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Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

jamesmaskell.co.uk

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Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#91

Post by petercooper »

skrebbel wrote: post #48

I had never heard to Braintree, even though it seems like a just-as-mature and very comparable competitor to Stripe. Also, plenty fast-growing companies seem to have heard of them anyway, cause they're using them. What's the secret? Is it all just marketing, where Stripe markets though HN and the likes (so that people like me hear about them) and Braintree uses, say, sales people? Or have I simply been sleeping?

They were quite prominent in the Rails community early on (37signals use(d) them, as did several other well known Rails-based sites). They also used to reach out to Rails-based sites in particular but are now more general.

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#92

Post by petercooper »

mmahemoff wrote: post #68
timnash wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The requirements for an Amex are not that high at least in the UK for their basic card.

I think they still take a larger percentage though, so probably only worth accepting for higher-value transactions.

Almost everywhere I go here in the UK accepts it (petrol station, supermarket, etc.) It tends to be small merchants who don't (local takeaways, particularly.)

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#93

Post by sgdesign »

stevoski wrote: post #74

Every time I see an article along these lines, I can't figure out why software startups don't just use a third-party payment processor like FastSpring or Avangate. It makes all these complications go away. Outsource anything you can, especially the things that others can do much better than you because it is their core business. Payment processing is definitely one of those things. I started my software company in Ge…

I might be wrong, but I don't think that can work if you want to accept credit cards directly in order to keep customers on your site for the whole checkout process.

These type of solution also rarely let you set up recurring payments.

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#94

Post by mmahemoff »

buro9 wrote: post #64
jamesjgill wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't expecting this response, as I had heard from other sources previously that their best bet for UK / European expansion would be to buy out someone else, but I can't really argue with this: https://twitter.com/cjc/status/292350613939953666

I've been getting "soons" since November. I asked only a few days ago how soon is soon, to which no-one will actually answer. But the Stripe guy did say that he agreed that we shouldn't wait... go implement something else, and then they will help people move to them post-launch. So don't not launch something in the UK because you're waiting for Stripe. Launch with GoCardless, launch with PayMill, hell... launch with…

I'm thinking of using PayPal, but only for a one-off 1-year (or N-years) subscription payment, so there's no legacy to deal with once Stripe arrives, and a simpler integration. At the cost of losing some of those early subscribers later on.

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#95

Post by Silhouette »

glenjamin wrote: post #82

Both Amazon Payments and Google Checkout are now available in the UK, at the same pricing level as PayPal. The two main complaints levelled at PayPal in TFA are poor customer service and poor technology - two aspects that Amazon have been very good at in my experience. Does anyone have much experience with these platforms and their use by "normal" UK consumers?

Interesting to hear that Amazon Payments is available in the UK now, but they still seem to be physical products only, no digital downloads, services, etc. so that limits their usefulness.

FWIW, we looked into Google Checkout/Wallet but the unclear branding and some tight rules about how you had to present the option on your web site put us off before we got very far.

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#96

Post by bad_user »

Xylakant wrote: post #71
bad_user wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain a little bit more about what's the problem with debit cards in Europe? I have a MasterCard debit card with which I never, ever had problems making payments and I have made such payments, either direct or through PayPal, Google Wallet or iTunes. Before this I had a Visa debit card issued by the same bank (Groupe Société Générale). Before this I had another debit card issued by another bank. All of th…

A mastercard debit card works much like a credit card. In germany for example, your standard "debit card" is your banks card and in online transactions, you just enter bank account and the banks identifier. It's a legacy way of paying that dates back to the eurocheques. It's comparable to the Card Bleue in France which is a system that exists pretty much in France only. This fragments the market.

OK, so you are talking about a different kind of debit card of which I have no knowledge. Romania was late in this world of online transactions and credit cards so we must have skipped this legacy somehow.

I also don't understand why VAT isn't the same everywhere in EU. So yeah, Europe is a mess.

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#97

Post by Xylakant »

Silhouette wrote: post #78
Xylakant wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the VAT you need to charge does not only depend on where you're located and where your business partner is located, but also on the goods/services provided and on wether the partner is a business or a person and maybe even the moon phase and the current water level of the north sea. You can't just create a lookup table, you have to implement the actual rules.

You can't just create a lookup table, you have to implement the actual rules. In general, that may be true, though certainly in some cases a look-up table seems to be sufficient. Even in more complicated cases you still typically need the same information about tax rates to start with, you just need a bunch more business logic on top. In any case, if the tax authorities who are experts on the rules can't find a way t…

> In any case, if the tax authorities who are experts on the rules can't find a way to codify and explain them to small businesses, surely it's self-evident that the rules are too complicated for non-expert small businesses to work with and should be replaced with something fit for purpose?

Full ack. Still, that's the current state. To make matters worse, those rules are subject to change and open to interpretation.

Example:

We just did an ElasticSearch training for a members of a german company that sits in Hamburg. However, the contract was via an austrian consulting company and we were just the subcontractors. Now, the question of wether we have to pay vat or not hinges around the question of that austrian company does have a german branch office or not. The first thing our tax accountant did was grab the folder with tax laws and read up on what could possibly declared as a "branch office". Is a permanent representative enough or not? Go, codify that.

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#98

Post by tonyedgecombe »

sgdesign wrote: post #93
stevoski wrote: post #74

Every time I see an article along these lines, I can't figure out why software startups don't just use a third-party payment processor like FastSpring or Avangate. It makes all these complications go away. Outsource anything you can, especially the things that others can do much better than you because it is their core business. Payment processing is definitely one of those things. I started my software company in Ge…

I might be wrong, but I don't think that can work if you want to accept credit cards directly in order to keep customers on your site for the whole checkout process. These type of solution also rarely let you set up recurring payments.

I think most of them have supported recurring payments for some time now, certainly Avangate and FastSpring both do.

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#99

Post by Xylakant »

bad_user wrote: post #96
Xylakant wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mastercard debit card works much like a credit card. In germany for example, your standard "debit card" is your banks card and in online transactions, you just enter bank account and the banks identifier. It's a legacy way of paying that dates back to the eurocheques. It's comparable to the Card Bleue in France which is a system that exists pretty much in France only. This fragments the market.

OK, so you are talking about a different kind of debit card of which I have no knowledge. Romania was late in this world of online transactions and credit cards so we must have skipped this legacy somehow. I also don't understand why VAT isn't the same everywhere in EU. So yeah, Europe is a mess.

Even worse: VAT is not the same depending on what you sell:

Foodstuff in general has lower VAT (7%) in germany, but that lower tax rate includes also hotel bills, but not the breakfast which is taxed at the regular 19%, taxi bills are reduced, etc. It's a mess. When you sell services in the EU and the service is rendered in another EU country and for a company with a valid Tax ID you don't have to pay VAT, which includes Switzerland (although they're not EU) and so on.

Re: Taking payments online in Europe in 2013

#100

Post by fredoliveira »

mmaunder wrote: post #79

I don't get it. Just call MerchantWarehouse (sp?) and get them to hook you up with a merchant account and an authorize.net gateway. We take payments from all over the world using them and get dinged around 3% total with very few chargebacks. It's really not that big a deal.

It is a big deal, actually.

Have you ever set up payment processing in the US? Did you get it going in a matter of minutes and not days? Because I have, and I can clearly say that any of the solutions presented in the post as well as the one you point out (and with a tone, as if everyone just had to know about this MerchantWarehouse you speak of) require a lot more work. I'm okay with work, just not okay with jumping through hoops that are unnecessary elsewhere.

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