Need to accept CC payments/ advise?

[Black1]

Everyone (especially Scott and Patrick) had great advise.....

..... My only advise is to NOT take Amex. They are a royal PAIN IN THE ASS, and their rates are ASTRONOMICAL. I had a customer that wanted to use his Centurion Card (known as the "Black Card") for all his transactions. Even tho he was going to spend (estimated) over $700k per year with us, JUST the fee from AMEX was going to wipe out half of my commission. :argh: :argh: :argh: It's not worth the trouble, IMO. :dontknow:

 

[ccfeyh]

True.

Unless he is willing to get a paypal account and use his credit card as a primary source of funding.But, that delays the payment by a couple of biz days...
And... PayPal limits the amount of transactions you can do that way unless you open a biz account with them. Then, I think they charge you a fee per transaction too.

I setup a shopping cart for a big car show and used Paypal to collect the funds, I setup an account and my users could pay everything through paypal, but it did not require them to have an account with paypal, just me. The yhad to input their CC info and it was charged but they were not required to have a paypal account.

The biz account does charge you a fee, but if I remember correctly, it wasvery minimal.

 

[JTS VENOM PERFORMANCE]

I setup a shopping cart for a big car show and used Paypal to collect the funds, I setup an account and my users could pay everything through paypal, but it did not require them to have an account with paypal, just me. The yhad to input their CC info and it was charged but they were not required to have a paypal account.

The biz account does charge you a fee, but if I remember correctly, it wasvery minimal.

thats what I thought? and went and looked and well now on my site as is, you can do that, but I cant manually key in a card yet?

 

[NBT]

Tony, I believe Go Daddy uses Innovative Merchant Solutions...might be worth checking out. :dontknow:
http://www.innovativemerchant.com/ You can establish your SSL through Go Daddy as well...check your credits.

 

[Prof]

Tony, a piece of advice that may or may not sit well with you.

These issues are business issues but they are also financial and contractual issues. This is the aegis of a good cpa. If you can find someone to work with as your primary financial adviser, a person that stays on top of your contractual financial obligations and keeps your tax status on an even keel, you will have made a huge jump.

Larry can probably give you some better advice in this area, but the cost of that kind of service is more than offset by the comfort of having a financial expert that you trust keeping you out of trouble.

I personally always found a good looking woman, because I think professional women have to work harder to overcome issues. If someone is dealing with my money or my body...it is almost always a woman...

Seriously, it may be time for a good accountant or accounting firm.

 

[ccfeyh]

thats what I thought? and went and looked and well now on my site as is, you can do that, but I cant manually key in a card yet?

Your shopping cart program has to be configured to do that. First you have to setup the account on PayPal, then setup your shopping cart to use the paypal interface. From there after a customer has finished shopping and decides to checkout, the shopping cart will collect buyers information (input by the buyer), then connect to Paypal and provide the needed collected information to Paypal to complete the transaction. Oh, and most shopping carts will even calculate the sales tax for you and total everything at the end of the transaction. That also includes shipping costs.

Depends on the shopping cart, if it was given to you by your provider, it's probably just a basic shopping cart (I'll bet the have a FREE better one or will reccommend some good ones that have been tested on their system). There are shopping carts you can buy and have all the financial issues included that not only handle the transactions and get you paid, but they also provide you with inventory control. Some are more capable than others, hell if you look hard enough, you might even find one that gives head. :rock:

I know this is probably making your head hurt, but shopping carts are setup to make life simple and once you get into them and start setting them up, they really do make life a simple thing.

So that takes care of your web transactions, for the business side I'd have to agree with Roy. One thing nice with the better shopping carts, they have configurable reports (or data exports) that you can hand to an accountant for all the legal tax stuff.

 

[Texas Yellow Fever]

Ok fellas, i really never thought I would make it this far , but we have,

and with a rew of the pending hood sales, I have ran into a little trouble.

I need to be able to accept Credit Cards

Now doing research all day has my head splitting with pain, from what I can tell any of the online merchant accounts actually are just agents that you are working thru an actuall bank..

i guess my question is , i am hoping some of you guys have some information on this so that I dont make any mistakes.

but should I jsut go to my local bank and go thru them?

or is there an online source that would be better?

the one I have looked at closley is pro pay they seem to be reasonable, but I dont need the mistakes.

