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Google Checkout, PayPal, ProTX, etc...

Which payment processor do you prefer?

  • Google Checkout

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • PayPal

    Votes: 5 45.5%
  • ProTX

    Votes: 2 18.2%
  • WorldPay

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • Other

    Votes: 2 18.2%

  • Total voters
    11
stugster

stugster

Active Member
Hey all,

For Equiphase, we heavily rely on Google Checkout to process our orders - there are the occasional PayPal orders that come through, but in general, the majority of payments we receive are via Google.

I thought it would be handy to outline a few of the transaction fees each company charges, and the good and bad points for each "merchant".

Google Checkout
Transaction Fees: 1.5% plus 15p per transaction.

Good: For every £1 you spend on AdWords, you can process £10 in sales for free through Google Checkout.
Google pays in money to your account automatically, and on a daily basis.

Bad: Google Checkout's site is relatively complicated to get your head around and takes a wee while to get used to.


PayPal

Transaction Fees: 3.4% + 20p per transaction (for monthly sales of £0.00 - £1,500.00)

Good: PayPal is easy to use and easy to integrate on your website.

Bad: With a complicated transaction fee table, it can be a pain to do the books with. Also, it's a bit more expensive than Google. https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees-outside


ProTX

Transaction Fees: £20 a month for up to 1000 transactions per quarter. Or: 10p per transaction if over 1000 transactions per quarter.

Good: ProTX works out really cheap if you have a lot of transactions. It's also very easy to do the book keeping with since there aren't percentages or lots of changes in the fees.

ProTX will help in integrating their service with your site. ProTX doesn't require logos on the site, and can make you seem more professional.

ProTX offer additional services like telephone-charging, and terminals. These are inexpensive and useful.


Bad: ProTX requires you have a merchant account. These are reasonably expensive and will usually require a minimum contract. There will be transaction fees associated and usually a monthly cost to pay too.



My personal view on the subject of merchant/payment processors is that for any small business wanting to take payments with little expense and no tie-in contracts, have a look at Google Checkout!

If you already spend money on Adwords every month to help with your SEO, then you should really consider using Google to help cut your costs and increase your sales!
 
As a customer I tend to favour PayPal, not because I think they're good, but they are 'the devil I know'.... I already have a PayPal account linked to a card with a very small credit limit to limit my exposure. I know that in the event of a problem the CCC are very good at forcing a chargeback...

Google... I don't even use their search engine and don't readily associate them with financial services. I've no great faith in them and don't want to 'sign up' for anything with them...

ProTX I've only vaguely heard of and wouldn't trust with my credit card details to. Of the 'others' only WorldPay springs to mind; and I only slightly trust them because they're used by my local council and a few other relatively credible bodies to process payments...
 
stugster

stugster

Active Member
I totally forgot WorldPay actually. They're extremely expensive: I believe far too expensive to justify it actually.

I'm disappointed you don't use Google as a search engine, why not? :p
 
stugster

stugster

Active Member
They hang on to your money for a couple of weeks

This would be one of my bad points about them. It's scary that they're able to charge you for the pleasure of taking your money and holding onto it for a week or more!

Imagine the amount of Interest they're generating by doing this to all their clients.

As for Google Checkout's fees going up and up like Paypal, I do hope you're wrong! If that is the case, a lot of businesses will have to look elsewhere, yet again, for a reasonably priced payment-processor. Myself included!
 
stugster

stugster

Active Member
Yeah, that's a good point about getting more than one payment processor on the site :)

One bad point I forgot to mention about Google is that (as far as I'm aware) you cannot set up "Subscriptions" or automatic debits on people's accounts, which is a right pain for our clients who pay monthly. If it was PayPal, they could tell PayPal to automatically debit their account the few quid each month. With Google, I don't *think* you can do that.
 
Scottish Business Owner

Scottish Business Owner

New Member
I can really speak for the integration side as I've not really worked with any of them. As a user who purchases a lot of goods online I have to say I find Paypal the best. I dont think i've ever really had any issues from a useability perspective it's very simple and easy to work with.

Alison does make a good point though will Google hike up their prices once the capture a bit of the market? Certainly going by past experience they will!

Thanks also to Stu for a very informative post :
 
stugster

stugster

Active Member
,

Tomorrow, I'll write a wee blog about the differences between Google,Paypal,Protx,Worldpay for the Scottish Business Blog :)

Just remind me! :D
 
Last edited by a moderator:
B

brandmantra

New Member
yes paypal is expensive than other options, but most people prefer it as easy to use.
 
Tim Barlow

Tim Barlow

New Member
My view is that whilst you can survive on Paypal or Google Checkout alone, that for many businesses you need to be able to offer a more conventional credit card route as well (e.g. world pay) simply becuase many get frightened off by the paypal/goog checkout approach. The additional expense will be out weighed by the additional sales you will secure as a result.
 
Gordon N

Gordon N

New Member
PayPal for me - expensive but well known and trusted by consumers.
 
stugster

stugster

Active Member
Sorry to dig up an old(ish) thread....


Google are changing their processing fees as of 5th May.

More information can be seen here: https://checkout.google.com/seller/fees.html?hl=en&gl=GB

Seems like it's pretty much a copy of PayPal - or should that be CopOut?

Monthly Sales Through Google Checkout .....Fees Per Transaction
Less than £1500 ....................................3.4% + £0.20
£1500 - £5999.99 ..................................2.9% + £0.20
£6000 - £14999.99 .................................2.4% + £0.20
£15000 - £54999.99 ...............................1.9% + £0.20
£55000 or more .....................................1.4% + £0.20


Disappointed :(
 

dotsno

New Member
The Google Checkout fees that you mention are only relevant until May this year.

From then the fees will work on a scaled basis by looking at the previous month - fees that will look VERY familiar to anyone who uses Paypal (ie 3.4% + 20p per transaction up to £1,500 in monthly sales). You'll also lose the free transaction processing that comes with spending money on AdWords.

More here: http://checkout.google.com/seller/fees.html

For my own companies, online card processing for social networking memberships and shop transactions are done with an old style machine actually, provided by LTSB Cardnet. We have an in-house financial management system coded by us that enables much tighter control and management of our orders and payments/refunds etc. Some people do prefer to use Paypal so they can use their eBay auction funds, and so we went with that option for the immediate processing online option - it's integrated with our systems via their IPN payment notification service.
 
stugster

stugster

Active Member
The link's the same as my post :)

The fees I pasted are the fees as of 5th May 2009 onwards, as I understand it.
 

dotsno

New Member
The link's the same as my post :) The fees I pasted are the fees as of 5th May 2009 onwards, as I understand it.

Yes, odd, that posting of yours was not showing up to me when I typed mine. :( The link is indeed exactly the same, curious.
 
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