Getting income for your website - credit cards

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Step 5 continued - Accepting Credit Card Payments

How to accept credit card payments on your website

If you have your own products, such as something you make, or you want to buy goods from another company and then resell them on the internet and ship them to the consumer, it is possible, but there are many more challenges than with advertising or affiliate sales.

You'll need to learn about setting up a shopping cart, payment engines, shipping services and what to do when things go wrong.

  • ShoppingCarts
  • Merchant Bank Accounts
  • PayPal
  • Credit Card Processors

Methods for Credit Card Payments

There are two general methods to accept credit card payments on your website:

  1. Get  Your Own Merchant Account. You will need a business bank account that offers merchant accounts. Netbank is one bank that works well..
  2. Use a Third Party Merchant. There are plenty of online companies that will accept credit cards payments on your behalf in exchange for monthly fees and a percentage of each sale.

Which Method is Best?

There isn't really a "best"; it is more about what type and size of business you have. BUT, in general, you will probably want to start with the Third Party Merchant first!

Your own merchant account:

Advantages:

  • Lower transaction fees (the fee you pay on each sale)
  • Your own merchant account may appear more professional.

Disadvantages:

  • your own merchant account will require upfront costs and higher monthly fees.

Third Party Merchants

Advantages:

  • little or no monthly fees
  • A third party merchant is a good way to test or start out a new business or product line.
  • The merchant takes care of everything for you. (You just get a check each month for the previous month's total sales)

Disadvantages:

  • The transaction fee  is much higher when you use a third party as compared to when using your own merchant account.

How to choose a third party merchants

Up

Name Allows you to sell Credit cards accepted One time setup fee Per transaction fees Other restrictions and comments  
Physical products Electronic files or services  
PayPal Yes Yes Visa, MC, AmEx None Premier or Business account users are charged $0.25 for transactions of $15 and less, 1.9% plus $0.25 for transactions above $15 (when customers pay by credit card) Accept credit cards, bank transfers, debit cards, and more—at some of the lowest costs in the industry. Plus, your customers can pay you instantly, even without a PayPal account.  
2Checkout.com Yes Yes Visa, MC, AmEx $49 one time signup fee $0.45 per Sale plus 5.5% of Sale Amount

 
30 Day money back guarantee
No monthly fees
No statement fees. No fees for ACH deposits to U.S. or participating Canadian bank accounts
Check Payment or Low Cost Wire to Non U.S. Bank Accounts
FREE shopping cart
FREE code for your web site
FREE on-line tech support		  
CCBill Yes Yes Visa, MC, AmEx no setup fees Vary based on the volume of sales in each accounting period.  The fees max out at 13.5% of revenues charged during this one-week period for CWIE hosting clients and 14.5% for non-hosting clients.    
CCNow: Yes No Visa, MC, AmEx No setup fee 9% per transaction except in the November and December where the fees are 8% per transaction.    
Clickbank No Yes Visa, MC, AmEx $49.95 $1 plus 7.5%    
Digibuy No Yes Visa, MC, AmEx unknown 13.9% per transaction For software authors only  
Kagi Yes Yes Visa, MC, AmEx No setup or monthly fees 6.5% up to a maximum of $3.00 plus 3.5% plus $0.50 for processing costs    
ProPay Yes Yes Visa, MC, AmEx $35 sign-up fee Similar to PayPal only in the US.
no monthly charges.		  
RegNow No Yes Visa, MC, AmEx unknown 20% of your sale price with a minimum of $2.00 for software authors to sell their programs.  
Share-It No Yes Visa, MC, AmEx unknown $2.95 plus 4% per order, and $1.95 plus 4% for the 1000th order of the month and above. for shareware authors  
V-Share No Yes Visa, MC, AmEx unknown unknown only for selling shareware  

 

 

 

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