E-Path?

[Strass-Rocker]

HI All,

New to this forum. We are having a new Site built , so i have spent alot of time looking at the Ecommerce solutions/payment providers etc.
I am very, very impressed by E-Path. e-path.au Please have a look.

We already have a merchant account for our CNP transactions, so i am not looking to line the pockects of my Useless Bank any further, not being a cheap skate but it doe's not make sense to have 2 merchant accounts.

If you check out E-Path (I am not in anyway associated) you will see that there are no ongoing fees/trasaction charges etc. So it's pretty good & very very secure.

The bank, who i already have my merchant account with, have not heard of E-Path & do not uderstand the concept & will not accept this as an option.

Just woundering if any one has any experiance with dealing with both E-Path & also getting the bank to accept this as an option

Cheers in advance.

S-R

 

[quikshop]

Its not that the British banks struggle with the concept, most of us in ecommerce use UK banks to process payments via a 3rd party Payment Service Provider, but they might struggle with your favourite being set up to cater for Australian businesses being an Australian service provider. There is a noticeable time-lag browsing to their home page on account of it being hosted a gizzzillion miles away

For a UK-based ecommerce business I'd recommend finding out who your bank recommends as a PSP and see what deals they offer for new accounts.

 

[Strass-Rocker]

Thanks for your feedback Dave, although I don’t think you get the deal:

E-Path is not a PSP. It is a “Payment gateway”.
Meaning there is no need for a separate merchant account & no need for a PSP. There are no transaction charges & no monthly fees just a 1 off yearly payment; it is a manual online credit card gateway. Yes they are an Australian based company, but that does not mean very much in today’s environment!
There are a number of UK based web shops already using E-Path as a Card payment Capture system.

The card details are not held on there server so there is no chance of hackers getting there hands on your customers details. Also there is practically no chance of any charge backs.

Cheers.

S-R

 

There are a number of UK based web shops already using E-Path as a Card payment Capture system.

I understand the concept, I don't really understand why you would want a non-UK gateway for a UK based shop though? Also if the gateway is a relative unknown then I would anticipate that you could experience issues with lack of customer trust, I certainly wouldn't give my card details to a UK based company using an unfamiliar solution and if I researched into it and saw they were based in Australia then it would ring real alarm bells.

If there are other UK based shops using this solution then why not contact then and ask who they bank with and how they resolved the issue?

 

[Page]

You sure knoiw a lot strass for someone looking for advice - me thinks.

 

[quikshop]

E-Path is not a PSP. It is a “Payment gateway”. Meaning there is no need for a separate merchant account & no need for a PSP.

Lol, I'm confused (.com). If you don't need a merchant account or psp, is it similar to Paypal's service and why do you need the approval of a UK bank :|

 

The bank, who i already have my merchant account with, have not heard of E-Path & do not uderstand the concept & will not accept this as an option.

Having examined the site in detail this evening I cannot understand why you are having an issue, there are several large banks listed on there such as RBS and HSBC. If you have a real desire to use this solution then it would seem you will need to move your merchant account to a bank that recognises the gateway.

I did find it extremely worrying that the site had such minute & almost unreadable icons of the banks it partners with - none of which are actually links to the banks in question in order to verify matters, and for me the entire site was quite poorly put together and was extremely slow to load.

Whilst it may be a frequently used gateway in Australia I still stand by my earlier view that I would expect you to encounter trust issues with UK customers when they are presented with an unfamiliar payment provider and I think whatever savings you make in transaction charges could well be far out weighed by the customers lost who go elsewhere and buy from a site using a known and trusted gateway/psp.

 

[Online Trader]

Have to agree with #5

 

[Strass-Rocker]

Thanks for all your feedback, although I was not really expecting such a venomous response!

I was trying to draw folk’s attention to the sheer simplicity, minimal costs & security issues raised by this system. Why should we always be paying so much to the bloody institutions & there chums.

We supply an international base of customers not all are familiar with gateways such as “Nochex” & alike, so I feel that all “PSP’s” do not fit into the buying public’s perception of a familiar & trusted option when entering there payment details?

