4 Sites / 1 PSP /1 Merchant account

[AndyBorrett]

We are struggling to get our heads round how to do this and suspect there may be an obvious answer that we are not seeing.

We currently run www.seriouslysilver.co.uk and take payments for processing offline using SSL. Following a previous post we have decided that a PSP is the way to go taking into account PCI complience.

We are in the process of writing 3 additional sites so we will have 4 in total.

1) Do we have 4 seperate sites that all share the same PSP and merchant account. Talking to our current merchant account provider they want to charge us 4 lots of £20 a month so this is not a go'er.

2) Do we have one site with 4 folders underneath, one for each of the websites, with the domain names pointing to each folder and a shared shopping basket.

3) How does everyone else do it? I notice Chris Ashdown has something similar to what we are hoping to achieve.

Confused of Wigan

[pinbrook]

Chris has already told you how he has acheived this

http://community.actinic.com/showpos...62&postcount=6

you need to speak to the people who are providing the merchant acct and the PSP to hear how they classify your sites.

If they are deemed similar then you can get away with one acct. Protx and WP both allow multiple shops feeding one acct and one bank acct, but it is a case of individual negotiation.

Do we have one site with 4 folders underneath, one for each of the websites, with the domain names pointing to each folder and a shared shopping basket.

this is not acheivable within actinic so is a non starter for that reason.

this thread started by you also answers the questions http://community.actinic.com/showthr...862#post235862

[AndyBorrett]

Thanks for that Pinbrook. We have had an awful lot of conflicting advice from Elavon, Actinic and all the other PSPs we have spoke to.
One company claims to work with another while the other company says they don't. We were probably asking the wrong questions at some point along the line but didn't want to end up paying too much just because we didn't know what we were doing.

[pinbrook]

there is alot of conflicting info about, thats really why i suggested dealing with each provider in the chain individually. What one person will negotiate for their own circumstance doesn't necessarily mean that another business can expect the same deal.

You have to be very careful when negotiating with psps. My own experience has lead me up several garden paths, i have had WP allow multiple similar sites under one account, where for the same scenario protx demanded 5 separate accts. I have also had HSBC agree to 5 shops under one umbrella until the very last minute when they turned the tables. These examples are all for discrete sites with similar product ranges.

In general the best route seems to be Streamline for merchant acct (as a member of FSB - this is what chris A recommended) then choose a psp.

Protx and WP seem the most ameniable to multiples under one acct.
Paypal is another option.

[Darren B]

Use Protx, single account, 4 seperate sites with 4 seperate baskets.

job done

[AndyBorrett]

We think we have now made our minds up (subject to change of course)
After speaking to Chris (thanks for the invaluable advice Chris) we are going to join the FSB (can't join on a Friday afternoon as they finish at 2) and switch merchant accounts from Evalon to Streamline and use Protx as our PSP who says we can have all 4 sites pointing to the same basket for £20 a month.
I will post back when we have it sorted for searchers.

[Sean Williams]

We have three (soon to be five) active sites.
We use a single account with our PSP Secure Hosting, which is in our company name, which in turn feeds our single merchant account with Cardnet, also under our company name.
The fact there are several sites is transparent to Cardnet as everything is funnelled down the one Secure Hosting tube.

More work involved if you want to be able track every single payment and attribute it to a particluar website, but it works for us.

What I would like is to be able to have a different Secure Hosting transaction page for each site - I have a feeling this has been mentioned here before and the general opinion on whether it was possible was yes, maybe and no

[Darren B]

Glad you have made a non-firm firm decision, lots use this method, me included, it works for umbrella companies, can be very good for seo if you set it up to sell complementing products with links to each site.

the best thing is you have decied to not to use an ssl for credit card details, there is still some debate as to wether an ssl should be used for the customer address on your site.

D

[djferros]

when I signed up to AP I was told this was possible, hence I went through this whole palaver of signing up and getting AP working on my primary site, which was not easy and time consuming.

however, 2 weeks after emailing Actinic to see where my new terminal i.d was for my 2nd website they give me a call to tell me they are not able to do this
________
Kentucky truck assembly

[Darren B]

I dont use AP, but is this not the same as the title of the thread, which means you use exactly the same details for all sites, not a seperate set of details. The method mentioned here all go's into one account under one merchant account.

or have i miss understood what you are saying

[djferros]

Darren, actinic said they were doing the rounds to inform customers that this will not be possible with them, as orginally they stated that all you had to do was to pay ?10 extra (1-off) for a new terminal i.d for each website you had.

I don't really know too much about this stuff, but my understanding is that if you just use the same details for each website your Internet merchant account provider e.g. streamline will contact you immediately to let you know that this is not possible. This is what i've been told. I suppose if they don't, your quids in.
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[Darren B]

I am not sure how streamline would ever know, the only way of knowing is if the url from the site your being bounced from has to be registered with actinic / credit call and then streamline is notified, and at the end of the day its about making money for them, thats why we are all in business is it not.

If you are merely processing cards online using AP and the single account and all the money go's into a single account and you use a single merchant account then i am confused as to why this does not work, unless AP and credit call are making it URL specific, if so then this is a failing on their part to generate more revenue.

Perhaps a little clarification from actinic on this part is required

I notice you mention terminal ID - i am guessing this is a unique id AP issue you, and if so this is the stumbling block, but why cant you use the same id on all sites

[AndyBorrett]

Just an update on how things are going...

We contacted the FSB and they sent a rep round to sign us up. While he was with us he phoned Streamline and we set everything up. The Streamline person looked at our current live site www.seriouslysilver.co.uk and said we needed to have the other 3 sites up and running in 3 days. All setup charges are free with reduced charges for the payments themselves although we do need to pay to join the FSB.

Will report back as and when we have everything up and running

[Duncan Rounding]

Streamline .....said we needed to have the other 3 sites up and running in 3 days....

Why the time constraint I wonder?

[AndyBorrett]

It is to do with the Streamline head office wanting to check each site to make sure it fits their criteria - ie, not selling dodgy stuff or linking to dodgy sites.