Hi,

This is my first post. I am looking for a reliable merchant account (with gateway) with a simple checkout screen for my customers. I have a website and I sell on ebay as well. I refuse to use PayPal due to the many horror stories I have read about them, not to mention I feel victim to their "fraud protection" system and had my account locked.

Anyway, I checked out 1st American Card Service
1stamericancardservice.com

They appear to have what I need and they also offer a Virtual WebLink with hosts a checkout screen on their hosting servers.

Let me also say that I am a professional programmer for 8 years (all Java/J2EE/HTML), and recently PHP, so if I need to purchase a 3rd-party cart/checkout and customize it, I can do that too. I just don't know where to start. There are so many providers for merchant accounts and carts. I don't care too much about customization and special features. I do , however, would like the cart to integrate with UPS for shipping rates and printing postage labels.

Can anyone recommend a good provider?

Thanks for your time reading this.
SAF

OK, so I will answer my own post!
I just learned that Zen-Cart and osCommerce offer robust solutions based on open source software like Linux, PHP, mySQL. This is good because my hosting service currently runs on these technologies anyway.

Correct me if I am wrong, but Zen-Cart and osCommerce are free, correct?

SAF

OK, so I will answer my own post!
I just learned that Zen-Cart and osCommerce offer robust solutions based on open source software like Linux, PHP, mySQL. This is good because my hosting service currently runs on these technologies anyway.

Correct me if I am wrong, but Zen-Cart and osCommerce are free, correct?

SAF
Correct, you will still need a payment processor. Try 2checkout.com, if you dont have a buisiness license. You cant usually get a merchant account without a buisiness license.

Correct, you will still need a payment processor. Try 2checkout.com, if you dont have a buisiness license. You cant usually get a merchant account without a buisiness license.

I looked at their rates and I was not pleased. Are they charging 5.5% because their service does not require a merchant account?

We are a licensed business in NY, and for that reason we prefer having a real merchant account. I will probably go with ZenCart.

thanks,
SAFX

2CO is similar to a third party processor. You use their merchant account to process funds. 2Co is essence is basically selling your products.

If you are in the United States and doing more than $1,000 a month, a merchant account is a lot better in the long run usually - unless you are doing something high risk (like a dating website, gambling, etc), then a third party processor better for that.

I would not recommend 2checkout as they require your customers to navigate away from your site to make payment. this has been shown to negatively impact sales finalization percentages.

Best choice, is to go with a merchant account like authorize.net (some of the best rates). OR a really good choice is to go with paypal webpayments pro. these offer the best rates out there, and have modules built for oscommerce which do NOT require your customers to navigate away from your site to make payment.

Regarding which cart to use, if you decide to go with oscommerce, dont use stock osc, go with OSCMAX www.oscdox.com (http://www.oscdox.com) for download. Reason i say this is that osc in its original form will not be well indexed into search engines. OSCMAX on the other hand will. several of the 46 modules which come already built into oscmax are SEO related, such as "checmos ultimate seo URL's contribution" the "All Products Contribution" which allows for all your products to be spidered (something not possible with stock OSC.

<<< Fluff removed. >>>

I use Paymentech simply because it easily integrates with my Yahoo store.

Rates:
Setup/application fee: none
Monthly fee: $22.95
Transaction fee : $0.20 cents per transaction, and 2.69% for Visa and Mastercard (2.58% for debit cards)*

Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but it was easiest for me.

I use Paymentech simply because it easily integrates with my Yahoo store.

Rates:
Setup/application fee: none
Monthly fee: $22.95
Transaction fee : $0.20 cents per transaction, and 2.69% for Visa and Mastercard (2.58% for debit cards)*

Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but it was easiest for me.


Thats honestly one of the highest rates i have seen!!!!

authorize.net is 2.29% and $10 monthly and to be honest a half of a percent is a LOT of cash over time!

Thats honestly one of the highest rates i have seen!!!!

authorize.net is 2.29% and $10 monthly and to be honest a half of a percent is a LOT of cash over time!

OK, but Authorize.net is just the gateway. Can you recomment a good merchant account to use with Authorize.net?

Thanks,
SAFX

I use Paymentech simply because it easily integrates with my Yahoo store.

Rates:
Setup/application fee: none
Monthly fee: $22.95
Transaction fee : $0.20 cents per transaction, and 2.69% for Visa and Mastercard (2.58% for debit cards)*

Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but it was easiest for me.

hi Booya,
Do you know which gateway is used by Paymentech? I was pleased to read that Paymentech is majority owned by Chase, which is a bank I am familiar with and trust.

