If you are going to sell anything online then it follows that you need to give people a method by which to pay you. Fortunately accepting payments online is extremely simple nowadays and you have a huge amount of choice for your payment processor. Ideally you should look for a company where it is easy to open an account, has reasonable fees and doesn’t have a problem with the products you are selling.
All payment providers have varying fees, so it certainly pays to shop around and to get the opinions of others. As a starter, here is what I consider to be the Top 5 payment providers available to the Internet Marketer.
* PayPal – Average fee is 2.9% to 3.9%
This company is one of the oldest payment providers on the Internet and you absolutely need to have an account with them if you want to do business online. Opening an account is completely free, you don’t need to undergo a credit check or send any verification documents in. You will want to upgrade to a Premier or Business account if you want to accept payments for products or services. To do so is very easy, you simply need to register a credit card and bank account, which PayPal verifies by crediting or charging the account with two random payments and you tell them how much it was for. PayPal don’t have the lowest fees which are around 2.9% to 3.9% for most people, but for sheer convenience you can’t beat them. You will be able to accept all credit and debit cards, bank transfers, eChecks and PayPal balance transfers. PayPal provide loads of tools to create payment and subscription buttons and most membership scripts and shopping carts have PayPal payments built in to them. There are a few horror stories, but on the whole if you are a legitimate trader providing an honest business you will have very few problems with them.
* Authorize – Fees vary, you need to contact them for a quote
This company provides what we call a Merchant Account. This means you have complete control over credit / debit card transactions and eChecks that you accept and at much better rates than what PayPal offer. To open a merchant account you will need to provide a lot of financial information and a credit check will be performed, so if you have a poor credit rating you may not be able to open an account. There are also setup fees and monthly fees which makes a Merchant Account more for the pros who know what they are doing. You will need a developer to be able to help setup the payment forms, but the advantage is that you can process credit cards directly from your site without sending them to a 3rd party provider. If you are doing several thousand dollars a month in sales, Authorize may be a solution to reduce your costs. 소액결제현금화
* SWReg – Average fee 2.9% plus $1
SWReg brand themselves as the company to use when you can’t accept PayPal for one reason or another. They are basically a gateway through which you can accept credit cards and PayPal without having to go through a rigorous credit check or send in piles of paperwork. They are built with Internet marketers in mind because they have a lot of features for downloadable products including being able to upload the product and let them take care of the distribution – this means you don’t need any download manager if you are selling digital products, however if you are running an e-Commerce store or membership site additional coding may be required to integrate with SWReg.
* MoneyBookers – Average 1.9%
MoneyBookers is the British version of PayPal and have been around for many years. Just like PayPal you can create an account with minimal fuss and start accepting payments almost instantly. Verification follows a similar pattern with micro-charges made to your accounts and you confirm the amounts. They are much more open than PayPal in terms of which countries can create accounts and as a result MoneyBookers is very popular with Eastern European countries and Asian counties. Unfortunately MoneyBookers is not integrated with many e-Commerce or membership scripts so some custom work may be required, but if you are looking to increase sales, MoneyBookers could be a good option. You will be able to accept most credit and debit cards along with bank wires and eChecks. It might be worth opening an account with MoneyBookers as they continue to grow in Europe and Asia.