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Your Quick Guide To Online Payments

In other dotBiz columns wevve taken a look at how to get your business trading on the internet. This month we look at how your customers actually pay for the goods or services you offer.

You probably have a debit card and maybe a credit card or two in your wallet or purse. Most people do, so letting customers use them on your site will make life easier for them and more money for you, hopefully.

The number of companies - or payment gateways as they're known - you can use to take these payments can be bewildering, so I'll take a quick look at a few of the most popular options. The first - and one of the simplest - which you may have already heard of, especially if you frequent eBay, is PayPal. Signing up for an account is free with no monthly fees. It's fairly simple, with the process usually complete in a few days once your details have been confirmed. When your account is up and running there are various tools available to help you integrate their services into your site. PayPal make their money by charging you a small percentage on each transaction.

Nochex is similar to PayPal being free to sign up to, no monthly fees, charging you per transaction, and the availability of integration tools. Although not as well known as PayPal, it's definitely worth considering. Both PayPal and Nochex hold the payments you take in your respective online account, which you can then transfer to your bank account as and when you want.

Neither of these methods requires you to have an existing merchant account, which means that you can start accepting card payments in a matter of days. If you do already have a merchant account with a bank, something else to consider is SECPay. What they do is act as a kind of go-between for yourself and your bank. They'll take the payment details from your customer and authorise them through your existing merchant account. This means you pay a small charge to them as well as your normal merchant fees. SECPAY is very reliable and they utilise more security measures than the cheaper alternatives. However, integrating SECPay is trickier than PayPal and Nochex, and should only be tackled if you know what you're doing, and there is a monthly fee.

Other payment gateways include WorldPay (owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland), 2Checkout and Authorize. It might be worth checking with your own bank to see what facilities they might be able to offer.

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