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[Northern Monkey]

All,

Am setting up a new site to sell products, have my databases working like clockwork but wouldn't mind hearing your views on the following:

1) What's the best way to process the payments (and cheapest)?I'd like it to be as professional as possible as this will be one of my main incomes. Let me know company names if poss.

2) I'm using php\mysql anyone know any good address checkers?

3) Anyone recommend any good basket\checkout tools or should I just get off my arse and write one??

Beer to the first to reply if you live in London!

Chris.

[Keith]

been researching for a project that may come to fruition later this year so can give a tentative answer to 1 & 3 more experianced people will be able to back me up or shoot it down in flames

1) World Pay

3) http://www.oscommerce.com/ (and its free)

[Northern Monkey]

Nice thanks Keith

[pricethat]

Oscommerce is free and is a great base to get started with, though like with everyone it does need some customisation to suit everyone.

Although it has its own design, you can integrate nearly any style so it looks indivudual with a bit of coding. Though dont think that simply setting up an osc store is enough to get customers to order from you, most succesful osc store owners have customised it so much so it doesnt even look like osc to get results.

Cubecart is a much simpler, quite sexy looking site, its a bit like a cut down mini version of oscommerce. Easy to use, yucky backend but i like it sometimes if i havent much patience.

As for payment thats a game, this is only advice, but with online merchant schemes they are very expensive transaction rates, up to 4.5% of the sale price, which is a lot.

personally i advise people just to get a pdq machine and manually punch in the numbers that people provide, that way you only deduct money when you send the goods. With online banking being the norm most customers can see when you have taken the money and are very impatient when it comes to waiting for goods, if you havent taken the money until its sent they are much more happy and generally it cuts down on a lot of customer service questions like "when will i get the order".

[Northern Monkey]

Cheers PriceThat, not thought of just getting the machine! Bloody good idea!

[ChrisM]

Originally posted by pricethat As for payment thats a game, this is only advice, but with online merchant schemes they are very expensive transaction rates, up to 4.5% of the sale price, which is a lot.

try www.protx.com - not used them but the prices are cheap and they were recommended to me by someone I used to work with.

Chris

[accelerator]

Just remember when you are comparing costs that with protx you also have to open a merchant account at a bank, and the bank may also apply a charge to each transaction, so it isn't as cheap as it seemed at first.

accelerator

[pricethat]

well of course you have to open a merchant account, you still have to open a merchant account of descriptions no matter what way you go.

Look at it in more detail though, there are a mirage of offerings but they all come down to money. I have one customer who uses a "guaranteed payment" scheme where he gets the money even if its a fraud if you use their checkout.

Half the time the transaction comes through as "transaction approved however outside our guaranteed payment scheme" which basically means that they have not had an order with this card before yet so they dont know 100% if they will get their money without any risk.

They charge £45.00 per month for this plus 4.3% per credit card, thats 4.3% of the total amount, not the pre vat price so if you work it out, its a lot more in terms of percentage of the net goods.

So all the extra money your paying is just like a stupid insurance scheme at over inflated prices. Use common sense when it comes to fraud, high orders for goods that are easily shifted are usually fraud.

We have a customer in a high fraud industry that has traded thousands of transactions with not a single fraud case because of just common sense, he pays just 1.9% on credit cards and 24p per transaction of debit cards which is ok, you can still get better but thats about the norm.

Add up all the money you spend with an online provider and you will quite clearly see that having your own pdq machine is much simpler and easier. If your really having problems because you havent the time to process all the transactions at a later date you can always switch or plug your pdq machine or merchant account into your website for more automation later ;-)