My first internet business was an online maritime school and while setting up shop, I found my main hurdle was figuring out how to accept credit card payments.

I knew that by not accepting credit cards I was going to miss out on sales. And with credit card transactions more than trebling over the last ten years, my clientele seemed more than happy to hand over the plastic!

But I was put off having to open a bank merchant account, install complex software and setup a secure payment gateway to connect to banking networks for the authorization of transactions. Being a startup business, the thought of SSL certificates, significant setup costs and high monthly fees forced me to search for an internet merchant account alternative. Back then, there weren’t too many choices – I ended up signing up with 2Checkout.com… And I’m still using them today.

2Checkout allows me to list my products in NZ currency and accept both Mastercard and Visa. And for a one-time setup fee of $49USD I received preconfigured code that can be pasted into webpages to send visitors to secure payment pages. It really is easy, and minimal web development experience is required!

When it came to Cheeky Monkey Hosting and integrating a merchant account alternative with our domain cart, we chose RBS WorldPay. We wanted to offer flexible payment options to clients. WorldPay offers recurring billing and their solution allows us to give our customers control – they set up the arrangements themselves, online.

So don’t put credit card acceptance in the “too hard basket” – there are alternatives and it really is easier than you may think. When comparing suppliers, be sure to consider the following:

• Investigate refund and chargeback policies – cardholders are always favoured in the event of a dispute
• Check out any inbuilt payment delays, methods of payment and associated charges
• What choice of credit cards will the customer be offered? You may need to apply directly with American Express if you wish this service to be added to some payment gateways.
• What currencies do you wish to accept? What currency conversion fees will be charged?

I’ve put together a brief outline on each of the main players for those businesses considering accepting more than just cheques and bank deposits!

Paymex and Paymate

Paymex is New Zealand owned and their offices are located in Tauranga. They offer subscription payments, automatic withdrawals and shopping carts. Their rates are very competitive. Paymate is a US company and has an office in Sydney. Paymate accepts credit cards from buyers in 57 countries around the world and sellers can accept payments in NZ dollars. Like Paymex, Paymate offer tools such as shopping carts and integration into websites enabling ecommerce. You may have noticed on Trade Me that you can now link your listing to Paymate as a payment option for buyers.

Flo2Cash and ANZ eGate

Flo2Cash offer a Web2pay service enabling customers to make online payments from within your own website or through a secure payment page hosted by Flo2Cash. Their service also incorporates support for electronic direct marketing campaigns and catalogue sales and you can be sent an email and/or SMS confirmation of payment. Flo2Cash charge a monthly access fee for this facility and all money is automatically deposited into your nominated bank account. ANZ eGate also offer a hosted option which direct customers to a secure, external payment page. One advantage with ANZ eGate is that you can process any telephone, website or mail order through the one facility. But beware of transaction fees based on a matrix of monthly turnover and ticket sale size, and a lengthy 36-month contract term.

PayPal and ClickBank

These two dot com’s are probably the most well known around the world. PayPal boasts 150 million accounts allowing businesses to tap into shoppers who prefer PayPal as a payment method. As well as offering useful shipping management tools, PayPal offer an online “payment button maker” making it very easy get started. ClickBank only accepts payment for digital products. For vendors, the opportunities are great with ClickBank’s marketplace – a massive affiliate network of more than 100,000 active affiliates in 145 countries. ClickBank handles all affiliate commission tracking and payment distribution.

2Checkout.com and RBS WorldPay

Based in Ohio, 2Checkout works as a reseller for thousands of tangible or digital products and services. This means they purchase the good or service from you and simultaneously on sell this to the buyer at the point of sale. 2Checkout integrates easily into many existing shopping carts and you can sell just about anything. For those needing a cart, easy to use “plug-n-play” code is provided. Products can be sold in New Zealand currency and funds are easily sent to NZ bank accounts via a Foreign Currency Electronic Funds Transfer. RBS WorldPay is the payment processing business of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group and operates in over 40 countries. RBS WorldPay’s “Business Gateway Plus” comes with many features for any business wanting to accept multi-currency payments online. Offering easy integration, they wire funds to New Zealand bank accounts at a cost of $7.

• While we have taken every care to ensure this information is accurate at the time of writing, you should obtain a quote specific to the needs of your business before signing up.

Special Deal for New Zealand Businesses from Cheeky Monkey Hosting!

50 Cent Domain Name with all New Hosting – Offer Ends 30 November 2009
Read about the deal here …