I would like to open a website that sells health food and I would like to know which companies are reliable with minimal fees? I would like to take mainly VISA, Mastercard, American Express..but more the better obviously Please say no to PAYPAL... thanks !
Not true. Not only that but they aren't the best option for many other reasons as well. They're good if you're not in the US. Otherwise a true merchant account is a far better option.
If you are US based 2checkout is probably going to be more expensive than you need to be paying. If you aren't interested in paypal, I would recommend a traditional ecommerce merchant account using authorize.net for the payment gateway.
I also found www.chronopay.com, no experience with them but they accept a lot of credit cards... p.l.u.r.
Kagi.com is way too expensive. Pass on them. Google checkout is good as a second form of payment. I wouldn't make them the primary source of payment just yet. Since you are in the US you have a ton of choices as their are plenty of merchant account providers out there that can make you a competitive offer. Let me ask you what kind of sales volume do you plan to do per month?
I can help you. Send me an E-mail an I will call you to discuss some options with you. I have dealt with many on-line stores like the one you speak about and I know where a great portion of your cost is going to be. Perrytaylor@fnni.com
Paypal is probably the cheapest method out there. There are no downgrades, no statement fees, no monthly fees, no gateway fees, or any other fee. Paypal has plenty of negatives that go with it, but price is not one of them.
As far as usage goes, paypal is much more widely accepted. Because of that, I think there would be more benefit as more people recognize and trust paypal. I dont know many people that use moneybookers here in the US. As far as fees go, there are differences between paypal and moneybookers, and neither seems to have a good advantage over the other. Paypal charges for account to account transfers for non-personal accounts, moneybookers doesn't. Paypal doesn't charge the buyer any fee for making a payment, moneybookers does. Moneybookers allows adding funds via credit card, paypal only allows a bank transfer. Personally, I would use whatever your customers are more comfortable with. In my case I use paypal in addition to google checkout and a traditional merchant account. Haven't had any complaints or even a request for a different method of payment in a long time.
... in the US. Paypal does not work or work with unacceptable terms of use / limitations in such countries as Russia, India, South Africa, Malaysia, Israel, Argentina, United Arab Emirates and tens of other countries. While Moneybookers are available worldwide (and I guess it's much more convenient for Europeans than Paypal). Paypal is just more famous than MB and other systems due to its age...
Try to get your own merchant account with authorize.net You'll get the best fees for credit card processing. You can also try google checkout if you don't want to apply for a merchant account.
Paypal is famous because of its great rates and versatile service. The only reasons it isn't popular in those countries is because they have to limit themselves due to the high risk due to fraud that occur there. Otherwise Paypal would be #1 there as well. As a general rule doing business in those countries through the Internet is risky and should probably not be considered anyway. Authorize.Net is payment gateway provider. You still need a merchant account to go with them.