Confused about e-commerce!

Vicky R · Mar 28, 2006

A heartfelt plea for clarity. Every time I think I am just about getting to grips with all the options for e-commerce, I lose my thread and get all bemuddlefused! :cry: I have read all the stickies on here, but still don't think I understand.

I know I can get free shopping carts that are compatible with WorldPay and relatively easy to set up and get going, but the problem with that for me is the fees charged by WorldPay would be quite a big hit for me as I will be selling small items at low cost so unless people buy lots of goodies, it will be a big dent in my profit. My understanding is that these sites take the customer away from your own site for cart / payment.

So I think there's another option of something like Protx, which seems to have lower fees / costs but then I think I need my own merchant account. Do I need to get this from my business bank? Is there a cost involved in this? I can't seem to find the information anywhere on the web but I think that's because I don't know what I am looking for. My understanding is that with the right cart software this will keep the customer within your own site, but probably not with free cart options.

I have also read about carts that use PHP and mySQL. I don't understand enough about these to know if a cart option like this is a good idea for someone lo-tech as do you need to be technically skilled to maintain / manage the database once it's up and running? And

I am trying to work out the best solution for me so that my profits aren't completely diminished with each transaction. But as you can probably tell, I am utterly confused! I don't have much money to spend but likewise don't want something amateur-looking so will try and find the money needed to get a decent e-commerce solution if I need to.

I am of low technical know-how, so if you can help me, please speak slowly ;-)

Vicky

Ravenfire · Mar 28, 2006

Hi Vicky

What about paypal, as you can now pay by credit card through paypal if you dont have a paypal account.

I was under the impression that most of the shopping carts were PHP based and therefore you would need some knowledge of PHP and MySQL. Have you had any quotes from web designers on costs for them to set it up for you, or is this not an option?

Toni

Vicky R · Mar 28, 2006

Hi Toni

Thanks for your speedy reply.

I had considered Pay Pal but have a little thing in my head that it doesn't look very professional (not sure where that has come from so may not be fair).

That said, they did feature on Watchdog this evening being criticised so I am more cautious now!

I have not had any quotes from web designers as I was trying to do this on a very minimal budget (have built my website myself). But I will have to find the money from somewhere if that's what it takes to get a professional e-commerce site

Oh my head hurts :shock:

Astaroth · Mar 28, 2006

OK....

Shopping carts are server side scripts that may or may not intergrate with a database of products. PHP and MySQL is a common way of doing it these days but plenty of CGI and ASP/ JSP/ ASP.NET exist as well.

Packages that you get off the shelf use one of these but have the advantage of simple administration pages prewritten so that once it is setup people with little/ no technical knowledge can administer the site.

To do an online store you need 3 parts, a shopping cart system, payment gateway and merchent account (though the last one is more optional).

The likes of paypal and nochex remove the need for you to have a merchent account as they allow you to "use" theirs in exchange for higher pretransaction fees.

The likes of worldpay offer a range of services from rolling up the gateway and merchant account in one and using the gateway on their own site to a full intergration into your site. Generally these will have lower percentage per payment but have setup fees/ monthly charges

Final option (which worldpay also do if memory serves me correct) is to set up your own merchent account with a bank of your choice and then get a seperate gateway service. Personally I would only really go for this route if I already had a merchant acount for a physical/ telephone sales company and was only now adding the online capability.

Ravenfire · Mar 28, 2006

Oh I didn't see that, what were they criticised for? Most the sites I know use paypal or Worldpay.

Vicky R · Mar 28, 2006

Oh I didn't see that, what were they criticised for?

I was trying to watch while in the process of burning my dinner so only half caught the thread but from what I grasped it was to do with their handling of fraudulant transactions / suspending of sellers' accounts.

Coding Monkey · Mar 29, 2006

This page has a list of all the UK payment providers. You can either take the route of having the company take care of it all for you (like WorldPay, who have the highest costs), or setup an Internet Merchant Account, which can take quite a long time to setup.

Vicky, as you seem completely stumped, give me a call later today and I'll give you a free, no obligation discussion on the best solution for your business. I have done it for other UKBF members to help send them in the right direction.

You can get the contact details via our website (link in my signature)

Sharon · Mar 30, 2006

I'm looking into the same thing...

Strikes me, as a non-technical bod, that I can't really afford to go with WorldPay!

Barclays want a £7,500.00 cash deposit. No way!

WorldPay sent me a quote:

Set-up Fee: £200
Monthly Fee: £30
Please Note: £180 fee for initial 6-month term, then £30 per month ongoing

Transaction Service Charges:
· 50p per transaction for UK Debit cards.
· 4.5% on the value of all other transactions e.g. credit and charge cards
· 6p per transaction for Fraud detection.

www.nochex.com however, offer a small business, small amounts scheme:

No consumer sign-up delay
There is no need for your customers to sign-up with Nochex and delay paying you. You can receive instant payments of up to £100 from non-members of Nochex.

