There are several alternate methods for accepting credit cards online that will cost less money. The disadvantage of most of these options is that they do not look as professional and they do not provide a simple ordering process. When users get confused, there is always the risk that they will abandon their purchase. On the other hand, the advantage of these options is that they can provide a significant cost savings compared to the method we proposed in our last issue.

Using Your Internet Gateway for a Secure Server


An Internet gateway encrypts your customer's transactions from your website, submits them for authorization and settlement to your merchant account and holds the numbers securely. In our recommended setup, the transaction is actually completed on your website on your secure server (https://www.yourwebsite.com/).

However, if you want to save the expense of setting up a secure server on your site, many Internet gateways offer to allow you to use their secure server instead (examples of this are: Verisign PayFlow Link or LinkPoint HTML). The disadvantage to this is that before visitors enter their credit card number for the order they will be sent to the address of your Internet gateway to enter the credit card number and complete the transaction.

For example, they will be putting items in a shopping cart on your site at http://www.yourwebsite.com/. When they decide to complete the order, they will press a button that might say "Checkout on a Secure Server" and they will be taken from http://www.YourWebsite.com/ to https://www.YourInternetGateway.com/. In addition, the site they will go to at your Internet gateway will not look the same as your site. Usually the Internet gateway will allow you to customize the page with your logo and a background, but it will still be apparent that they are no longer on your site. This can be confusing for customers on your site and can cause them to not trust your Internet store or to abandon their purchase.

No Shopping Cart
If you are only selling one product with one price, you can simply have a one page order form and not use a shopping cart at all. If you try and implement several products without a shopping cart, it can be confusing for customers to order from your site.

Not Processing the Credit Cards in Real-Time
Instead of having the internet gateway process the transactions real-time, your web designer can store the credit card numbers and orders in a database on your site's server. Then, you can get the information from your site's server and manually submit the transaction to the credit card company and send an e-mail to let your customers know if their credit card was approved. This would cut all of the costs for the Internet gateway. (You would still need a secure server for this setup). The disadvantage here is that:

• You have to take the time to run the authorizations
• If a customer accidentally typed in the wrong number they would not get immediate feedback from the site, whereas with a gateway they would, and they could fix it themselves right away.
• It is less "secure" for you to hold the credit card numbers in a database on your site (even with the secure server) than it is for the gateway company to hold it because they take extra security measures. In order to decrease the risk of credit card theft, you will want to delete credit card numbers as soon as you retrieve them from the online database.

Using an Online Payment Service
You could use an online payment service like PayPal's Business Account. You can see information on PayPal's services and fees here: http://www.paypal.com This eliminates your need for a merchant account, secure server, and shopping cart. The disadvantage of these services is that it doesn't look quite as professional. In this scenario, visitors would again be moved from your site to the payment services site to put items in their shopping cart and to complete the purchase. This can be a little more user-friendly if the shopping cart and checkout screens are put into a new browser window, so visitors can easily continue to shop your site. Your only costs would be the payment service fees and the cost of your web designer integrating it into your site.

When it comes to accepting payments online, there are many options available. It can be confusing, so if you are seeking the right solution for your business, please contact us at 414-425-4069 or lori@brillianceweb.com and we would be happy to help.