How would you rate them? Any CS issues, batch out problems, etc.

Thanks,
SAFX

Hi SAF,

I highly recommend http://www.loudcommerce.com. They provide merchant accounts with Linkpoint Gateway, Authorize.net, or Verisign's Payflow gateway. They have a special rate of 2.19% for WHT members. The merchant account is provided by Cardservice International which is wholly owned by First Data, the same company that processes for Chase, Paymentech, Citibank, etc. They are the biggest and best in the industry. We have been with them for a long time and have had excellent service.

-MM

Hi SAF,

I highly recommend http://www.loudcommerce.com. They provide merchant accounts with Linkpoint Gateway, Authorize.net, or Verisign's Payflow gateway. They have a special rate of 2.19% for WHT members. The merchant account is provided by Cardservice International which is wholly owned by First Data, the same company that processes for Chase, Paymentech, Citibank, etc. They are the biggest and best in the industry. We have been with them for a long time and have had excellent service.

-MM


Thanks for the info. I will research them as well.

This is a bit off-topic, but if a cart, such as Zen-Cart, is coded to work with Authorize.net's gateway API, it would not make a difference if I were to switch merchant accounts if I maintained the same gateway, right? I mean, unless you change gateways, your CC processing code should always work with that gateway even if you change merchant account providers.

SAFX

yes E-online Data is a good merchant provider, and you can get authorize.net directly through them. PM me for a URL.

I use Paymentech simply because it easily integrates with my Yahoo store.

Rates:
Setup/application fee: none
Monthly fee: $22.95
Transaction fee : $0.20 cents per transaction, and 2.69% for Visa and Mastercard (2.58% for debit cards)*

Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but it was easiest for me.Actually you can use other merchant account providers other than Paymentech for Yahoo and the discount rate is usally lower. All yu need is a MAP that is compatible with First Data, and there are about 5 of them (Chase included) that are.
OK, but Authorize.net is just the gateway. Can you recomment a good merchant account to use with Authorize.net? I am glad someone else said it this time so I did not have to
yes E-online Data is a good merchant provider, and you can get authorize.net directly through them. PM me for a URL.
You can post the URL and they can look thru the forums as well for the URL.

Hi SAFX,

You can use any number of payment gateways with OSC & ZenCart. That being said, Authorize.Net is the most popular one that I've seen and there appear to be more integrations for that gateway than any other system so it might be faster to use that combination.

Most merchant providers these days can set you up with both an Internet merchant account along with an Authorize.Net payment gateway account. There are a lot of things to check out, however, with any merchant provider.

First and foremost - you'll want to find out whether the company you contact is actually the ISO/MSP or an agent representing the ISO/MSP. Then do your research on both the agent as well as the ISO/MSP to know who you will really be dealing with.

Second, you'll also want to ask for a full and complete pricing list prior to signing up. You will want to not just consider the qualified discount % rate that is touted by all processors - but also ask about the specific mid and non-qual "downgrade" rates and what criteria apply for those.

Third, you'll want to get a full list of all transactional, monthly and misc. fees including any annual fees or early termination fees. Early termination fees can be a real monster and should be avoided as much as possible as you can otherwise find yourself locked into a 1-3 year agreement and have to pay a large penalty fee if you close your account prior to that period.

Last but not least, ask about how the processor handles chargebacks and risk issues and get into as many specifics as possible. For Internet processing, this is handled VERY differently from one processor to another and it is an important area to both understand and get feedback on.

You will also want to find out what gateways the company is familiar with and whether they provide direct support for all of your merchant processing or whether it is forwarded to a centralized help desk center.

Best of luck with your search!

... a simple checkout screen for my customers ...

Some of those checkout pages are very cheesy and can actually make your business seem even less professional than sending your customers to PayPal in my opinion. Better to just get an SSL cert and integrate with the gateway I think.

... i can tell you one of the most important things you should be shopping for is customer service...

Amen to that! So many different components to the system and when you have a problem you don't know who to contact, or perhaps there really is noone, just a voice mail maze that goes nowhere. Or each segments support desk you contact telling you that's the other guy's job and you call the other guy they don't know what you're talking about. You can get the royal runaround, making you wonder what was so bad about PayPal anyway?!

OK, guys, thanks! I appreciate all the information!

I am compiling a list of requirements that I will use to evaluate each merchant account provider.

Thanks again,
SAFX

the problem with paypal is it is for the consumer not the merchant..paypalsucks.com is a website every online merchant should check out,,,

and safx

authorize.net is designed to look exactly like your site...when your customer checks out they will not even realize they are not on your site