Which is the best payment processor for small business

Hello,

Any idea on the best payment processor for small business.

 

Are you based in the US, and how do you plan to accept cards (retail, ecommerce, keyed entry, etc.)?

For online businesses, Paypal is pretty much going to be your cheapest option available. However they have poor customer service, which you will hear a lot of bad experiences from people. Traditional merchant accounts are a little more expensive but they can be integrated with a website in a more professional manner, and have some other major advantages over paypal and other 3rd party processors.

Check out this article for some good information on what you are asking about.
http://www.merchant-account-services.org/article/merchant-accounts-compared

 

I would like to know this as well, and I'm in Canada. I would love to accept payments through Google checkout...

 

u need a us bank acc to use google checkout

 

Poor customer service, I've heard that, too. However, it probably depends on the nature of your business. Would you expect their customer service to be great in helping you set up your website to accept payments through paypal? There's tons of infromation on that, they have a FAQ to help you, too. I myself haven't felt like needing to hear from paypal too often. Why would I? If there's a case of chargeback, comminication with Paypal is fine..

I've always preferred paying via paypal than having to enter my CC details on a website with a name I can't trust. No secure locks help here, I thing there are less than 10 websites out there I'd trust my payment details to. Paypal takes that fear off you. So who does have the advantage afterall?

 

The important question is what are you selling ? There are specialized payment processor which are created to cater to the needs of specific industries while some are quite general.

 

paypal or checkout, I think.

 

I m happy with paypal till now.no issues abt customer service didn't needed their support.

 

As far as comparing Paypal to a straight merchant account, the merchant account beats paypal almost every time in a straight comparison. Especially when offered together, paypal will usually make up less than 25% of orders on a website. This is dependant on what the business is selling and a ton of other factors like how the payment option are presented, but from everything I have seen paypal is not the more preferred method of payment. If you accept only paypal (Non Ebay Sales), I can guarantee that you lose sales vs offering standard credit card payment.

As far as paypal's poor support goes, it is mainly in reference to having funds help or other account limiting situations. With a traditional merchant account, you at least have a phone number where you can reach a real person. Experiences with paypal are always different foreach business, but just look on the forum here. You can probably find 50 or more 'paypal sucks' threads in a few minutes. Personally, I have over $5K held in a paypal account due to some risk. I provided shipping information for every transaction, and I have positive feedback from every one of these transactions on ebay. I gave paypal my distributor's name. But, they are still holding the money. What was most disturbing, is that this account which was 5 years old has seen several hundred thousand dollars processed through it, and they decided to hold it on just a few transactions. It's not like it was a brand new account that had a huge jump in sales. This could be enough to put a business, out of business, if this was their primary source of income. Paypal's support is fine until you actually have something go wrong with your account.

They are getting better on the support side, but they still have a long way to go.

Personally, I think that multiple methods should be offered. We offer credit cards, paypal, or google checkout. Credit cards make up about 80% of our orders, google checkout about 15% and Paypal struggles to make up 5%. I have seen similar ratios on many different sites.

 

You can try Mijireh. They are a merchant account and will accept anyone. You can also use Stripe as the gateway. Both are great if you cannot qualify for a merchant account with anyone else. Their fees are low too.

 

Just Paypal... Very Recommended by me..

 

I want to add paypal payment button to my site but I do not have credit card. Is it mandatory to having credit card to receive payment from site? Please give me your opinion. I am from India.

 

Why not go for liberty reserve?

 

Really great Thread