Website Question - Credit Cards

[James & Zelma Litzmann]

I use to be able to post here about this type thing . . .hope I still can?

I know some of you have websites and are very experienced at a lot of this, so Iwas wondering if anyone can give advice about how they accept Visa and/or MasterCards on their websites? I have checked with my bank and Intuit, seems like they want a lot . . . HELP! Anyone know of a company that is reasonable?

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[Tim Bateson]

There are several good threads here on this subject.
I personally try to avoid them but on the few occasions that I do accept, I use PayPal to process the cards. I have the usual PayPal fees, but that's pennies and no Credit Card processing fees.

[Martin Boekers]

I have friends that use this, they seem happy, plus they can use it anywhere they get data to their phone.
Not sure if you can manually do it or not.

https://squareup.com/

[Mike Null]

I'm switching to Square before long. It's just cheaper. Way cheaper.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Paypal and Google Checkout are two of the easiest options. For the basic account, neither have a monthly fee and their processing fees are .30 + 2.9%.

[Mike Troncalli]

James,

Assuming that you want your customer to make a purchase on your website, then pay via credit card is usually going to require more than just accepting the cards. First you will need to setup a "store" on your website, once you do that then you will either need to setup paypal, google pay or sign up for a credit card processing company and then have your site link to them. Your easiest solution if this is just going to be a once in a while thing would be to have your customer call you direct then you can as everyone above suggested have them give you their card # over the phone and process it using a service like square or google pay. (which has no monthly fees and low processing fees) or you can set up a paypal account and just send a money request to them.

[Joe Pelonio]

When I had a storefront and website I was able to add the HTML to accept credit card payments on my website,
but didn't use it much. It not only cost money but my computer and IP had to pass some extensive security tests.

After moving to the house I had a link to PayPal but still most of my customers (regulars) always paid by company check, one-off personalizing type jobs cash. I have never offered specific items for sale though, everything I have ever done is custom. If you are offering stock items it's probably worth paying for a full shopping cart system.

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

This is one of those things where there are a gazillion different options to choose from, yet no simple solution. If you are just setting up a web site, you will have more flexibility to chose some web site/shopping cart packages and build your site to fit your needs. You can select a paid shopping cart such as Magento or you can go free such as OSCommerce or Opencart. They all do similar things, but some have more programming involved if you give your customer the option to select a size or personalizing.

If you already have a web site and shopping cart, you may have outdated technology that doesn't play nice with PayPal or Merchant Accounts. Depending upon where the web site is hosted, it may not be able to accommodate the technology you want. Some of the free web sites that allow you to design your own site will not allow you to insert HTML code... All you can do is add text and photos.

PayPal has some simple "buy now" buttons you can add to your web site and create a simple shopping cart. It's been years since I looked at sites with those buttons, but I always found them to look unprofessional. Hopefully they have improved upon that by now!

Many credit card merchants over the internet will charge a transaction fee + a credit card processing fee every time someone makes a purchase via your web site. In addition, they will charge a monthly fee whether you received customer orders via the web or not. The basic PayPal does not charge a monthly fee and you can integrate it into your shopping cart to provide a seamless transaction with your customer.

The major hurdle will be deciding what type of web site/shopping cart and/or credit card processing system will work best for the business you provide.... and determining if you can manage building it yourself or hire someone that can do it for you.

[Bill Cunningham]

Paypal also offers a invoice system where you email a paypal invoice to your customer, and they click the link in the e-invoice and the rest of the transaction goes through paypal.. I thought about using this system, but when I signed up for paypal, within 30 minutes I had at least 6 emails from scammers trying to phish my account info.. I found myself studying every email from (maybe) them to find out if it was a scammer or not. I have enough to do without dodging scammers that are obviously flagging anything going to/from paypal enroute. So I have never used them, I just don't need the extra level of stress..

[Chris Edens]

I use merchant wharehouse for both of my ecom sites. Their fees are much less than Paypal. I have to say unless you are going to be selling quite a lot on your site using anything other than Paypal might be overkill. If you set up a credit card processor on your site you will probably pay around 10.00 a month flat fee plus what ever credit card fees. You will also need to get an SSL certificate from your domain provider. Those are about $100 per year.

[James & Zelma Litzmann]

New website just being put together. I think maybe I like the idea of using paypal (already have a paypal account), maybe putting a notice if you need to use visa or mastercard you can call and we can run the card from the shop. Just not sure how I would feel about having to call to place an order while trying to place it on line.

[Greg Portland]

+1 to Square. Paypal plays -far- too many games for my liking (money isn't yours until 90 days after purchase, random purchases get "frozen", etc.).