Introduction To Online Payments - TL;DR: It's A Total Bitch
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Introduction To Online Payments - TL;DR: It's A Total Bitch
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Re: Introduction To Online Payments - TL;DR: It's A Total Bitch
#2TL;DR indeed. it doesn't have to be that complicated.
i needed a credit card processor for corduroy (plug: http://corduroysite.com/) to process monthly subscription charges. i filled out a form (i think, it was 2 years ago) on braintree's website (http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/), they emailed me back some info, i filled out and faxed over their forms about my business and already-established checking account, they created my american express/discover/visa/mastercard merchant accounts for me, and i used activemerchant (http://www.activemerchant.org/) to talk to their gateway via my rails app. according to my email archive, i received the signup forms from them on april 14th and they emailed to confirm my first charge through their gateway on april 22nd.
i wrote some simple code to use activemerchant to process the monthly subscriptions from a cron job that submits a charge to braintree using the customer's vault id (the only thing stored locally, braintree actually stores the credit card and address information) and the subscription monies are deposited into my bank account the next day.
i get a monthly statement from braintree in addition to instant email receipts. i've had to change my bank account and address information once, which involved contacting braintree and american express/discover/visa/mastercard and was relatively painless.
i'm not sure what is so difficult that services like recurly are trying to make easier, but if the problem is lots of different points of contact, i'm not sure that another middleman is the answer. braintree stores and charges the credit cards, the credit card companies deposit the money into my local bank account. simple.
Re: Introduction To Online Payments - TL;DR: It's A Total Bitch
#3I'm not sure why so many of these guides seem to operate under the assumption that having the transaction happen on someone else's server (ie, traditional Paypal, Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, etc.) is a bad thing. I would think it'd be a good thing. Google and Amazon in particular are well known and trusted brand names that most customers likely already do some amount of business with.
I know that for my own online shopping, I'm much more likely to purchase from a site that uses Google Checkout or Amazon payments than on that wants me to enter my CC information onto their own page. I figure Amazon already has my CC info anyway, and Google is more likely to have sophisticated security measures than joe-random ecommerce site.
Re: Introduction To Online Payments - TL;DR: It's A Total Bitch
#4Suddenly the App Store doesn't seem so bad.
Re: Introduction To Online Payments - TL;DR: It's A Total Bitch
#5I'm not sure why so many of these guides seem to operate under the assumption that having the transaction happen on someone else's server (ie, traditional Paypal, Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, etc.) is a bad thing. I would think it'd be a good thing. Google and Amazon in particular are well known and trusted brand names that most customers likely already do some amount of business with. I know that for my own onl…
That's true from a rational perspective, but people aren't rational. They have expectations of a nice, consistent experience that doesn't bounce them from one service to another.
I'm working on a business-oriented startup that requires credit card transactions, and part of my desire to have payments on my own site is because of the signal it sends out that you have your stuff together.
Re: Introduction To Online Payments - TL;DR: It's A Total Bitch
#6I'm not sure why so many of these guides seem to operate under the assumption that having the transaction happen on someone else's server (ie, traditional Paypal, Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, etc.) is a bad thing. I would think it'd be a good thing. Google and Amazon in particular are well known and trusted brand names that most customers likely already do some amount of business with. I know that for my own onl…
Having worked with a few sites that offer both direct-entry and PayPal payment options, I'd say PayPal gets far less than 10% of the transactions.
Given that PayPal has more established accounts than Checkout or AMZN, my assumption is that those services would get even less.
I understand business' distaste for co-branded UI; it can be a jarring experience for users and it often feels unprofessional.
Re: Introduction To Online Payments - TL;DR: It's A Total Bitch
#7I'm not sure why so many of these guides seem to operate under the assumption that having the transaction happen on someone else's server (ie, traditional Paypal, Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, etc.) is a bad thing. I would think it'd be a good thing. Google and Amazon in particular are well known and trusted brand names that most customers likely already do some amount of business with. I know that for my own onl…
That's true from a rational perspective, but people aren't rational. They have expectations of a nice, consistent experience that doesn't bounce them from one service to another. I'm working on a business-oriented startup that requires credit card transactions, and part of my desire to have payments on my own site is because of the signal it sends out that you have your stuff together.
Precisely it. Everyone knows anyone can throw up a Paypal link, but to have the transaction go through on your site makes it feel more official. Sure, it's not completely rational, but people sometimes like it better (alternatively, some people will only pay through Paypal, but unfortunately I can't sell my merchandise through Paypal/Google/Amazon).
Re: Introduction To Online Payments - TL;DR: It's A Total Bitch
#8If you want another perspective on this, we have to answer these kinds of questions a trillion times a week at FreshBooks. We're posting a guide to help people get through it.
The most salient post is Part II, which helps people choose their gateways.
http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2010/04/30/part-2-how-do-paym...
Speaking as someone who frequently has to call into the payment gateways' customer support on behalf of our customers who have hit a brick wall, personally, I like to keep life easy. I recommend PayPal Standard if you're doing less than $2000-$5000 a month in transactions, and then Authorize.net or PayPal Payflow Pro.
Re: Introduction To Online Payments - TL;DR: It's A Total Bitch
#9TL;DR indeed. it doesn't have to be that complicated. i needed a credit card processor for corduroy (plug: http://corduroysite.com/ ) to process monthly subscription charges. i filled out a form (i think, it was 2 years ago) on braintree's website ( http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/ ), they emailed me back some info, i filled out and faxed over their forms about my business and already-established checking ac…
Billing can get complicated if your customers are other businesses and need proper invoices and account statements for tax purposes, not to mention managing coupons, refunds, expired credit cards, credit card failures, account suspension rules, etc. which apply to all classes of customers.
Most web apps are too small to worry about these issues.
(Full disclosure. I work at FreshBooks and I'm actually the product manager of recurring and subscription billing.)
Re: Introduction To Online Payments - TL;DR: It's A Total Bitch
#10What frustrates me is that it's just so expensive to get started... I know that it's "just the cost of doing business" but it really bothers me that you have to give away ≈%3 of your revenue to get paid.
Braintree claims that their pricing is very competitive. I don't doubt that it is, but being in business with them for a single year costs a minimum of $1659* (supposing you need recurring billing). That's a lot for someone who wants to get started charging for a small web app.
I've been really discouraged to get started because I know that as soon as I do I'll be paying high monthly fees that I'm not sure I'll be able to cover.
Thoughts?