The Payment Guru

I have been lazy. but will update this site. please provide companies you want me to investigate

The Payment Guru — Fri, 20 May 2011 10:01:54 +0000

Hi Everyone,

I love banking and love payments. No doubt about it. I have just been super busy in my day job but am now going to dedicate some time to update this site because there are so many payment systems out there are getting through them all can be a bitch (excuse my french).

About 2 years ago the geeky maths guy in me came out and I build a massive calculator than went through +50 ways to receive payments including 3rd party processors, gathways + merchant and mobile. it spat out an answer on what you average transaction costs would be. The in puts you would put in are sales details, country that sale occurs, currency, average size of transaction, how many transaction per month. I was very proud of the calculator. But I never got it up on this site. I will get it up though. In saying that, I want for people to give me payment systems they want me to review and add. Please make comments below and add them.

I am always happy to take emails and have helped many people out who have sourced me from this site. My advise to you is free and without getting into it, companies pay me plenty for my overall finance and banking input.

I just love the freedom of the web. So those who thought the Guru was dead, he is still alive and well. Just a busy boy.

Help me out and give me companies and payment systems you want me to analyse.

Cheers

Your broski in the payments world

The Payment Guru

Credit cards and the online world

The Payment Guru — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 08:59:38 +0000

Credit Card payment is currently the most common form of payment available on the internet when you purchase from a website. Credits Cards are increasingly safer with it now being more dangerous to use your Credit Card in a retail store than it is in an online store. All the major cards have worked tirelessly to ensure maximum safety for their customers.

I remember when there were only a few options to choose from when deciding on which credit card system to use, now there are literally hundreds with some offering worldwide service and others country specific. The big step to online sales was through the introduction of gateway systems which linked a person/business’s current merchant account they had with their bank to an online payment portal. This was when businesses could first accept mass payments on the net.

Although there are many different credit card payment platforms available, I am yet to find one that does not offer one of either MasterCard or Visa as a payment option. These two cards are the most widely used in the world and especially among internet users. A provider would be foolish to think merchants would use their system if it didn’t have both MasterCard and Visa plus others such as American Express, Discovery and Diners.

Basically there are two paths you can go down when deciding on what payment method you are going to use when accepting credit cards;

• Merchant account + Payment Gateway, and/or
• 3rd Party Merchant Account

I have gone through each one in more details under Payment Methods.

So you want to accept credit card payments online

The Payment Guru — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 07:49:35 +0000

Do you want to start collecting credit card payments online but don’t really know where to start. There are so many options out there for you and to be honest it is impossible to say a particular company is best because there are so many factors you have to decide on when choosing a payment provider.

There are two main ways for any online business or website to start taking credit card payments.

1. Let someone accept credit card payments on your behalf (called 3rd Party Processor), or

2. Set your self up with an Internet Merchant Account (IMA) and a Payment Gateway.

So which one is best for you? If you are small and are just starting out then it is probably best to get a 3rd Party Processor account as they are a lot cheaper to set up and you can start taking payments straight away. Most 3rd Party Processors actually charge you zip, nada, nothing to set up an account. Most of the time they charge you a fee for receiving credit card payments (anywhere from 2-10%) which comes straight out of the payment you recieve. So if you sell a product for $120 then you might see $112 come through. In this case, the 3rd Party Processor charged you $8 for accepting the credit card payment for you.

If you expect to do high volumes then a IMA plus a gateway could be the best option for you. An Internet Merchant Account is usually, but not always, set up by a bank. It is similar to a normal merchant account such as one a business might have to receive efpos payment (POS) from a retail store but instead of being for physical purchases it is specifically for purchases online. A merchant account can cost up to $1000 but you should definitly shop around as many local banks will try and take you for a ride and get as much as they can from you.

In addition to the merchant account, which is where the money you recieve goes, you need a payment gateway to ensure the processing of the purchases credit card. If you do set up a merchant account with your local bank, ensure that you don’t simply accept the gateway they provide you as most of the time there are much better and cheaper alternatives out there. Payment Gateways will usually charge you a per transaction fee although I have seen some recently which offer a fixed monthly fee which is can be a much better option if you do 1000s of transactions each much.

Which ever method you choose, be sure to shop around. You can use the Payment Guru calculator if you are savvy as we check a huge number of providers for you to ensure you get the best deal possible. It will save you hours if not days working out which option is best for you.

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Don’t just go with the payment gateway your bank recommends

The Payment Guru — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 09:03:18 +0000

The amount of people I speak to that have chosen an expensive gateway surprises me. Most of the time I hear ‘it was the gateway my bank recommended’ – yeah, no shit. The reason your back recommended this particular gateway is probable because they take a snip of each transaction for putting you onto them.

Of course it is important to select a payment gateway that is safe and conforms with any legal requirements but most gateways do that otherwise they would be out of business and in jail. If you do high volumes of sales online you probable have an Internet Merchant Account (IMA) and a gateway provider. Usually both will charge fees on a per transaction basis so it is very important you get a gateway that is safe but good value at the same time.

By shopping around you can save $1000 on your gateway provider. Just recently I helped out a company and redirected them to a different gateway provider. I saved them $750 per month and they only turnover a few hundred thousand each year, they aren’t even that big. They were so happy they decided to pay $50 for the advise.

