Worldpay?Streamline? Ouch its gonna cost a lot.

[Michael@PT]

ive just fininshed developing my site for to begin trading online. just going through the headache of trying to sort out credit card processing. Has anyone else found this such a headache???

I initially thought the best way is to go with Worldpay for everything PSP, merchant account etc but just read another thread that said its probably best to get the IMA first and just use Worldpay for PSP.

It was gonna cost a fortune to us worldpay for everything.

Does anyone think it works out cheaper to use another company like streamline for the IMA, and just use Worldpay for PSP???

Another question is do streamline allow new startups to use their services
??? WE ARE A NEW STARTUP.Some banks and other agencies require trading histories and such to get going. Of course how can an online business get a history when its so tricky just getting someone to process credit cards for them!!!

Think my brains gonna fry if i dont get it sorted soon!!!

Any help/advice would be great

[wjcampbe]

I looked at Worldpay and their costs ran at about GBP600 to set up.

Instead, I opened the Company account with RBS and then had my assigned account manager assist with the IMA/Streamline application. Quick and painless (apart from the pain of parting with the money [250 quid or so] - and that was direct debited about two months after we started trading).

So yes, Streamline will do business with startups.

I also had no problem getting accepted by Protx and setting them up using the small business GBP20 per month plan.

[chris ashdown]

I would suggest that you start with your own personal bank to start a business account. This means the bank has an idear of who and what you are trying to do and will help get a merchant account or whatever

After a year or so you may want to seperate the accounts to seperate banks

[Duncan Rounding]

For a while now Paypal have been processing c/card payments without customers having to have a Paypal account with them. They have a simple verification process (bank account, address and telephone details etc.), no setup costs and 4% charges.

You could try them initially until you have sufficient sales history. (Although of course you can only accept online c/card payments)

Duncan

[Michael@PT]

Thanks for the speedy responses.

Have spoken to Streamline and there charges for processing seem pretty good.

The only problem i have with PROTX is that there seems to be a lot of posts on this board regarding problems with downtime, doss attacks and other general niggles with protx.

If these messages arejust small overreaction or isolated incidents then fair enough PROTX are remarkable. There prices are great compared to Worldpay but these problem do concern me.

Worldpays costs are mamouth - there settlement period seems quite long(four weeks) but there brandname and other services seem very very good.

Its just taking me time to make that final leap and making that decision. When you pay huge set up fees its impossible to change your mind after the first month!!!!!

Despite the cost i think worldpay might get the business. I will have to try to renegotiate the settlement period to one that seems more reasonable.

When i spoke to Streamline earlier, i was hoping to use worldpay and streamline together, i was shocked at the combined charges between them. ABout £400 quid for worldpay and £250 for streamline!! I nearly died!!!!!

What does a new startup have to do just to get a break eh???

[bwalton]

Hi Michael

we negotiated our payment period down to 7 days after a 6 month period of trading.

Regards
Brian

[PA.com]

Hi Michael,

I use Paypal as my sole PSP provider for credit/debit card payments, and I think they provide a good option for startup businesses, at least until you start receiving hundreds of orders a week perhaps.

There are no startup costs at all, and no minimum monthly payments etc. You simply set up an account and then pay per transaction, which is automatically debited to Paypal. This transaction costs translate to approx. 40p for £5 sale; 60p for £10 sale; 90p for £20 sale etc. (UK prices obviously)

As drounding says, it's true that customers are not required to set up Paypal accounts in order to use the checkout, I think this used to be the case but no longer. The PSP also integrates pretty well with Actinic I've found, can't recall any problems with setting it up. You can also switch to another PSP at any time - no 12 month contract to sign up to etc.

Just in case you want to see Paypal in action as integrated with an Actinic store, you are welcome to use my site www.piano-accompaniments.com and abort the payment at the last minute. This might give you a flavour of how your customers would find the Paypal shopping experience!

[Spark]

Has anyone tried Velocity yet? They started offering the whole merchant service a few weeks back (got sent an e-mail). I've not set it up yet but am curious? Seems quite competitive and customer service from Velocity is good.

[SusanF]

Hi Michael,

The WorldPay route seems very expensive for a startup unless you have some big business backers behind you. As a completely new business startup myself, I have to say I've been really disappointed with the amount of orders I've received so far. If you look at other threads on this forum you'll see that others too are suffering from lack of customers at the moment. I tend to think that using capital to help get traffic to the site would be more productive. At the moment I'm using PayPal, simply because it doesn't have a monthly cost. However, once you reach a certain level of income - can't remember off-hand how much, it's not a huge amount, but I haven't reached it yet :-( - then Protx becomes a more attractive option and costs less. It might be better to leave WorldPay until you've tested the water for a few months.

Good luck,

[chris ashdown]

Susan

Nice site, clean and crisp, but mayne not most peoples first thought to go online to buy a card, so you have chosen quite a hard market at present but should get better with time

Have you thought about the company christmas card market, that could boost your sales, but i think you would have to show rates for say 10, 25, 50, 100 cards etc and give some idea of timescale

I would agree with you on advertising and go for a spell at adwords and overture to get the hits

[SusanF]

Thanks Chris,

It does seem that people don't tend to think about buying cards online - yet it's no fun standing in a shop with row upon row of cards staring back at you. Much more civilised to find the perfect card at your computer screen!

Now if ten of you were to try this tomorrow, it would break all records for my sales ... :-)

Take care,

[TraceyHand]

. At the moment I'm using PayPal, simply because it doesn't have a monthly cost. However, once you reach a certain level of income - can't remember off-hand how much, it's not a huge amount, but I haven't reached it yet :-( - then Protx becomes a more attractive option and costs less. ,

Little known fact (it seems!)
When you reach a £1500 a month turnover with Paypal for 2 (I think) consecutive months, the charges drop from approx 3.4% to 1.9%!

You only need to keep above a consistent £1k a month to retain this rate too..


Now *THAT* rivals many merchant accounts!
It's saved us a fortune for the 95% of Ebay customers who pay by Paypal!