ARGH! Hurting my brain! If you were me, which option would you choose...

Lorna

I feel like I'm going round in circles regarding acceptance of credit card payments, so perhaps if I make it clear exactly what transactions I need to take then I can solicit some opinions on what you would do if you were me.

I'm running a very small self-drive motorhome hire company from home - 1 vehicle at present, so VERY small!! There are a max of 4-8 customers per month (depending on the length of hire, ie weekends or weekly). Taking cheques and cash so far no problem, but i need to start accepting credit cards given the amounts of money I'm dealing with.

For each customer I take:

A security deposit (say £100) over phone/by mail (ideally online too, but don't have this yet)

Remaining balance (around £500) over phone/by mail

Security bond (around £500) face to face when they collect vehicle and this is refunded upon safe return of the vehicle.


I'm toying with 2 options:

1) for instant set up and ease of use initially whilst I see how business goes (I've just started) I wondered about trying the Paypal Virtual Terminal service. Great for pre-payments on phone/by mail, however, I think I'm right in saying I can't use this for face to face transactions without it breaching the buyer's use of chip & pin credit card terms. One option I've considered is asking the customer to pay the security bond (normally taken face to face) 48 hours beforehand over phone to get over this problem. Slight concerns though over the issues of chargebacks and Paypal refunding money without our agreement (especially as security bonds will be withheld in the event of damage to vehicle etc).

2) for something slightly more substantial I've looked into renting a terminal from Streamline - current offer to me is £175 set up fee, £10pm + VAT terminal rental, £10 minimum monthly service charge (I presume that means if I don't take £10 minimum any particular month than I have to pay £10 myself? But will that £10 go into my own account, a bit like paying myself, or is it paying Streamline, like a penalty?). Rates quoted were 2.75% for c/cards and 40p for debit cards. I'm also considering option of joining the FSB, which I think will mean the waiver of the set up fee and slightly more favourable rates, but I'm not sure to what extent without speaking to them first (I'm a work-from-home business - will it be a problem inviting them to my house to speak to me?). The only issues with Streamline and having a terminal are that (a) set up is expensive, (b) I won't be using it 5-6 months a year but still have to pay the £10 a month rental plus min. service charge and (c) I presume if I want to take payments online in future it will cost me more again to integrate it with the terminal account, whereas if I opted for Paypal from the start (virtual termins + website pro or standard) I could do it all together from the outset.


I'm at a crossroads and stumped for which way to go at this point!

paulwf

I think not needing it for 5-6 months may be a red herring - people book holidays a year or more in advance sometimes and it will probably be a lot of hassle to keep canceling an account and then reactivating it.

From what I can tell Paypal is costing you £20 a month plus 3.4% and 20p per transaction?

Streamline is charging £10 ex VAT and then a £10 minimum per month then 2.75% OR 40p?

With Streamline you will have more control as you could accept debit cards and impose a surcharge for credit cards (some holiday companies do this and some don't but it could save you over £10 a booking). You'll also have more flexibility over taking payments and if you take payments online you can set up a cart that just forwards the details to you to manually process (no hassle as you aren't dealing with many payments, I never bothered with real time integrated online processing).

If you think the other benefits of FSB membership are worth it then I think Streamline will work out to be the cheaper and more flexible option.

Lorna

Paul, thanks ever so much. That's actually very much put it into perspective for me. I had no idea I could do that with a shopping cart online - what a really useful bit of info - very helpful : ) I think I will end up going down the Streamline route....and can't harm to check out the benefits of joining FSB - will add a bit of credibility too.

Thanks again, much appreciated!

paulwf

I used to use http://www.mals-e.com/ as a totally free shopping cart bolted on to my website. When a customer placed an order you would be alerted by an email and then log on to the secure server to get the credit card details. I actually prefer this approach to online processing as you can manually check the order before processing.

I haven't used Mals for a few years but it was the best cart I've come across and totally free (they make money from upgrades if you are a heavy user)...worth having a look at to see if it is still as good.

martindow

paulwf wrote: »

I used to use http://www.mals-e.com/ as a totally free shopping cart bolted on to my website. When a customer placed an order you would be alerted by an email and then log on to the secure server to get the credit card details. I actually prefer this approach to online processing as you can manually check the order before processing.

We used to download encrypted card details a few year ago, but streamline and other card processors will not let you do this now and you have to use someone like Sagepay to handle the cards.

Lorna

Oh, that's a shame : (

Moosk

Yes, if you are wanting to download card details to put into your own card machine, you need to look up PCI-DSS complience. I think you will find it and expensive and complicated approach, if you are staying within the rules. You will likely need an online payment processor for online payments.