was asking about online payments not in person transactions. Streamline are so picky with what business they want to take on to.

With a streamline merchant account you can get online facilities as well, such as WorldPay.
Additionally, the money is in your bank account after 3 (working) days automatically.
With paypal, paypal can suspend your account at any time and withold all your money in your paypal account for up to 180 days.

I used Streamline for face to face and MOTO (Mail Order / Telephone Order) Transactions for over seven years without any problems. the fees were reasonable too. 1.63% for credit cards (2.3% for commercial cards) and 25p for debit cards. Compare that to 3% on every transaction with paypal and you don't have to be doing a huge amount of business before it makes a big difference.

Katie-Kat-Kins

1jim wrote: »

If you are used to asking people to post cheques do you have a lot of repeat custom? if so could you ask them to pay by bank transfer and use invoice number as reference so you can keep track, I dont think this would cost anything for a lot of accounts??? Im not upto speed with faster payment bank transfers so dont know if they would help?

No we don't have a significant amount of repeat business. Nature of the work.

bordercars

digp wrote: »

Google checkout v paypal, which?

any views please

paulofessex

If you went for pay pal people don't need an account with pay pal in order to pay you with credit cards. For £20 PM you could have their virtual terminal so you can take card payments by phone or post and even the benefit of accepting card payment should you need to accept face to face payments, laptop is all thats needed.

soolin

digp wrote: »

Google checkout v paypal, which?

AS a buyer/customer paypal only. I have used Google a few times and had a serious issue with them as there is no buyer protection, so I closed the account.

I would no longer use any retailer that did not offer me a safe payment method.

martindow

wuckfit wrote: »

With a streamline merchant account you can get online facilities as well, such as WorldPay.
Additionally, the money is in your bank account after 3 (working) days automatically.
With paypal, paypal can suspend your account at any time and withold all your money in your paypal account for up to 180 days.

Streamline and no doubt other card processors can stipulate other terms for new customers though. A friend had money paid a month in arrears when she first started taking card payments which did not help her cash flow at all. I assume after a period of satisfactory trading it would change to the usual system.

Chargebacks can happen just as with Paypal - we are all at these companies' mercy!