Don’t take the word of your bank when they say ‘this is the gateway we recommend’. Ask them if you can choose your own gateway provider and if they say no then you know they are trying to squeeze cash out of you and tell them you’ll go to another bank thank you very much.

Shop around with your gateway provider or use the Payment Calculator on this website. You could save yourself a heap of cash – and when has that been a bad thing!

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cache:9Y-82hEz5VcJ:www thepaymentguru com/ payment gateway comparison

Mobile phone payment systems on the rise

The Payment Guru — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 08:35:14 +0000

I remember when i first started selling online there was no paypal to make it easy for you. Most merchants had to go through their local bank which was costly and time consuming. Now there are so many payment methods out there that cover just about anything.

Mobile payments is one of those. It is relatively new and over the last few years a few players such as Boku (formally Paymo), Daopay and Zaypay are taking a hold of the micorpayment market by offering merchants a chance to access a whole new customer base – those that don’t have credit card or bank account.

I am from Australia and we like USA, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Europe take for granted the access we have to bank accounts and credit cards. I remember having a bank account when I was 5 years old and depositing a few bucks a month into my account. But what about the mass markets of Russia, Asia and South America? Many people in those countries don’t have bank accounts let alone credit cards so how are they suppose to purchase online? Well previously this market was hard to tap – not any more.

Mobile payments systems now make it possible to access people who own a mobile even if they don’t have any banking facilities. Services such as Boku let consumers buy products with the payment going onto their phone bill. This means instead of having a potential customer base of 1.5 billion you have a customer base of 4 billion and rising.

The merchant fees are high, as much as 75% in cases, because the telecommunication company takes the risk and they don’t like doing that. But as former corporate banker I can see this changing as the telecommunication companies begin to manage the risk better and learn to flick it off to those to banks and the like.

granted you can’t sell $1000 items using mobile payment systems because the telco quite frankly won’t take that risk on but if you are selling goods under $15 then you should consider it. Those that sell small denomination goods like songs, mp3, ringtones, e-books, web templates, pictures and the like are likely to benefit in a massive way by allowing customers to pay by mobile phone.

A few benefits include

1. Often there is no fixed transaction cost so small 20c items can now be sold profitably.

2. No sign up is required by the purchaser, they just use their phone and that is it

3. Access 4 billion potential customers

4. Possible for merchants to successfully tap into the lucrative markets of China, Brazil, India, Russia and Indonesia and take advantage of their huge populations and rising mobile phone usage.

Overall I am very excited about this mobile payment space and am a bit of an expert in the field. If you are serious about selling online then you should get yourself involved and see what benefits your website can take out of it all.

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Trialpay – a unique alternative for onlline merchants

The Payment Guru — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 12:53:04 +0000

Well I thought i had seen it all then BAM a provider like Trialpay comes along as a serious alternative to Paypal and the likes. What if I said you could sell your product for free and still make money. You’d probably say I was crazy but this is exactly the strategy of Trailpay.

When you sell a product usually the customer checks out and pays you. But Trialpay is different. When a customer checks out, instead of paying fo your product, they choose to purchase a product from somewhere else and then as a result they get your product for free. So if I am selling a $20 product online then Triapay will offer the customer a chance to get my $20 for free if they purchase another product which comes from a participating Trialpay company. There are lots of companies on board including Apple, Sony, Skype, Blockbuster and more – in fact, there are over 2000 of them.

Effectively what is happing is the participating company, lets say Apple, aregiving you a commission for selling their product to your customer. The cheaper you are selling your product for the more options a customer has. So if i am selling a $20 product then a customer of mine will be shown products where the commission I get is over $20. If I sell a $10 product then my customer will get more options and if I am selling a $3 then my customer will get even more options. This is because there are more products from Trialpay participating customers giving +$3 commission than there are giving +$20 commission.

It will be interesting to see how Trialpay goes and where it ends up in 5 years.

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Don’t miss out on potential customers with a bad payment system

The Payment Guru — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:02:53 +0000

Let’s face it, there is nothing worse for an online business than if someone really wants your product but can’t purchase your product because you haven’t provided a payment method they can use. Not having the latest technology as a payment option will cost you sales, so it literally pays to keep up to date. Sensible e-commerce managers provide a range of payment options for customers, if they don’t they are likely missing out on sales.

Many shopping carts use a range of payment options such as Mastercard, Visa, PayPal but a shopping cart might not be the answer for everyone. They can be hard to implement and cost money as many require purchasing or subscriptions.

Think about what your target market is? If you want to sell to +18 year olds in first world countries then accepting credit card payments and using PayPal might cover you just fine, but what if you suddenly wanted to sell to Indonesia or China? or your target market are those under 18 years old. Then you would want to make sure you have a mobile phone payment option so people could purchase your products using a mobile phone.

The ultimate end game is that you get as many people able to purchase your goods/services while at the same time keeping your merchant costs low.

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Welcome to our new website

The Payment Guru — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:34:28 +0000

Welcome to the new and improved the Payment Guru website. Our old website used Joomla but we are now using Wordpress as it is a powerful blogging tool and we aim to be the most informative source for online merchants.

We invite all viewers to leave comments and get involved in understanding the payment options out there for online sales. The best and newest payment systems for online merchants.