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There are a few different options
if you're considering selling goods/services on your
website.
1. Merchant account from your
bank
You can open a merchant account (for processing credit
cards online) from any NZ bank. The problem with most
bank merchant accounts is that they will only let
you process NZ credit cards. The only bank in NZ that
offers online processing of international credit cards
at this time is BNZ and the product/service used for
this is called "BuyLine". For more information
on enabling this service please contact BNZ directly
or for NZ only credit card processing facilities contact
any other NZ bank.
2. Paypal
Another option is to use service such as Paypal. Paypal
has over 20million users/members worldwide and is
the official payment method used by worlds largest
online store ebay.com. The system Paypal works on
is every member sets up a paypal account and uses
it to make payments from their cc or take payments
on their website from other paypal members. New Paypal
accounts are very easy to open and people can start
taking/making payments via paypal in a matter of minutes.
This ease of setup and Paypal's large user base make
Paypal a very good (and much more affordable) method
of taking online payments. To find out more and open
a paypal account go to http://www.paypal.com
3. International Payment Processor
3rd option is to use an international payment processor
in order to process online payments. To find a processor
try searching Google (or your favourite search engine)
with keywords "international merchant accounts"
"international payment processors" "international
credit card processors" and variations of those
Note: There are thousands of payment processors online
offering merchant accounts BUT there is one criteria
you must first make sure they satisfy. You must confirm
that the particular processor is accepting clients/merchants
outside USA as just a small portion of them will accept
international (outside USA clients) Below are a few
examples that do support NZ merchants
http://www.worldpay.com
(recommended)
http://www.2checkout.com
http://www.ikobo.com
3rd party payment processors
vs merchant accounts
Merchant account is like your own bank account. You're
the only one using it and you're fully responsible
for activity on your account. You use it to process
clients' credit cards and the money is kept on your
account for a certain period of time (24h to 4 weeks
depending on the processor) before it gets trasfered
onto your nominated bank account.
3rd party payment processors do not give you your
very own merchant account but will process all payments
(for 1000s of merchants) under 1 common account and
then distribute funds every 2-4 weeks amongst merchants.
It is highly recommended you open your own merchant
account. However, it is much more costly (~$1500-$2000)
and also a lot harder to open and setup. Worldpay.com
provides merchant accounts whereas www.2checkout.com
and www.ikobo.com are 3rd party payment processors.
The 2nd step once you setup a
merchant/3rd party processor/paypal account is to
integrate it and setup a shopping cart on your website
Most payment processors (if not all) will have shopping
carts available for you to use (free). They will also
help you with installations and integration of their
system on your website. For some of them you may need
a help of a programmer in order to set it up while
others can be setup with minimal programming knowledge
(ie. Paypal).
If you need help integrating the system we will also
be able to help you with that. The cost for this service
is $60/h incl. gst. For more questions/info please
contact us on (09) 5281930 or email support@
cheaphosting.net.nz
Which
option is best for me?
Now which one of these options
you go for depends entirely on your objective and
budget
If for example, you're planning of selling your services/products
overseas on a smaller scale then it may be best
to choose Paypal
(small or no setup fees, easy and quick to setup).
In this situation you may also consider the likes
of www.2checkout.com
or www.ikobo.com. Now, we would not recommend you
go for these 2 if you're launching a large online
business and expecting high sales figures as they
have had some "unhappy customers" over the
years and their reliability is not top notch. However,
they're there as an alternative, easy, quick and cheap
solutions.
If you're selling inside NZ
then contact your bank to find out more about their
merchant services.
If you're planning on launcing a larger international
product/business it will be best to either go
for BNZ Buy Line or Worldpay
account. They're both very solid options (owned and
operated by banks which is very important) and will
be a solid investment if you're in it for a long run.
One most important thing to remember
is if you search the internet for merchant providers
do make sure they support international merchants
because as I mentioned above a very small number of
those payment processors deal with clients outside
USA.
NOTE: All processors outlined above support NZ clients.
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