slindo - 10:23 pm on Dec 6, 2002 (gmt 0)

I've been doing just what you say for several years. Works fine. We have a range of different products and shipping options and there was just no way I could boil it down so a shopping cart could spit out the price online. If I was starting again I'd probably go with a gateway and online processing, but at the time it was prohibitively expensive for a small operation like mine.

The other thing I like about it, is using a simple formmail order form which comes via a shared secure server I was able to keep the ordering process down to one page - none of this signing up and constantly reviewing and re-reviewing what you filled in on the last page nonsense. A lot of shopping carts are just to tedious for words, with dozens of dumb unecessary boxes you have to fill or click, and endless back and forth until you get them all.

When I signed up for my merchant account I told them what I was doing, and they had no problems with it. I even called up the providers security dept to ask them if they had any rules of advice about sending cards over the net and they laughed and told me the most dangerous moment in a CCs life is when you hand it to a waiter.

<<No. If you do not tell your merchant account that you are processing internet orders your account will be closed so quick, you won't have time to blink when they find out. (If you do tell them, the prices will be put up because of the higher levels of fraud online. If you don't you may be putting through a lot of fraud and this will alert them to check you out. You don't want the account closing - you can become credit blacklisted)
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