Payment Processors for Small Sites

Let's assume you are just a small one-person owner of a website, selling something. The first payment processor that comes to mind for this type of site is PayPal. What other payment processors would you consider using. Is a merchant account even affordable enough for this type of site? If not, what alternatives to Paypal are there?

I went with WorldPay, they seem to be very good so far!

I went with 2Checkout, mainly because it was cheap, one time fee of $50, and I was on a tight budget. Although it did the job it offers very little protection when it comes to fraud and charge backs. I'm now looking into going to WorldPay, more money but better protection.

By the way, I actually make more sales through PayPal than by credit card.

I also keep hearing about ikobo. So, so far we've got:

Paypal
WorldPay
2Checkout
Ikobo

Any others?

I started out with a PayPal cart and got a few sales... but when I put a real shopping cart on the site that took credit cards without being signed up with PayPal, the difference in my sales was surprising.

If you are selling much of anything, spend the money for a real cart. Easycart is not bad and they will customize for you without requiring an arm and a leg... but be warned.. if you go to their website... turn the volume down on your speakers. geez! what an obnoxious...

Well, paypal no longer requires a user to be signed up with them to pay for a product, so that made things a lot more palatable for a lot of people.

I know this is for small sites but I use Verisign Payflow Link for small site and Payflow Pro for large sites.

There is kagi.com

They give you a page to put your stuff on.
You are billed a minimum then % on sales, no per year fee.
They are lazy at support for credit cards errors and stuff.
So you check the logs and send an email to investigate about the failure.
Many languages and cards accepted.
Minimum 50$ payment like most.

Not bad... except refused cards that are not investigated automatically from their end.

I prefer PAYPAL cause it costs me less per sales.

I think when it comes to ecommerce you get what you pay for, like most things I suppose. If you go for a cheap set up it might work but you're stuck if anything goes wrong, like fraud and charge backs. I think it's worth paying the extra and go with someone like WorldPay or VeriSign, at least then you know you'll get the support you need.

I set up ecommerce sites for clients, and am a firm believer that an online merchant should accept credit cards with their own merchant account. We recommend a couple different ones depending on the client's business. The merchant account business is so competitive that prices have really come down. One of the places some of the merchant account providers try to make their profits is in equipment or software leasing. I'd suggest steering clear of any that try to lease anything to you.

We also discourage PayPal. there are many, many non-net savvy shoppers who have never heard of PayPal and don't understand why they are paying someone else for a product you are going to ship. Many shoppers don't think an online store is credible if they don't take credit cards themselves.

PayPal has also grabbed lots of money from merchants with no explaination. Remember that PayPal is not a bank and is not regulated like a bank. They can do whatever they want and you have no real recourse. There are many sites that are on a mission to inform the public about the evils of PayPal - I don't want to post any here but you can find them if you look. They are quite eye opening.

We offer PayPal, Credit Card and Cheque so the customer can choose whatever they are happier with. So far our target shoppers seem to be happier with PayPal, I suppose it depends on what you're selling.

PayQuake is decent - $50 one time fee - You get a free payment gateway with no monthly fees and a free merchant account. So for $50.00/year plus their commission. Great for startups who dont want to spend a lot of dough. You get a virtual terminal through authorize . net as well.

Wow, payquake sounds perfect, timothy. Will definitely have to check them out.

I think it depends upon what you're selling. If what you have is of great value to others, get a real shopping cart/merchant account. What I suggest is that you put up a snail mail order form first for a few months. Multiply the amount you make by 2-3 and that is generally the amount you'll make with e-commerce accepting credit cards. This is what RTWare told me when I signed up more than 3 years ago and that is exactly what happened. I made roughly 3 x's as much with credit card processing as I did without.

The RTWare/Authorize.net interface has a $1195 startup fee. They charge about 2-4% for each charge depending upon the card used (Amex is close to 4%). They also have fraudscreen which is about $20/month but is much better than AVS (Address Verification Service). So it was reduced to a mathematical formula as to whether to sign up or not...

if (2.5 x snail mail orders) > (total monthly charges for e-commerce + monthly snail mail orders) then your investment in e-commerce should pay for itself.

Curt

Holy smokes thats a lot of cash! For a startup anyhow. There are solutions that take higher commissions but are more available to the general populous. Many people suggested I went with verisign and paid them 800$ sign up fee, + 70$/mo gateway fee, plus merchant account fee... geez, the fee's never end. Talk about gouging. This solution you speak of, do they have monthly fees for merchant and payment gateway?