Processing card payments taken online, offline...

[pinbrook]

This is very interesting.....

There seems to be a wide range of opinions here, thus we should also assume that there will be a similar range of opinions from buyers.

To me these are the salient points

A site that uses its own SSL cert could either be very big thus doing all is processing inhouse, or very small, ie potentially downloading CC detail onto an insecure PC. An SSL cert can be purchased for as little as £50.

A site that uses a PSP can aso be very big (sainsbury's use worldpay) or very small. A site that uses a PSP (especially WP and soon Paypal) could be using it because they don't have a merchant acct. (Protx, secpay require a separate merchant acct). Sites that use a PSP do not see the CC detail as it is not forwarded to shopowners.

Sadly, your average shopper does not know the above info.

Savvy internet shoppers will, most developers in this community are savvy buyers who also adopt extra checks before parting with cc info.

Personally I don't buy from a site I perceive to be small as I don't want my CC downloaded to an insecure PC. I will buy from a site I perceive to be small if they use a PSP. Others have said they will buy from a small store if they accept Paypal as this offers the same level of security ie the shopowner does not get your CC detail.

Thus its horses for courses, each business owner has their own preconceptions, and must decide on their method of collecting payment accordingly

[russell king]

Thus its horses for courses, each business owner has their own preconceptions, and must decide on their method of collecting payment accordingly

Jo

You have hit the nail on the head I think - both shop owners and internet shoppers will have their own opinions on online payments, and we'll never be able to please everyone.

One thing that has become clear to me from this thread however is that I'm probably not as badly off as I thought I was by using PayPal. Infact I may actually drop my PSP and merchant account and use PayPal to take both payments via credit cards and PayPal accounts. I was wanting to use PayPal Pro, which keeps the user on your site, but as mentioned by Bill and Malcom, this may actually work against me, with customers feeling more assured when they are redirected to PayPal servers to enter payments.

As you say Jo, PayPal is a big established name, and is familiar to eBay users (and there's millions of them), so better the devil you know eh....

Merry xmas all

[demonlooper]

If you don't get the virtal terminal in paypal basic, whats to stop you capturing the CC details and all the info you need on your checkout page (with SSL of course) and just going to paypal and processing the payment yourself using the customers details?

You could then have 2 payment options
1) Credit card - customer stays on your secure site and gives details, looks professional and isn't put off by paypal / smapping sites to pay (you then process these yourself through paypal as if you were the customer)
2) Paypal - for those who like paypal, just directs them to paypal to complete the purchase?

Surely the Virtual Terminal is just the paypal payment page in fancy clothes or am I missing something?

I've taken phone orders before and when the customer gave me their card details on the phone I was online punching them into paypal as if I was the customer.

I can then give instant confirmation too, as the payment is confirmed in front of me.

[leehack]

To me on this subject, retailers make decisions on what they believe to be true and this often has no real bearing on what the customer thinks. When paying for things online first started, there was great concern parting with sensitive details and those of us who took part in these first transactions were quickly taught that a little gold padlock and "https" on show was ok to trust.

Years on from those days and these 2 facts still prevail for a huge percentage of people. A large majority of people don't even understand what a PSP is and its pretty clear they don't give a monkeys either. The general consensus is that if something dodgy happens with your credit card details that you are covered anyway, so why worry.

There is a miniscule amount of people (who purchase items online) who haven't heard of Paypal. Because of this, it is the biggest and undoubtedly the most trusted payment method in the world. Just like with Coca Cola, the whole world knows the brand. It only has negative vibes because of the ebay link, however ebay has been one of the biggest success stories any of us will witness in our lives. If you sell something on ebay and don't offer Paypal, you are now considered a pain in the arse and that will undoubtedly affect your sales.

Now when you go to a site and there is only Paypal payments available, it can look a little "business on a kitchen table", however so does your local computer shop in relation to PC World, but it is often still used.

I have read so many articles with regards to processing payments and they all contradict each other in some way and this is due to them being written by the people whose opinion does not matter. If there was a forum for online buyers to write their feelings, some reliable evidence may be gained, without that it's all about opinions and as such is pretty worthless really.

I have often found that site owners are more interested in their payment methods than they are in providing clear contact details and concise terms and conditions.

I always love the "we implemented SSL on our site and sales were up by 15%, well worth the investment". Firstly, did you take the SSL back off to ensure this upturn in sales was not just one of those things? The extra business is as likely to be due to your site being mentioned in a busy forum as it is to do with the SSL.

So many subjects like this have so many opinions and often so different from each other. Whatever you do, just make sure the customer has a choice. When selling items online, let customers pay with debit card, credit card, cheque, cash on collection, Paypal, direct bank transfer or anything else that is feasible. If you stick to one rigid method, then there will always be some that do not like it. Give them all of the feasible options and let them decide, will always yield more contented customers IMO.

[kessock]

Paypal

Hi all,

I was running payment with order and Paypal on my site and found my sales rate less than acceptable for the number of hits.
Since getting a SSL and capturing details for download sales have more than quadrupled, I would not want to remove this and go back to the old way to see if this was the reason as sales are good and peoples feedback is simply "we do not like or buy from shop only offering paypal" (most when questioned anyway).
I am a believer of the proof is in the pudding, and the results speak for themselves.
Good debate though.
Mark.

[russell king]

If you don't get the virtal terminal in paypal basic, whats to stop you capturing the CC details and all the info you need on your checkout page (with SSL of course) and just going to paypal and processing the payment yourself using the customers details?

Surely the Virtual Terminal is just the paypal payment page in fancy clothes or am I missing something?

I did try that but it isn't a reliable method. Basically if you take someones card details and try to put them through PayPal (ie basically submit the order yourself using their card details) then if the customers card is already registered with PayPal (often the case) then it asks you to log in and won't allow you to pay with that card.
I guess thats why I'll need the virtual terminal....

[demonlooper]

Is there a way on Actinic to capture CC details then? Assuming you have SSL on that page/form?

I've not seen it so would you have to make an HTML form yourself and use that?

[wjcampbe]

Checkout Page 3.


You need to add the payment option Credit Card details captured... to see this page being used on your site, and it is normally expected that you will have a site specific SSL certificate or ACtinic Shared SSL enabled for the checkout pages only when you use this.