As to the company being“Gazillion” miles away, I really don’t think this is an issue. I have carefully checked there credentials (not just there Blurb on there site) through extensive searching. They have excellent feedback on webmaster forums around the globe.

We all are aware of the security issues with “Open Gateways” & I feel that this system, “admittedly not PCI sanctioned” gives both us the retailer & more importantly our customer’s undoubted security.

We as retailers are also vulnerable to the charge back & to the ongoing threat of fraud. When data is stored and accessible on the net it can never be guaranteed 100% safe. Every now and then you hear of a big name gateway provider being "hit" and thousands of credit card details are compromised


Not looking for “Stress” just feedback.

S-R

 

[quikshop]

Ok, I've taken a closer look at their web site, here's a quote:

E-Path is a highly secure manual online credit card payment gateway. Being manual means that when someone makes a payment, credit cards are charged manually into your existing merchant account either via your EFTPOS machine or through an online secure website (just like internet banking) provided by your bank as part of a manual merchant account facility.

Its a PSP service, nothing more or less than that. You do need a merchant account to use it and it offers nothing different than the usual UK PSP suspects, Protx, Worldpay etc. apart from the fact its manual payment processing.

This means they do not offer real time payment processing which high transaction volume ecommerce solutions require.

Don't mean to be negative S-R but in my opinion it offers nothing a UK PSP cannot already provide, and I can understand why a UK bank would be reluctant to allow you to use them.

Why should we always be paying so much to the bloody institutions & there chums.

You still need a merchant account to use it, I think you've misunderstood what they offer.

 

[Strass-Rocker]

Dave hi,

Once again thanks for your feedback, If you read my first post i did say that we already have in palce a Merchant account for our CNP transactions!

So why should we pay again for a second merchant account, plus fees to the PSP, when there are simpler & more cost effective options such as "E-path"

S-R

 

[quikshop]

Why would you need a second merchant account?? Just use a payment service that is accepted by your bank, simple as that. You can't promote a service that is not deemed secure by UK banks, or argue that they should allow you to use them because it might save you a small amount of money.

We are always on the look out for a better more cost effective means of accepting payments, and to integrate that service with our eCommerce software for the benefit of our own customers but there is no debate here, your posts suggest a vested interest or a hankering for all things Australian

 

[blown away]

All you need to do is swap your standard merchant account for an internet merchant account, most, if not all, payment gateways allow you to take phone payments, I'm with secpay and it costs just £10 per month for up to 100 transactions via web or phone.
I changed from my standard lloyds cardnet merchant account to an IMA with streamline (the only monthly cost is for transaction fees).

if it is a similar service to paypal, your merchant account has nothing to do with it anyway, if it works like secpay , protx, worldpay, then of course the bank would need to approve it as secure etc.

 

[billyboy]

I have been really impressed with the e-Path payment gateway. But that's the .com.au one not sure if its the one you are referring to.

Its a manual gateway but I just charge cards into my merchant account as I do for my phone orders. I first grabbed them because of cost, but almost overnight I started to stop fake transactions in their tracks. That has saved me so much money its not funny.

The other thing I noticed was more customers were going through with making the payment, presumably because they were being handled professionally.

At one stage I was thinking about becoming a reseller but I don't have any experience at all with that sort of stuff, that's how impressed I was.

Another big bonus (for me anyway) is since this PCI DSS stuff has turned up to freak everyone out, because e-Path is PCI DSS compliant none of my Zen Carts need their own PCI DSS because I'm already using a PCI DSS way.

Anyway, I've now got five Zen Carts all going to my e-Path gateway and I can highly recommend them, as long as you don't do huge numbers of transactions a day, could get a little out of control.

Just my 2c worth from an e-Path user, thought you'd like the drum.

Bye for now

 

[billyboy]

All you need to do is swap your standard merchant account for an internet merchant account

Why would you need to do that?

Just stick with your standard merchat account and use e-Path to accept payments from the net. A standard merchant account is cheaper than an internet based one anyway.

That's what I do and its working really, realy well for me.

Thnx