Accepting card payments

Russinating · 9 Sep 2009 at 13:55

I'm looking for a service that allows the taking of card payments. I'm not interested in a chip and pin terminal or anything like that, just a system whereby you can enter a card's number, expiry date etc and charge an amount to it.

There seems plenty around, as well as all the banks, but I was wondering if anyone could personally recommend any?

VeNT · 9 Sep 2009 at 14:18

iirc paypal and google both have offerings for these.
don't expect any to be cheap/free.

Siliconslave · 9 Sep 2009 at 15:01

it sort of depends on your business and what your doing.

Google only allows payments from google accounts, not cards directly.

PayPal has Pro for online card payments and virtual terminal for phone orders.

Most of the other services require that you have a merchant account with an acquirer and will then handle the communication to that aquirer on your behalf. These tend to be much of a muchness; offering the same basic functionality with extras bolted on to suit your taste.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquirer)

McGray · 9 Sep 2009 at 15:29

Google Checkout is excellent.

Avalon · 9 Sep 2009 at 15:35

OK this is all pretty general as you don't include (m)any of the details needed in the OP to stipulate what you actually need and that makes it impossible to identify what's best for you.

For lower volumes of transactions i'd point you to Sage Pay as it's the new name for Protox, they will also refer you to a decent deal on a merchant account. If you have a recent version of sage you can integrate certain elements into it.

Other options exist and will give you better rates on transaction fee's (try your bank) but you'll find they are usually part of a larger upfront charge. WorldPay used to be a popular option for smaller outfits as well.

philjohn · 9 Sep 2009 at 15:37

McGray said:
Google Checkout is excellent.

depends if he's doing it himself or getting people to do it.

If you are entering card details yourself you'll need a payment terminal, SAGEPay do one where you connect to them and send the card details. You'll also get hit with PCI compliance if you do a lot of transactions. You'll also need a merchant account with that solution.

Siliconslave · 9 Sep 2009 at 15:48

McGray said:
Google Checkout is excellent.

GC is vaguely worth having along side other payment methods, but its value has been greatly diluted since they stopped giving you your fees back as free addwords and upped their fees.

There are only a very small proportion of online shoppers that use it and it no longer supports maestro so really the only thing its still got going for it is the very good chargeback protection.

Russinating · 9 Sep 2009 at 16:06

Ok so here's some more information so those that know what they're talking about can be more precise.

Basically, we never/rarely need to take card details (payment is always BACS/cheque/cash) and we can only take a maximum of four payments a month due to the work (wedding videography). The only reason I'm interested in being able to take card payments is because we're going to be at a wedding show next month, and while we'll want to take a deposit on the day not everyone will have their cheque book/enough cash.

All I'd be wanting to do would be to log their card details locally and charge them that evening when at home.