How are you handling the credit card orders? I do not have a merchant account for my business, it has only come up twice in the last 3 years.

I am now the proud owner of a few domain names. I have learned some "neat" stuff about hosting websites. Everything seems to be falling into place, except the credit card stuff.

I've recently set up a verified acct. with PayPal & can now accept visa or mc via my email address thru PayPal. Just make sure you enroll as a Premier or Business acct.. But whomever pays you must also have a PayPal acct.. They also have an area for shops without websites.

I have a paypal account for use with my site, but this winter I am going to set aside a year's worth of merchant account fees and go that route.

Paypal is nice and convenient, but I talk to alot of my site's visitors on the phone (well, the ones that bother to call at least, from an average of 300 visitors per day) and they have no clue about the service.. and they sound a little nervous when I start talking about PayPal..

The guys that know about PayPal and actually use it are all over it like white on rice.

There used to be limits on the dollar amounts that buyers could do per month. I think the figure was $500, and it didnt matter if they were a new buyer or had been a member for years.

Looks like they've now got all kinds of different time frames and such.. which if you are selling signs as opposed to read-to-apply vinyl, could hurt your sales because the whole deal with selling on the net is to catch the impulse buys.. if there's a 60 day wait period for a new customer to buy a $1200 sign from you, they're likely to go elsewhere.

Again, however, these changes are great and they favor the sellers.. a definite step in the right direction..

Spend the money for the merchant account. Money is depostied straight to your Checking account within 2 - 5 days depending on the company you go with.

Paypal takes a week or more to get your money, then its in the form of a check, then you gotta go deposit it ( that is if you don't go the direct deposit route, which I had a very bad experance with).

If your only planing on sellin 1 or 2 thing via the net, then your going to be ok using a paypal service, if your planing on more such as sticker pimp has, then the merchant account is the way to go.

Almost forgot, if you call an actual merchant place, be careful. They're like leaches. Had 1 guy call me, told him I was interested in accepting cards, to MAIL me the info, I'd review it and get back to him. He refused to mail it to me, said they either fax it or they'll overnight it once I sign up. Told him in that case to quit calling me. He kept calling me every day. Kept telling him the same thing, to MAIL me the info. I finally had to start using the F word as every other word to get him to hang up on me. He hasn't called back yet.

[ October 20, 2001: Message edited by: Kissymatina ]

I use PayPal to buy and sell on EBay and have no complaints with it.

At Anchorblanks we are set up with E-Paynow. If you manage your own website, they set you up with a "Buy it Now" button that takes the buyer into E-Paynow's secure website where the transaction takes place, and we get an email confirming the transaction. We don't even see the credit card number, just the usual basic client information.

In our case, they host our site, so the payment module looks like an integral part of our site, even though it is not.

We still get people who fax us credit card numbers because they do not trust the internet.
That's ok too.

E-Paynow will also provide card readers and printers for your retail location for a fee.

You can go into our site www.anchorblanks.com , and go thru the motions of ordering something to see how it works. There is plenty of warning before you actually buy anything so don't worry about getting snookered.

A few hints:

1) the "discount rate" (i.e., 1.59%) is important, but only if you do a high volume in CC sales. What is more important when you are small is all the 'nickel & dime' fees they charge.

2) Buy your terminal, don't lease. Here's a good place to look at what's available and at a good price.

Bargain Terminals

3)Visa & MC are a necessity, but also don't forget Discover / Novus and American Express. I get a few charges every month off both of these.

4)Most merchant accounts have you sign a contract. Negotiate the term, if you don't like the 5 years that they like. To get out of a contract you don't like, you can switch banks, or open a different account.

If you decide to go ahead with it, be sure you get a traditional merchant account and not an "internet only" account.

The "internet only" accounts are great for online purchases, and while most of them do have a way for you to key-in numbers for sales in your store location, they can be tricky if your internet connection or computer flakes out while the customer is waiting on you. One of my local customers has a new retail shop and he has an internet only account because he started his business online and it was included with his site hosting. I was at his shop one day just to check out the new digs, and he was fussin at the computer with a credit card in hand and a customer waiting at the counter. Ultimately he had to tell the guy to come back later cause the connection/website just wasn't cooperating... but who knows where his CC info ended up going..

Traditional accounts will allow you to conduct both local sales (if you advertise it, you'll get them) and online sales, but you'll need to key in the numbers on your terminal.. no big deal. You can setup a secure form on your site where customers can enter CC info without worry.

Make friends with tellers at the local banks, they often bring home old credit card terminals when the bank upgrades (even the electronic swipe units) and might give one to you. =)

Otherwise, the average rates I have seen in my quest for plastic acceptance are 2.5% of the transaction plus 20-30 cents, plus $30/month for the merchant account/service, plus $30/month for terminal rental OR $600 for outright purchase of CC terminal software for your computer.