Accepting Payment Online
You can create the best information product. But without the ability of accepting payment online, you won't get paid. Here are the online payment services that I've worked with and that I recommend.
Third Party Credit Card Transacting Companies
The good thing about third party credit card transacting companies is that you won't have to deal with leases and monthly fees. You won't have to pay statement fees. You won't have to buy any special softwares or purchase secure servers. All you have to do is place a nice little "buy now" button on your site. When people click on that button, they'll be taken to these third party's secure site where people can pay with their credit cards.
The bad thing about third party companies is they usually charge high transaction fees. My suggestion? Start your business with one of these third party companies. And as you grow, invest in your own merchants account.
1. PayPal - PayPal is free to setup. And their transaction costs are extremely low too. Its best to start accepting money through PayPal.
There is one major negative feature about PayPal: its not worldwide. People from a few developing countries have trouble paying through PayPal.
One minor negative about PayPal is that if you start receiving a lot of money to your PayPal account, they'll freeze your account. You'll still be able to accept payment. But you won't be able to withdraw the money you are receiving for 60 to 90 days.
If you are just starting out, PayPal is the right solution for you. PayPal is also wonderful if you are selling a newsletter or other subscription or membership based services.
Go to PayPal
2. Clickbank - Clickbank only allows you to sell digital products. If you have developed audio CDs or DVDs, clickbank won't work for you. Clickbank will also charge you $50 setup fees when you list your first product. And their transaction fees are higher than PayPal.
The cool part about clickbank.com is it comes with a big army of affiliates! Clickbank has an inbuilt affiliate program which makes it very easy for other people to promote your products for a commission. Clickbank will take care of paying your affiliates for selling your products and tackle all the other backoffice problems.
If you have a digital product and want an affiliate program, Clickbank is your best solution.
Go to Clickbank
3. 2checkout - If PayPal doesn't support your country, 2checkout will. Thats the only good thing about 2checkout over PayPal - they accept credit cards from all countries. And they allow anyone and everyone from any part of the world to use their services to accept credit cards.
2checkout charges $49 setup fees. And their transaction costs are higher than PayPal, but lower than Clickbank.
If your business increases, its good to have 2checkout as an alternative to PayPal.
Go to 2checkout
Merchants Account
When your online business grows, its time to get your own merchants account. Getting your own merchants account means very low fees per transaction.
It also means getting your own secure servers so that credit cards transactions remain secure. This is complicated to setup on your own. But if you use the tool recommended below, you'll get the best of all worlds.
1. Cardservice International - Cardservice provides merchants account to people residing in all the countries. They charge a very low transaction fees. And best of all, they don't charge any setup or application fees.
Another good thing about them is they allow you to accept Amex credit cards for free too. Most other merchant account providers will charge $5-10 per month extra for Amex.
Cardservices international also gives away a very useful and informative ebook called "Merchants Account Insider's Guide" for free. You might want to download and read.
2. Authorize.net - They might be the most famous merchants account provider online. They are fantastic and I've been using them since years. The only bad thing is they don't provide merchants accounts to anyone who doesn't staying outside USA.
They have a very easy interface and one of the best fraud protection systems. And authorize.net also allows you to accept e- checks online!
Authorize.net doesn't directly sell merchants accounts. You have to get it from one of their resellers. Here is one of their reseller's website - AuthorizeIt. Authorize.net resellers will charge an application fee
3. WorldPay - if you are not an American citizen, then WorldPay is a great option for you. This is another company that provides merchant accounts world wide. Their rates are a bit higher than the other two though.
The All-in-One Ecommerce Tool
Maintaining records for your little online websites is hard.
-
You'll have a different
aweber database of people who subscribe to your autoresponders and newsletters.
-
Then you'll have a different database of your clients from one of the above 3rd party or merchant accounts. (Plus, if you do get a merchants account, you'll have to purchase secure servers and setup a shopping cart system too - with its own database.)
- And on top of that, if you want to start an affiliate program to promote your little websites, you'll have one another database of affiliates.
After some time, synchronizing the databases and keeping them clean will start taking a lot of your time. The solution to that is using this tool:
1shoppingcart
This is one tool I can't do without. Maintaining all the contacts and transaction details in one central database has helped a lot in automating my little websites and making it more efficient.
1shoppingcart provides:
- Unlimited autoresponse emails with unlimited follow up messages
- Unlimited newsletters
- Run multiple little websites from same account
- An efficient shopping cart that you can use along with PayPal, 2checkout, Cardservice International, Authorize.net, Worlday and a lot more payment solution providers
- Recurring billing supported - perfect for newsletter subscription or membership websites
- Secure servers for credit card transactions
- Automatic upselling module
- An inbuilt 2-tier affiliate system that allows you to let other people promote your products for a commission (pay per click, pay per lead and pay per sale - all 3 affiliate programs are supported)
- Ad tracking system that allows you to see which advertising campaigns are doing better
It is an amazing tool. But it is a bit expensive at $79 a month.
Go to 1shoppingcart
Time to make a decision - which systems and tools to use?
Option A
One of the above payment solutions + 1shoppingcart system
= A little expensive but increases efficiency. Hi-cost, low-maintenance solution |
Option B
One of the above payment solutions + aweber + affiliate script
= Very affordable but increases workload. Low-cost, Hi-maintenance solution. |
Now that you have all the main infrastructure - autoresponder and payment solutions - in place, its time to get to the most important part of your website. The actual sales letter that will sell your products.
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