9 replies to this topic

[kenny17]

We are looking to accept credit cards for weekly billing for our health care/ fitness business. I am looking into American Express but their rates are super high and they also check credit... normally not a huge deal at all, but I turned down investors at the start to build everything on our own... in doing so and putting alot of my money into the business, credit got dinged up a bit...

... so I am afraid that we may get turned down for a card processing solution so that we may accept cards on the site (and accpting cards on the site is a MUST HAVE)

Does anyone know or reccomend another good company they have used or a direction/company to look into...

We are going to be all over the news in our city at the first of the year for what we are doing, so we will have alot of interest and tons of potential for this, just hitting this little snag here now.

P.s. someone told me once before, credit card companies (alot of the card accepting companies we were looking at) are like bad friends, when times are tough and just getting going, no one wants anything to do with you and wont help ya one bit. But when you start making that money, everyone wants to be your best friend

thanks a ton and look forward to any feedback

Kenny

[rolf]

Paypal and Google Checkout have both worked well for me.

Anecdotally there are some people put off by using third party processors for certain products/industries (the theory is that people will think any 'serious' company would have their own CC processing done in-house) but that doesn't seem to have affected me as far as I have been able to measure.

[kenny17]

Thanks a ton I will check google out for sure... I looked into paypal

The american express card processing was totally customizable, so it would look as if it was on our site and with all our colors and everything.. that is something I wanted to make sure we could do. I did not want it to look like someone else was handling it, and have it look JV. That was def a concern

[MaryKrysia]

Paypal and Google Checkout have both worked well for me.

Anecdotally there are some people put off by using third party processors for certain products/industries (the theory is that people will think any 'serious' company would have their own CC processing done in-house) but that doesn't seem to have affected me as far as I have been able to measure.

I have added PayPal Pro credit card processing to ecommerce web sites where customers/buyers were not aware who was processing credit card payments - the payment processor was "invisible." I think it's also possible to use PayPal 'in-house."

[rolf]

That's interesting. I've not looked into all of Paypal's offerings since I first started accepting payments online (a few years ago now) and I've been happy to use the plain old off the shelf PP/Google website integration, but PP Pro has some features I think I could find useful. Thanks for the heads up.

[kenny17]

Im currently (for the last week) looking into / applying for amercian express a.k.a [removed company name] and I feel like i am trying to buy a home with all the stuff they need and all the checking around, statements, things of that sort tat they need and look into. My first attraction to them was a simple plug and go approach and the reporting they did and recurring billing, etc. but this is somewhat of a pain...

[BackLinkPro]

The cool thing about paypal is I believe if you have an account with them, a customer who goes to pay can pay by cc even if they don't have an paypal account.

[Scottie]

You seem determined to have American Express, which I find a little unusual.

Mastercard and Visa are the dominant carriers in the credit market, with American Express and Discover a distant 3rd and 4th. Debit cards are only available as Mastercard and Visa, which allow people to access their checking accounts as credit... a very important factor to consider when deciding what cards you want to accept.

Am Ex also has some of the highest transaction rates for card acceptance.

[Katja]

I have used Paypal for many years now and it has been perfectly suitable for online payments. Here in Europe Visa and Mastercard are by far the most popular credit /debit cards. The only card I'm missing is the Maestrocard since people with no regular jobs or students use it here.

[kynduvme]

Paypal is super easy and cheap