Is paypal the only option?

[essex_courier]

What other options are their for taking payments online, without having all those messy time consuming and costly merchant accounts?

We take some payments via paypal, and are looking at alternatives, looking at perhaps £300 a month in total sales, so not enough to warrant huge ecommerce systems.

What do other people use?

[OldWelshGuy]

nochex , 2co , google checkout?

[GraphicDesignForums.co.uk]

Merchant accounts are not so expensive if you have quite a few orders being placed, £100 (ish) set up cost with streamline then PROTX at £20 per month, 35p per transaction on debit cards and 1.8% (ish) on credit cards.

Although maybe not worth it on £300 a month, however, if your business grows then worth looking at.

[essex_courier]

I think his Maj has decided it has to be £1k a month before he considers the other option
I will go and have a look at Nochex etc

[Caroline]

How bout accepting credit and debit cards

Caroline

[uglydoll]

Originally Posted by Caroline

How bout accepting credit and debit cards

Caroline

PayPal Pro will allow you to take Credit & Debit Card payments on your own site (needs some integration, which they provide the details for).

£20pm fee (free until October 2008), and transaction fees of 3.4% + £0.20 per transaction for Total Monthly Sales of £0.00 GBP - £1,500.00 GBP (less for higher monthly trading volumes).

Works well for us - maybe not the cheapest, but easy and convenient.

[NikkiPilkington]

Google Checkout is quick and reliable, and if you advertise with Adwords, yuo may not have to pay fees (depending on adwords spend).

The other benefit of Google Checkout is that the money appears in your account 3-5 days later automatically, unlike paypal where you have to withdraw money at any given time.

[trevorwood]

I'll echo Nikki's comments - we've just started using Google Checkout for our Network Midlands business and it's cheaper, faster and slightly less hassle than PayPal.

[Emma]

What is Google checkout's user base? Don't customers have to be signed-up already to pay?

[trevorwood]

Originally Posted by Admin

Don't customers have to be signed-up already to pay?

Without going though a full checkout procedure I can't give the definitive answer, but trying one shop, Google checkout had me logged in with my Google account name which hasn't got a Checkout account added to it. It looked like it would just take a credit card at this point.

Perhaps you have to have a Google account

[essex_courier]

Look into google checkout as well.
I don't use adwords, I never really liked them and other courier companies brag at our regular drink ups how many clickthroughs they have done other ads... they all pretend it's just DHL they do it to, but I can't help but think they are telling me fibs....

Sarah

[trevorwood]

Originally Posted by essex_courier

other courier companies brag at our regular drink ups how many clickthroughs they have done other ads

Google are very hot on this - they can spot if someone is regularly & frequently clicking on an ad. If they find this - or you suspect that someone is doing it to run up your adwords bill - they will investigate and refund if necessary.

[philipjohn]

Originally Posted by Emma

What is Google checkout's user base? Don't customers have to be signed-up already to pay?

No, like PayPal, Google Checkout allows anyone to simply pay by debit or credit card without having an account.

Having an account simply speeds up the process as your address and card details are stored after your first purchase.

[istadia]

Sounds like google checkout is worth... ...checking out.

[philipjohn]

Originally Posted by istadia

Sounds like google checkout is worth... ...checking out.

Baddum tish!

[Angela "VirtualPA" Dawson]

Glad to see Google Checkout gets good reviews as I'm thinking of setting this up on my website instead of Paypal due to the fees being cheaper.

Cheers everyone

[gavint]

We've been using Protx and a Barclaycard merchant account since we started up, but Google Checkout seems to be a good option for low volumes. It also depends on your industry and what your clients accept - when we started out PayPal and Worldpay were the only realistic other options and Worldpay were too expensive and kept the card details and PayPal kept the card details and left an unprofessional image.

Gavin

[NikkiPilkington]

I never liked Worldpay - i used to use them about 6-7 years ago when I ran a domain registration company (I sold it as it was too much hassle!) and Worldpay were constantly getting things wrong and allowing fraudulent transactions through, then clawing the money back.

i think Paypal is getting over the stigma it has had, and Google Checkout has the google name behind it so has a bit of a start. I use Checkout and Paypal as of a few weeks ago, so will have to keep an eye on it and see which one people use most.

[highpointphotos]

This is a very timely thread for me, I have been thinking today about taking payments online, rather than taking cash or cheques. I can tap into the impulse buy online purchases now

[Dan Knowlson]

I went with Paypal originally as I'd been using it personally for yrs. But have started the process of getting Google Checkout and possibly NoChex too, in place simply to give people as many options as they want. After all different potential customers have different preferences on how they like to pay.