Summing up payment processors

[TWalker]

I read for a couple of hours last night and came to this conclusion: There are no real mainstream payment processors that will accept us (Paypal, authorize.net, 2Checkout etc)

Every thread pointed to the fact that one must now get their own merchant account through someplace like ones bank, ecigpayments.com or any other full blown merchant account provider.

I have done online commerce for the past decade but never needed a full merchant account as there were a large number of options and it was extremely cost and time prohibitive to purchase a merchant account. Not to mention the fact that if you start from scratch you do not know when even your first sale might happen and in the meantime you are paying merchant account fees, web hosting fees, advertising etc etc.

Of course I havn't researched full merchant account options in 2-3 years either. It could be different now.

So basically all the things I enjoyed for years like mainstream easy plugnplay payments with open source carts (cube, OSCommerce, Zen etc.) are out?

Its a full merchant account with the old tedious manual set ups and pay, pay, pay monthly and hope to make sales?

Is my assessment correct?

Thanks

 

[reverendg]

I know your pain, and you are correct, It is pay,pay,pay, and then pray, pray, pray, that you get sales.
This is exactly why it took me 6 months to get going, having to switch carts to match gateways to match merchant services, It was not fun...still aint. I want it to be.

 

[TWalker]

Thank you...not for the bad news...just for the confirmation.

 

[reverendg]

Thank you...not for the bad news...just for the confirmation.

Hey, I spared ya the part about worrying whether or not the thousands of dollars worth of products you bought from China are going to be stopped and seized in Hong Kong or by our own friendly customs dept

D'oh , did I say that out loud? l.o.l well then I guess I didn't spare you. sorry

 

[ISBN]

Are you familiar with Google Checkout? Here is a link...

Transaction Fees : Transaction fees - Google Checkout Merchant Help

 

[reverendg]

Are you familiar with Google Checkout? Here is a link...

Transaction Fees : Transaction fees - Google Checkout Merchant Help

Been there, done that. I was given this page and specific text in response to my questioning

https://checkout.google.com/support/sell/bin/answer.py?answer=75724&hl=en The page on their policies and prohibited items.

tobacco and cigarettes Cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, and alternative products

I've also heard from a few other vendors that were dropped by google checkout after they had already been using them for a while.

 

[ISBN]

Well, that is a pile of steam!!!

I thought they were a good alternative to paypal because of the fee structure.
But it looks like you can't use them if you sell animal, vegetable or mineral.

Sorry... I thought I was helping.

 

[TWalker]

Hey, I spared ya the part about worrying whether or not the thousands of dollars worth of products you bought from China are going to be stopped and seized in Hong Kong or by our own friendly customs dept

D'oh , did I say that out loud? l.o.l well then I guess I didn't spare you. sorry

I'm already familiar with that. I've been ordering from China and selling locally long time.

I can do the merchant account route, I just don't want to I guess. Wish there some kind of workaround for Paypal like a cart that would just send invoices and then I could request the money. I would end up losing sales though because of the extra step involved? And the old "don't mention ecigs" route is ok for people I know but eventually youll get nabbed.

 

[reverendg]

I'm already familiar with that. I've been ordering from China and selling locally long time.

I can do the merchant account route, I just don't want to I guess. Wish there some kind of workaround for Paypal like a cart that would just send invoices and then I could request the money. I would end up losing sales though because of the extra step involved? And the old "don't mention ecigs" route is ok for people I know but eventually youll get nabbed.

Yea, I built my first site (first version of my site) using publisher on my computer thinking that I could just add paypal buttons to it, but then found out about all of the hassle's .

I have a feeling you're right about how paypal will eventually catch on to all of the "gifts" of money changing hands within the e-cig community. But maybe they'll just turn a blind eye to it. They are making money after all, and they can always claim what they don't know....yada yada.

 

[TWalker]

Now my big question is:

I just put in an order at a major Ecig player TotallyWicked and and payed with you know who? PP...thats who. Now how exactly do they pull that off?

 

[bornagainst]

You paid extra for a FOREIGN FEE, since TW uses a UK address with PAYPAL.

Check your balance, there was an additional fee that you paid to do this.

PAYPAL in North America is not allowed, and is what people are referring to. TW is overpriced at the best of times, and the additional fee that you must incur to shop there makes it even more expensive.

 

[mwa102464]

Must be something going on with that because there are a few using PP that are very big suppliers, but they are also outside of the USA, which leads me to believe there are certain overseas polices that allow this to happen, just not here in the USA

 

[mwa102464]

Ahhh there you go

 

[TWalker]

You paid extra for a FOREIGN FEE, since TW uses a UK address with PAYPAL.

Check your balance, there was an additional fee that you paid to do this.

PAYPAL in North America is not allowed, and is what people are referring to. TW is overpriced at the best of times, and the additional fee that you must incur to shop there makes it even more expensive.

Yes I suspected that.
And I always thought TW was overpriced but man I underpayed today. Great sale. If anyone wants a discount code use mine RUIDOSO unless thats not allowed.

I'll go check the rules and if it is will edit my post.

 

[Raenon]

There are several good options for hosting that won't cost you an arm and a leg, even for dedicated or virtual private servers.

There are also a couple of good merchant processors, including ones that will take e-cigs, which don't require upfront application fees, and have reasonable minimum monthly charges while still giving you all the great features. Much of this information is provided on supplier-only areas, but if you're looking to go into business- shoot me a PM and I'll give you a run-down of some of the solutions that worked for me, or that I considered and why.

PayPal, Amazon and Google checkout aren't really options for vendors in the US. It's against their terms of service, and you'll eventually be shut down (and usually sooner rather than later!)

-edit-
Regular shopping carts work as well, provided you can get a payment module for your gateway. I actually work with a merchant processor who provided a module for osCommerce. I use Zen Cart, so I had to rewrite it, but I'd be willing to share that code if anyone else was interested (kind of a limited segment there lol)

 

[TWalker]

PAYPAL in North America is not allowed, and is what people are referring to. TW is overpriced at the best of times, and the additional fee that you must incur to shop there makes it even more expensive.

I need a UK PP account....

 

[TWalker]

Anyone have experience with chronopay? I see they are one of the few supported processors with the cart I want to use.

 

[whokrz]

Some vendors are using wepay.
https://www.wepay.com/