Forum Moderators: buckworks
Have used Worldpay for past few years, but is there anyone better? Have used the combined Merchant acco of Worldpay.
Clients pay with corporate credit cards only.
Avg Transaction is $2000 AUD
Won't be processing more than about $30000pa online
Future payments will include those from foreign card holders.
Best to do this with gateway and merchant combined, or have a local Oz merchant bank?
Help?!?
Who are the "big 4"?
Wondering whether a 3rd party processor is a "better" route to go than merchant account and gateway. Advice?
Am with Worldpay in the UK. Am composing an email asking them for a best price (they don't publish their charges and won't say over the phone - how 'interesting'! Tells me that they are negotiable. Will update as events progress.
Pricing is cheaper if your merchant account is with St George Bank, CBA or Bank SA.
They seem to have some sort of affiliation with St George, as they also offer a special start up deal with merchant account at StG.
To use eway, you have to be a registered Australian business.
We are just looking into this issue ourselves. We already have a merchant account with Westpac, but need a payment gateway for very low volume online turnover, in a market initially confined to AU/NZ.
[edited by: lorax at 1:56 pm (utc) on Mar. 15, 2006]
[edit reason] removed URL [/edit]
At an average of $2,000 per transaction, you presumably don't sell heaps every day *_* so why don't you take the details of the customer on-line *as if* it were going to be an on-line purchase i.e. it seems 'live' to them, but then you manually process the transaction through your merchant a/c yourself - better opportunity to scan for fraud too.
So that means I'm left with Mokita's suggestion of St George merchant account at 1.5 to 1.8% per transaction.
Update on charges:
St George:
$220 AUD establishment fee
Monthly £33 = circa $400pa
So total of $660pa before the merchant service fee %.
CBA (Commonwealth Bank of Australia) are quoting a 2.5% Merchant Service Fee, but fixed charges are lower:
Application Fee $79.00
Minimum Monthly Fee $12.00
Transaction Fee 0.14c - 0.28c
Termination Fee $110.00 (cheeky buggers!)
PLUS, CBA are asking for this:
1. 2 years financial statements for the company
2. For start up businesses we require a personal
3. balance sheet for all directors
4. Detailed business plan with projections
5. Web site terms and conditions
6. Risk mitigation plan
In the end Worldpay have come back saying that whilst they can't (or won't!) lower their 4.5% fee, since we do have a long standing and very positive track record with them and credit rating-wise in the UK, they are willing to waive the $200 setup fee, and the $430 yearly fee for the first year.
Mr BJ's suggestion saves on Eway's charges:
$199 1st year & $350 thereafter
0.50 per transaction
On further thought though, Mr Bj - wouldn't not using a gateway mean that the payment wouldn't be over a secure server? Personally I wouldn't key in my credit card unless I saw a "https://" in the URL.
So to save all the hassle of jumping through the merchant bank's 6 hoops above, relearning how they do things differently to worldpay, and recoding the site, and since the first years' sales figures are going to be pretty low, the 4.5% from worldpay comes out the option of choice.
On further thought though, Mr Bj - wouldn't not using a gateway mean that the payment wouldn't be over a secure server? Personally I wouldn't key in my credit card unless I saw a "https://" in the URL.
No, not necessarilly.
Whilst the secure 'https' and the clients seeing the 'little lock' in their browser still definitely means something to them (even though it is of very dubious worth) - so it is a must have in e-commerce.
To get that 'https' may mean as little as $20/year to your ISP.
I think you need to talk to some more people and get a bit of advice - you seem very willing to throw 5% of every sale away!
So if I saved the gateway fees, what would I need to do myself that the gateway would have done for me?
This would mean only having to pay St George their 1.5 to 1.8% Merchant fee charge, plus other charges.
Was surprised to see how Aus Merchant banks don't allow charging in foreign currencies. This is a big plus in Worldpay's cap. When I run courses in the east, will be able to offer charges in their local currency, instead of an approximate that will vary on the latest exch rate.
It's a learning curve, and I'm climbing it fast! Makes for late nights here in London though.
....how Aus Merchant banks don't allow charging in foreign currencies
well, that may be the deciding point for you to not do it yourself.
I've just happened across another store owner that wants to operate like that - for reasons of the possibility of not having the reqd. item in stock, and fraud etc.
