Could anyone advise me on accepting card payment/machine etc

[Yeoman]

I have a website that at the moment can only accept paypal as payment... after several paypal frauds (the most recennt for £198) I was wondering wether to get a card machine, I also have been losing orders as some people dont want to pay by paypal or set up a paypal account.

I wont be taking a huge amount on card (£1000-£3000 a month max) and was wondering what the costs and potential problems and benefits etc would be...

If anyone has a small business that accepts cards and has found it ok I would appreciate any advice at all... paypal charge between 3 and 4 % to accept payments through them.. I would presume card companies would charge a fee also... plus I would think I will have to hire or buy the machine... it might be worthwhile thought I thought...
Thanks for reading...

[Jackie Phillips]

Hi Yeoman,

Two websites for you to have a look at:

www.adelante.co.uk
www.chipandpinsolutions.com

Both are suppliers of software/hardware needed to set up and run plastic transactions, both are "approved" by the National Market Traders Federation.

I only have experience of Adelante - aka MobilePOS. They do both a sinple Java application that runs from your mobile phone with pc package as well, and you can hire/purchase chip and pin machines from them too.

They will help you set up a merchant bank account for free (normally around £150) that then has monthly charges (amounts depend on the cards types being processed). You pay Adelante a monthy fee per transaction but this is small. If you use MobilePOS, you'll also pay appox 1p per transaction message sent, but it's free on the web-based one.

They're friendly and helpful, useful when their instructions aren't very good, which sometimes they're not.

Any questions?

Jackie

[Badger]

Ours is done through Natwest 'send123'.

Tried using paypal, like you said to many fraudsters on there.

Now we take card details online and over the phone.

Best move we ever did.

[Steve Stocker]

We use Cardnet (LLOYDS TSB) for our merchant service - It's a fixed monthly charge for small businesses and a very reliable service. SagePay ( used to be Protx) provide our online payment gateway and we have few complaints.
They offer 3rd Man security assessments and warnings for each transaction.
WARNING - You need to be certain that your online cart software will talk to your payment provider and also check whether you get a telephone order service as well because some people don't like to give card details on-line.
URLs are;
http://www.lloydstsbcardnet.com/
http://www.sagepay.com/

Good luck

PS. You won't need a machine unless you want to trade at markets as well.

[busy mole]

We use romancart over the web.

[Lionheart Replicas]

I use HSBC secure e-payments as my website payment gateway. Unfortunately I can’t say that I would recommend them, as in my experience their system is very difficult to reliably integrate with shopping cart software (even though my shopping cart had HSBC built into it).

Bear in mind that the card company will charge you according to whether you just want to take payments online or If you want to take cards ‘face to face’ with a terminal as well; plus you will have to buy or rent the terminal. My package is just for online payments and so is relatively cheap, but I do get a ‘virtual terminal’ which is simply a facility to enter card details manually via the web, for which I use a laptop on site or the PC at home for telephone orders.

[Annie the Pedlar]

I went for Chip and Pin.
I'm tied in for 3 years. It's costs a lot.
Ali (Herts Fabrics) said I should have bought a machine rather than hired one but Chip and Pin did say they'd update me for free if the technology moved on.
People are buying stuff when they wouldn't have if I didn't have the machine but I'm reserving judgement about whether it's covering its costs.
I was suffering a bit from non payments so I was hoping this would balance things out.
I use the machine at fairs and over the phone. I've not had any trouble with PayPal, yet, fingers crossed, but most of my customers still pay by cash or cheque.
One good thing is the machine is designed for dummies so it suits me down to the ground. It's idiot proof.

[boblad]

We went for 123 send and they said you are tied in for three years, but had little or no problems. We nevrer really looked back after getting we chip and pin and have never had any problems with satellite connection unlike mobile phone or mobile networks unlike some other traders at some events we have, its unfortunate that the rental is there but the transactions are quite cheap so thats a bonus. I have never had any problems with paypal apart from the fees which if you sell on ebay (we do) then when it all adds up its quite a cost. Buying a unit wasnt an option because we thought that if the unit breaks than it may cost a lot to replace.

[PotBoy]

One of the cheapest for small businesses is www.protx.com

You don't need a chip and pin machine it is all done online through your website. Or you can use the online system if you take telephone payment. The protx system can integrate easily into your website.

Cost per month is about £23.00. You will need a merchant service number from your bank and they make a minimum charge of about £25.00 plus the actual transaction costs.

There is also Worldpay.

[boblad]

I suppose if you want the flexibilty of payments at home or out in the field, then the gprs chip and pin machine has that. I pay about 2% for transactions on credit and about 39p for debit. I pay about £79 a quarter rental.

[bonnacon]

You might investigate FSB federation of small businesses..they get really good deals ... and they are currently using Streamline, which has mobile machines..good luck