"Suggestions for webshop hosts and card payment services" Topic

I'm in the UK and opening the webshop soon. I'm looking for some advice on webshop hosts and payment services.

Webshop – I need a shopping cart system that does not require pre-registration and is very user friendly. I don't like the ones that fail to take you back to where you were after putting an item in the cart.

Payment services – I don't want to use paypal and worldpay is very expensive. Comparison is very difficult to make so does anyone have particularly good feedback. Top of the list currently is cardnet.

I would have recommended PayPal but you have excluded that option. So no idea.

I just find paypal charge too much. Having used VVV on many occasions I'm aware that you use paypal. How did you make your choice?

I took a look at the options:

PayPal because I found the rate acceptable. Might be slightly higher percentage but only charged when customer places order. For us I think the rate is 3.5% + 30p per transaction.

Deal with credit cards: Required a set-up fee, I think a monthly charge and of course a percentage.

Merchant services: Nothing really against them, except that monies are paid about a month later than when customer places order. With PayPal there is nothing between you and the customer, when they pay for the order, you get the money.

There is also the convenience of Paypal for a lot of customers who use it for their hobby spend – they sell stuff on ebay and then use the paypal money to buy more things…

I only use Paypal at the moment in my shop, I need to add Worldpay but haven'y had time.

Taking Credit Cards is expensive, but you factor that into your prices.

Mike

I don't buy from online stores that don't take Paypal, same with Ebay sellers. In my experience people who don't like Paypal usually have something to hide.
I don't like giving my card details to online stores too often, especially new ones or ones in a volatile business who may be gone tomorrow, you are in both camps here I'm afraid.

I'm right with you on your decisions about the shopping cart, good luck finding one :)

Keeping mouse clicks to a minimum is a good way to keep customers and if you have a picture that says 'click to enlarge' please make sure it actually links to a bigger picture and not one the same size (or smaller).

I take Paypal but as a seller I don't like it. In essence, if your customer challenges the payment you're pretty much out of luck unless you sent it and required an actual signature for delivery AND the signature is of the customer (and not their mother/sibling/secretary). Be sure to read their agreements carefully when considering…

WorldPay actually worked out as cheaper than options from HSBC or Barclays for me. It's still not cheap, and in fact for any credit card transaction over about GBP15.00 PayPal is cheaper. Debit cards are a different matter as they cost a fixed fee per transaction via Worldpay (and I'd much rather everyone paid me with debit cards!). Customer service and response from WorldPay has been good in my experience.

You can reduce the cost of WorldPay if you get the BankDirect (rather than a WorldDirect) service, but you need an internet merchant number from your own bank. I have yet to discover how much my bank will charge for this and whether it actually saves money.

Classic PayPal is convenient for many buyers and costs nothing to set up to take credit cards. The downside is that it is near impossible to talk to anyone in customer services. PayPal Pro offers more functionality but costs. Personally, if you want a low cost option, Classic Paypal is the way to go. A healthy chunk of my sales comes from PayPal transactions.

As for carts, Fighting 15s uses a hosted solution from ekmpowershop.com . It can be set up so that a customer does not have to register. You can play with a working demo online, changing templates, fonts, pictures and so on. It does cost, however, running at around GBP25.00 per month. But then it requires almost no tech knowledge to set up a shop, and it integrates with a number of popular payment systems (not cardnet, though).

For me ekmpowershop was a great step up from a hand-coded site with PayPal payment buttons, plus I could access it anywhere from, importantly for me, a Mac. At the time, however, there weren't the number of free, browser operated shops that now exist.

In short, running an internet shop that takes real-world payment solutions costs! (Exceptions apply to here to anyone who can code their own.)

Ian

Should also mention that with PayPal you can also take payments in a variety of currencies. We currently run US dollars, Euros and Pounds.

I think some customers like to buy in their 'home' currency as a comfort factor.

Thanks for your advice.