Card Payments - Which Provider to Choose

[Horsepoo]

Morning All!!!

Excuse my numptiness.

My little shop has been online now for just over two months, in month one i received two orders. In the last week i have received 6.

I currently only use paypal (or invoice on order for my buddies) to accept payment and twice this week ive been asked if i take cards. Which i dont due to the set up fee of £350 from Lloyds.

Does anyone know of a good 'pay-as-you-go' or free trial period card acceptance scheme. Im wondering if the fact i dont take cards is hindering my sales?

Im thinking if i can use a pay as you go facility or a free trial i can see if its worth setting up a 'propoer' account with my bank.

It might not be possible - but if you dont ask - you dont get.

Is world pay similar to paypal? in that you have to have an account?

I might add that in the meantime.

Also - i run a mobile tack shop so im always out at shows and i have to take cheques and cash - so my 'bigger plan' is to have a chip and pin machine - but i know i have to pay for those.

[guccij]

Hi

Many shops operate with PayPal very successfully. I suspect it's not just that which lies behind your poor sales.

First off, I would never buy from an online shop which only offered a mobile phone number and an email address as the contact points. It really isn't good enough.

Secondly, there is no explanation of shipping charges until you reach the checkout phase. People want this up front. Your charges are reasonable - why not trumpet them?

Thirdly, I'm sorry but the name doesn't do anything for me. I'm sure it's very important to you but the connotations for me are just dreadful.

Apart from that, it's a nice site, looks professional, clean and bright.

[pinbrook]

Worldpay will procss cards for you without the need for a mmerchant acct, so you could investigate them.

On the whole though i agree with Guccij, there are other factors to be adressed on the site before apportioning blame to the payment method. Paypal is a household name now so shouldnt be an issue.

[leehack]

Are you monitoring visits to the site? If you've had 100 visitors in the month, 2 sales is excellent. I quite like the name, it made me think WTF does this sell. I think you should have gone the full hog though and called it horseshit instead (yes that's horses-hit hyphenated ).

[Mark H]

There's a typo in the email address on the front page which doesn't help

[Mike Hughes]

I currently only use paypal (or invoice on order for my buddies) to accept payment and twice this week ive been asked if i take cards. Which i dont due to the set up fee of £350 from Lloyds.

If you have a business account with paypal you can accept card payments via that.

Mike

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

NoChex offer card processing without the need for a merchant account, with processing rates of around 2.9% for both debit and credit cards.
I started with NoChex but moved onto Actinic Payments when more established.

[Horsepoo]

excellent feedback - thank you!

Us horsey people like the name - i thought it would stand out and it always gets a giggle. i think it quite memorable.

I did look at changing it - but its hard to find another memorable 'horsey' name. willing to change it if you can think of something that isnt taken.

Ive given no chex a look - just got to call them now to activate my account. Dont mind the charges. and like others - i need to wait until im more established to set up my own merchant account with the bank.

So im sorry you dont like my name - but hopefully you arent my target market

Love to all

HORSEPOO!!!!!

[markburley]

You may find that NoChex will hold back an amount on your account for chargebacks, they only release this several months after you close the account. Apart from this we also used them in the early days and found their support excellent.

Mark
http://www.modelrailwaysdirect.co.uk

[Horsepoo]

yes this is true - ive set my limit to £225, which i can afford to 'hide'.

it seems fairly stright forward though, just cant decide wether to have seller or merchant. not massively sure on the difference....

waiting for a resonse from them......

[Sean Williams]

Mostly, I agree with Jules.
I would never purchase from a business (apparently) run from a cell phone. A landline gives the impression of permanency.
If your budget doesn't stretch to a separate business line, provide your home number and set up a forward to the cell.

When we started, the cost of an additional business line was considered horrendous, but we bit the bullet within weeks and paid it anyway as the ability to separate business from domestic spared our sanity - people will even ring on Christmas Day!
These days I think even BT do a basic line for about a tenner a month.

I see your contact address is there, but buried in the T&C's - I'd add an About Us button on the nav bar and give all your business details under there; that's what it's for - to give the customer confidence in the company they're dealing with.

On your home page there are at least a couple of speling misteaks - always bad form.

Also, I would remove the mention of Nochex and cards - it's really taken as a given that an ecommerce site will accept cards these days; mentioning it can give the impression you're a tiny fledgling business. A lot of customers would be put off by that.

I think it's always good to give the impression of a Swan - a good, solid established business gliding along shipping piles of products all over the place, even though you may be paddling away nineteen to the dozen behind the scenes

Edit: Forgot to mention, I love the name, but I'm undecided whether or not it's good for business, but then I'm not a horsey type so not a good judge.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

Another option instead of another telephone line would be to use a VOIP service like Sipgate which is totally free and gives you a local telephone number, you would just need to lay out for one or two handsets.

[Sean Williams]

An even better idea! I wasn't aware of Sipgate.
Provided you have broadband of course; wouldn't be any use for us poor broken disenfranchised so-and-so's in Not-Spots
Without wishing to go on (and off topic) about this yet again, I notice they now have broadband in East Africa, but not east Carmarthenshire!

[acompton]

I'm probably late into the fray here, but I'll add my ha'pence worth.

If you want to look into online payments, register with http://www.electronic-payments.co.uk/ and you get a lot of comparison info on the various Payment Service Providers.

Even if you want a Chip&Pin machine, it will need a separate merchant account to you online account.

As for traffic: do you advertise? Unless your site had great natural search engine performance, traffic does not arrive by itself.

I started riding about a year ago and I think the name is great and would go down well with the target market. Its easy to spell and a lot less stuffy that many online equestrian shops. When you spend time around horses, pee and poo become part of your life.

There is a consideration that for search engine performance, your web address should reflect the market area you are in - preferably containing your major key words. However, this does result in boring, un-memorable shop names.

A few comments on the site:
1. the splash page really needs to go. It's unecessary and looks amateur.
2. The index page has a Javascript error
3. Some of the manufacturers' logos in the right-hand column have been badly re-sized and look messy.
4. I've visited a few equestrian sites in the last year, and I feel a nice 'real-horse' piccy in the header goes a long way towards looking professional.

(Note to forum regulars: horsepoo is a Peblaco site)

[Horsepoo]

Hi - no never too late !!!!

I am thankful for the feedback and have made a few tweeks.

I have lots of local advertising and have a good mailling list from the original website, but i am struggling with getting up on search engines.....

being a mainly internet based retailer, this is obviously key.

Anyhoo - thanks to all of you who have made me think i have a new order coming through - just to find out it was another helpful soul putting through a test order!! it works, so can you please stop now!

I got all excited for no reason

So - now to fix the search engine bits!