Instant availability of funds
Cash-flow is vital for growing businesses. Once you have received money into your Nochex account you can withdraw the money instantly. We will not hold onto it for four weeks!

Competitive rates
Our transaction rates are just 2.9% plus 20 pence for each transaction you receive. Since you do not have to pay a set-up or fixed monthly fees you pay as you go.

Think we're going to take Nochex... good luck with yours!

SillyJokes · Mar 30, 2006

Vicky, you mentioned you were selling very low cost items. Do you think this may be a fundamental flaw in what you are trying to achieve or will people buy more than one at at time?

We sell some very low cost items but mostly find people buy more than one at a time so the payment processing costs are spread.

Will people buy bulk of your low cost items or one at a time? How low is low? Even with the cheapest payment provider your profits will be gobbled up or your prices hiked if you are selling goods at £2 a piece just to cover the payment costs.

PS You can haggle considerably with Worldpay once they have established you have a viable business.

Paypal - Painpal if you ask me - we use them as well as Worldpay but suffer proportionately more fraud with them. Their merchant interface sucks and their dispute settling system leaves a lot to be desired.

Whistle Ink · Mar 31, 2006

Sharon said:
Barclays want a £7,500.00 cash deposit. No way!

Do they? why? When I got a quote from Barclays I was told I had to pay a set up fee of around £250 I think - no mention of a deposit!

Gregaria · Apr 3, 2006

My preference is nochex by far, is simple as simple can be, you can pass all the details through as part of the url and customise the layout of the shopping cart to make it look like your site. Its brilliant for a startup site

Sharon · Apr 3, 2006

Whistle Ink said:
Sharon said:

Barclays want a £7,500.00 cash deposit. No way!

Click to expand...

Do they? why? When I got a quote from Barclays I was told I had to pay a set up fee of around £250 I think - no mention of a deposit!

We would have had to pay the set-up fee too... are you already trading with a history? We haven't started yet, and though HMRC believe us enough to let us get VAT registered, and even though Barclays is who we're banking with, they obviously don't trust us or something!

They said it would only be held for the first 12 months, and it'd be in an account in our name, through them, and it'd get interest on it... but I'm sure it wouldn't be a competitive rate of interest, and we need our money to work for us, not work for someone else!

Whistle Ink · Apr 3, 2006

I've been trading just over a year now and I am vat registered also. They never mentioned any other intital costs apart from the £250!

Crazy stuff you got going on! Did you ring them up and did they ask for your bank account details at all? Or did you go in branch?

Bye Paresh

Sharon · Apr 3, 2006

We filled in the online application form for a quote.
They then sent us through a load of stuff in the post 'Welcome Pack', which didn't mention it, then they tried getting hold of us for a few days when we were away, and sent a letter in the end (still calling us three times a day) saying about the 'bond', or cash deposit as they called it.

They eventually got hold of me, and asked why we'd not returned the forms, signed, and I said we'd not got the bond required, as we were only starting up and had other costs, and before I'd finished my sentence, she said ok, bye, and hung up!

Hard sell, no help.

Apr 8, 2006

Sharon said:
Barclays want a £7,500.00 cash deposit. No way!

wow! it's 4 figures!

who will register with such company?

epiphany · Apr 8, 2006

Vicky R said:
That said, they did feature on Watchdog this evening being criticised so I am more cautious now!

Typical watchdog, they get emails from 20 people whining about paypal and out of the few people they featured only 1 had a problem they hadn't caused themselves. The payment processors available really are a confusing prospect to someone looking to start out a fresh in ecommerce. For someone starting out with tight budget and a non technical background I would recommend paypal.

Terry

Bernard · Apr 25, 2006

Vicky,

In your quest for e-commerce clarity, have you discovered any useful overviews possibly in a schematic form, that shows what need to be done and what communicates with what etc. It is something I am interested in learning about myself. At this stage I am more concerned about what should be done, rather that how. Though that will then lead on to learning about which is the best way.

Regards

Bernard

ibscom · May 19, 2006

I'm thinking of using paypal to start along side Nochex. Does anyone have an opinion about Nochex?

epiphany · May 19, 2006

They have a great logo :wink:

webit · May 19, 2006

We went with 2co ( http://www.2checkout.com/ )

$49 to set up - a very good support line (24h) and whilst we're not using in a anger yet seems good so far.

Charges are on the high side (4.5%) but no merchant account or monthly fees.

And - they've a coupon system you can use in beta so you can offer promo codes on your site with no extra work!

Optegris · May 19, 2006

babybizsifu said:
wow! it's 4 figures!

who will register with such company?

I can beat that. HSBC wanted a deposit of £25K for our business.

After laughing myself silly and telling the advisor that their systems were fundamentally flawed, I went to Lloyds and got the exact same set-up for no deposit...

Go figure...

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