Handling german payment

[jakeylakey]

Hello,

Ive recently launched a Eccomerce site in Germany. We launched the site with only credit card support and have been disappointed with the conversion ratio that we have received. After much reading, Ive realised we made a big fault in not allowing direct debit type payments (ELV), im now working on adding this feature to the site.

Does anyone have experience of direct debit (ELV) payments from a website? Are goods usually shipped from the merchant before the money has cleared or after (3-5 days clearance). Do you experience much fraud from German ELV customers?

Any other advice on how I should operate our highly automated system with respect to ELV payments would be awesome. Thanks.

[edited by: lorax at 4:05 pm (utc) on Aug. 29, 2007]
[edit reason] no URLs please [/edit]

[Morgenhund]

In Germany a lot of sales are done by "Ueberweisung" (wire transfer) -- you just send a "Rechnung" (invoice) per e-mail to the customer with your bank account details, amount and purpose of payment, and that is all. They wire transfer it using online-banking or going to the bank.

Some customers hesitate using "Lastschrift" (ELV) since it gives a company too much power and might be abused.