Online Credit Card Payments

Online Payment Solutions

If you are going to be selling products or services online, you will want a secure easy to use method to accept payment.  Sliced Bread integrates with both Paypal and Eway for accepting Credit Cards online.

Each approach is significantly different with different setup and transaction costs.  enflexion reccommends that for the most professional approach to online transactions a fully seamless approach is used. 

Seamless Processing

Shared Processing

A seamless credit card transaction works totally in the background of your website with the user never knowing that another company is processing their credit card.  It works in the following way: 

  1. The user adds products to the online shopping cart
  2. The user fills in their personal details (name, address, shipping address etc)
  3. The user fills in their credit card number
  4. The website sends the credit card number and the billing address captured in step 3 to the online payment processor
  5. The Online Payment Processor accepts or declines the payment
  6. The user is either displayed an order completion page or
  7. The user is displayed a transaction decline page
  8. If the transaction is processed the money is automatically transferred to your merchant bank account. 

A shared credit card transaction takes the user away from your website for all the credit card payments and then returns them to your website at the completion of the transaction.  It works in the following way: 

  1. The user adds products to the online shopping cart
  2. The user fills in their personal details (name, address, shipping address etc)
  3. The user is taken to a credit card payment page on the eWay website
  4. The user enters their credit card details in the system
  5. The Online Payment Processor accepts or declines the payment
  6. The user is then shown a confirmation page ont he eWay website and then asked to return to your website
  7. If the transaction is processed the money is automatically transferred to your merchant bank account. 

Benefits

Benefits

Your website never actually stores the credit card details making the process more secure and it is a "seamless" solution meaning the user never leaves your website.

  • Professional Approach;
  • User Stays on your website;
  • Users have an innate trust of the seamless approach

The benefits of this solution is that no SSL certificate is required, making it a very easy (and cheap to operate) solution.

  • Low cost of entry;
  • Can be up and running in hours;
  • Over 5 million people belong to shared payments solutions worldwide

Pitfalls

Pitfalls

The downside of this approach

The main downside of this approach is that a SSL Certificate is required on your web server to securely encrypt the transaction.  However this is not a major drawback of the solution.

The downside of this approach

The major drawback of this approach is that by taking the user away from your website to complete the transaction will increase non completed transactions.

This approach also has more steps for the user to complete and is less professional looking to the user.

Paypal

Paypal (http://www.paypal.com.au) is an online service for accepting payment that integrates into your website, but btakes the user away from your website to process the transaction.  Using Paypal

eWay

eWay is an Online Payment Processor which handles the credit card transaction and deposits the money directly into your Australian Merchant Account.  To use eWay you must have a Merchant Account for accepting Credit cards which is enabled for Online Transactions.

To apply for a merchant account can sometimes be a daunting process for a start up business and can take several weeks for the bank to process the application. 

Overall Reccommendations by enflexion

For a small business that is just getting started on the web, Paypal is by far the simplest and most cost effective solution.  A Paypal account does not require that you have a Merchant Account and there are no fees on setting up the account.

However if you are an exisiting organisation or want to appear more professional, then you should consider a seamless online credit card solution such as eWay.

Mind you, many online stores accept both Paypal and an alternative such as eWay as this increases the chances of a successfully completed transaction and provideds the customer with more choice.

enflexion is in no way financially related to eway, eway is our preferred web hosting partner.