Starting a New Website – Different Payment Options
If you are new to trading online, it can be confusing as to what is the best method to take payments.
Paypal and Google Checkout are very popular for new start up businesses, as well as Nochex in the UK. These are payment processors who process your payment, take a percentage and send you the remainder.
Working with payment processors may only be viewed as a short term option unless you are selling services or products in which fraud risk is low. This is because many people find they have fallen foul of a minefield of ‘do’s and don’ts’ and inadvertently left themselves wide open to a chargeback of the payment which leaves them with no money and no goods. If your account is closed or suspended for ‘one of many’ reasons then often you will struggle to back any money held on account.
It is not all disadvantages though, they are very easy to set up and integrate with your site and you will find plenty of example code on their developer forums to get you started. Many a big business today started off a few years ago with ‘just’ third party processors as their only payment option. Marshalls Yard has years of experience with dealing with such startup ecommerce sites.
Cheque payments are largely extinct now. But there is a case for still displaying the option on your site. By displaying it, along with your company name and address you are giving further validity to your contact details and more reassurance to your customers that you are a genuine business. Whilst you may never actually receive a cheque payment, you would never know how many extra sales you have converted by just having that option, if indeed any…
BACS and IBAN, Bank Transfers are more popular in European countries than the UK. They can also be hard to keep track of depending on how many payments you receive and what instructions you give to people paying in this manner.
