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aumz

aumz

aumz

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Joined
6 Feb 2003
Posts
751
Location
Sutton
I am looking to start selling stuff online and accept payments from credit cards via paypal.

Is this safe or is there a better way, i read that paypal do not charge for this only via their fees which are 3.9%
 
3.4% + £0.20 per transaction - see here for more info :)

It depends on what you're selling as to what the best option is...for example Paypal, or a proper merchant account setup for which you'll need to talk to your bank.
 
a merchant account will be too expensive at the moment to setup
i do not expect to exceed £300 each month

i just want to make sure that there are no horror stories with paypal
 
I would also like to have as much as possible on my site and only going to the paypal site for payment.

Is there any PHP shops/carts that I can host on my site being linked to the paypal account.

I do not have any SSL certificates for my website.
 
"BUMP"

Also, id like to add.........

How important is SSL (for my online shop) when using paypal to deal with the money ?

Ta :)
 
Ry@n said:
"BUMP"

Also, id like to add.........

How important is SSL (for my online shop) when using paypal to deal with the money ?

Ta :)
Click to expand...

Not very important unless clients are transferring other sensitive data. Looks good though and for the sake of < £100...
 
There are some free open source shopping cart applications (osCommerce springs to mind), if you used software like this most of the shopping will be done on your site and you only need to transfer to paypal during the checkout process.

I am pretty sure this is already built into osCommerce.

Since you are not actually taking credit card details on your site you dont need to worry about SSL, when your customer leaves your store and connects to paypal to make payment it will be over as SSL connection.

You will probably want to sign up for a permier or business account with paypal, I think you can actually accept payment from customers who dont have paypal as well now (Its new to the UK).

There are no reasons why not to use paypal, only consideration is if you start doing high value transactions it would probably be cheaper getting your own merchant account.
 
Ok thanks for the information :)

I want to go ahead and get SSL certification.

I would appreciated it if you could recommend me a company that would sell me a SSL certifiacte.

Dont want to spend pennies, but dont want to spend loads :p

Thanks allot.
 
Why exactly do you need SSL?

I set up an online shop about a year ago using cubecart and paypal.
I am now just moving over to a bespoke website, a payment service provider and an internet merchant account from Barclays.

For getting your Business up and running I can definately recommend what I did.
 
To start with i will be using paypal to take payments and dealing with money.

But customers still create accounts on my site.

I feel for the sake of a few quid, surely its worth getting ?
Maybe im completely wrong, but thats just the way i see it.

Ryan :)
 
I never even looked into getting it but I suppose for a few quid it won't hurt.
I have customers create accounts with no problems though.

Take a look at cubecart, I looked at a few other carts and this was by far the simplest.
It's a great feeling when you've set it all up and your first order comes through.
Bear in mind that Paypal alerts the authorities when you have taken £4500 in I think 6 months but could be 12, something to do with money laundering.
 
chipperhead said:
Bear in mind that Paypal alerts the authorities when you have taken £4500 in I think 6 months but could be 12, something to do with money laundering.
Click to expand...
That's not a problem though...

And have you ever wondered how many people have been put off by lack of SSL in the ordering process, even if the actual credit cardy stuff is handled externally :)
 
>> a proper merchant account setup for which you'll need to talk to your bank

I wouldn't even consider that unless you've got about £100k in your sky rocket and looking at turning over thousands a month. and have some staff. the software alone costs a fortune
 
the_gof said:
>> a proper merchant account setup for which you'll need to talk to your bank

I wouldn't even consider that unless you've got about £100k in your sky rocket and looking at turning over thousands a month. and have some staff. the software alone costs a fortune
Click to expand...

It depends on the software. Ours was developed in house, we've also developed similar systems for clients - one of them a new startup.

Merchant account startup costs will be around the £500 mark and you'll make that back in no time in transaction fee savings alone over the likes of Worldpay and Paypal.
 
what comms did you use to speak to the acquirers? have the banks finally got round to allowing auth over tcp/ip?
 
the_gof said:
what comms did you use to speak to the acquirers? have the banks finally got round to allowing auth over tcp/ip?
Click to expand...

We use Protx to capture the card details which we send to them over HTTPS. Perhaps I misunderstood - if you're talking about interfacing your system directly with the banks then obviously there will be massive startup costs involved and, you're right, there is no need to do this unless your turnover warrants it. However, financially speaking, even as a new startup, you're far, far better off with a 'real' merchant account + 3rd party capturer than letting the likes of Worldpay handle everything, IMHO :).
 
Adz said:
We use Protx to capture the card details which we send to them over HTTPS. Perhaps I misunderstood - if you're talking about interfacing your system directly with the banks then obviously there will be massive startup costs involved and, you're right, there is no need to do this unless your turnover warrants it. However, financially speaking, even as a new startup, you're far, far better off with a 'real' merchant account + 3rd party capturer than letting the likes of Worldpay handle everything, IMHO :).
Click to expand...
Judging by his other posts, I think he's thinking of a whole different ball game :D
 
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