I have been using paypal and have had a few customers that paypal really gave a fit to , and honestly jsut accepting CC;s would probalby be a ton easier on me and ya'll.

so any help would be greatly appreciated

thanks ahead of time

Stinker,
I've tried 3-4 of these and to be honest, the best one I've found is with my local bank. At least I have some hope of getting an issue resolved. The bottom line is that, assuming you're like us and even if a given company could save you some money on a percentage basis, there's not enough volume to make a material difference, especially if they cause you any pain and gas at all. I get calls every day from different merchant banks and the savings they offer are not worth the hassle of changing or putting up with errors. Oh and keep in mind, the cheaper guys are also slower to settle up (which they deny, but it's a fact), which means you don't get your money as quickly, which can be problematic too...

 

[Prof]

Tony, Steve makes a very good point.

One of the great teachings in B School is that profits are just numbers on paper, but cash flow is the real critical difference between success and failure.

Steve has pointed out that issue resolution is important, and the small local organization is more likely to work with you, but the large national/global organizations could not care less about your cash flow issues.

 

[JTS VENOM PERFORMANCE]

Stinker,
I've tried 3-4 of these and to be honest, the best one I've found is with my local bank. At least I have some hope of getting an issue resolved. The bottom line is that, assuming you're like us and even if a given company could save you some money on a percentage basis, there's not enough volume to make a material difference, especially if they cause you any pain and gas at all. I get calls every day from different merchant banks and the savings they offer are not worth the hassle of changing or putting up with errors. Oh and keep in mind, the cheaper guys are also slower to settle up (which they deny, but it's a fact), which means you don't get your money as quickly, which can be problematic too...

Steve I do think you nailed it on the head bruddha, I am off to the bank

 

[eddie102870]

how bout just give us a credit line we are good for it

 

[JTS VENOM PERFORMANCE]

how bout just give us a credit line we are good for it

now where have I heard that?

 

[SPACEMONKEY1]

I like ccfeyh idea with configuring your online stuff to accept people who don't have paypal. We try to sell merchant services all the time to people, but the crap is a joke. There are so many fees that are associated with them it's stupid. Fees from the bank, the merchant services, the card companies. Like Steve said go to the bank and see if they offer something that's reasonable, otherwise stick with Paypal. Man if you lived down here I'd hook you up with a business account that would never charge you for anything. I think we might have some branches where you live.

 

[JTS VENOM PERFORMANCE]

I like ccfeyh idea with configuring your online stuff to accept people who don't have paypal. We try to sell merchant services all the time to people, but the crap is a joke. There are so many fees that are associated with them it's stupid. Fees from the bank, the merchant services, the card companies. Like Steve said go to the bank and see if they offer something that's reasonable, otherwise stick with Paypal. Man if you lived down here I'd hook you up with a business account that would never charge you for anything. I think we might have some branches where you live.

let me know bud, i live near charlotte nc, I went and talked with the bank but our town is so small its gonna be a couple days before the rep gets back with me, the bank manager didn know too many details

 

[FlyingLow]

I just think it is great that your business is doing so well. Nice!!!!!

 

[ccfeyh]

PayPal has a developer's server to test the configuration of your shopping cart and get everything else in Paypal configured to accept the CC payments. I used it when I setup the online registration for our car show and it really let me play with things until I had everything the way I wanted it.

By the time I was dome, the users could register for the show, order tee shirts, tickets to the awards banquet and even order raffle and 50/50 tickets, pay for everything on line through paypal and they were done.

It also assigned a control number for each person, so when we setup the goodie bags, we put their reg number on the bag, dropped in their tee shirts and everything else they ordered and when they got to the show, we got their numbered bag and handed it to them.

But the main thing was the paypal business account let us link our bank account to the paypal account and with the click of a button we could transfer funds from them to the bank. They have a very slick system setup for small and large businesses and you might want to take some time and look at what they have to offer.

 

[JTS VENOM PERFORMANCE]

PayPal has a developer's server to test the configuration of your shopping cart and get everything else in Paypal configured to accept the CC payments. I used it when I setup the online registration for our car show and it really let me play with things until I had everything the way I wanted it.

By the time I was dome, the users could register for the show, order tee shirts, tickets to the awards banquet and even order raffle and 50/50 tickets, pay for everything on line through paypal and they were done.

It also assigned a control number for each person, so when we setup the goodie bags, we put their reg number on the bag, dropped in their tee shirts and everything else they ordered and when they got to the show, we got their numbered bag and handed it to them.

But the main thing was the paypal business account let us link our bank account to the paypal account and with the click of a button we could transfer funds from them to the bank. They have a very slick system setup for small and large businesses and you might want to take some time and look at what they have to offer.

the paypal deal will stay on the site, it works fine, and trying to actually get the site to where you guys just have to stop in and get things there with inventory and all.
but ........once in awhile I do have some small probs with call in orders. so contacted the bank about that.

but checked with paypal and to do a virtual CC accepter they wanted $30 a month, and to me it jsut aint worht that.