Paying by Credit card in the UK

And delivery charges, plus VAT where appropriate, can cost as much as the product.

The Seven Stages in Setting up Shop

1. Decide what you are selling on the Internet
2. Get all your people used to using the Email
3. Get everyone used to surfing and looking at other E-Commerce websites
4. Get set up as a Credit Card merchant
5. Organise delivery, which if it takes off can be horrendous
6. Build your on-line shop.

Credit Card Payment

Having been accepted then there are card processing options. Each bank has its own options and prices, and there is sure to be some small print along the line:

Midland Bank charge 15 UK pounds/month (180 pounds year) for either a manual machine or for a dial-up machine. The deal for manual machine would be about 4% (max) on each transaction. The deal for an online machine is about 35 pence per transaction.

Barclays Merchant Services are unhappy about giving you a manual machine for transactions where the Customer is Not Present (CNP). They charge 20 pounds month for an on-line machine, 5% (max) on Barclays cards, and 65 pence on other Visa, Switch, or MasterCard.

Having organised the Merchant Status, there are three ways of handling online payment by Credit Card.

	Option 1 - low cost - secure transmission with manual transaction processing - suitable for small merchant businesses The customer who wants to make a payment is transferred to a page on a secure server elsewhere, fills in the form in the normal way, and clicks SEND. The amount can be hard-coded into the form, or a value built up from a shopping basket. Sometimes a variable amount can be keyed in, but some card handlers would not allow this as the customer is likely to key the wrong amount and then have to adjust it. As soon as it has been successfully transmitted, he is transferred to an answer page on the merchant's regular website to thank him. The details are held on a collection page on the secure server. Sometimes the server manager will send the full details to the merchant by fax. Or the system sends the merchant an automatic Email to say that a payment form has been received. The merchant can then dial into the secure server using special free secure software. PC Magazine's Mail Call does this and is a free package. PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) is another program. Both seem to be a little clumsy. You may be able to use your regular browser to access a password protected page to get your messages. Either way the merchant then takes the credit card information, and puts it through manually as a regular transaction. There is a program for checking the Modulus 10 code to which all credit and debit card numbers adhere for immediate credibility checking.
	Option 2 - higher cost - direct transmission to bankers for authorisation and transaction handling - for larger merchant businesses with high traffic The customer completes the payment form on the secure server as above and sends it. The Secure Server takes the credit card information and sends it to the merchants bank, and when authorised by them, sends the order to the owner. The site owner will not know the card number that has been processed, only that it has been authorised and that he will be receiving payment in the normal course of business. Normally it is a fixed amount, either hard-coded onto the payment form, or built up from a Shopping-Cart, that is paid in this way, since a variable amount could be subject to errors of mistake or miskeying and then is difficult to correct.
	Option 3 - Have the card-handler collect the cash - and pay you 30 days after the end of the month - useful for businesses who do not at the moment have merchant status and do not have their own credit card facility.

Companies include:

Newnet - Support: 01705-717151 Sales: 01705-647400
http://www.newnet.co.uk
Newnet offer a secure page for £50 per year, plus £40 setup for the access to the secure server. This is on top of the normal website hosting fees (see the IAP page). Provides secure webspace which you can use as you please. There may be similar services offered by your own ISP.

SASS - The Floyd Consultancy Sales: 01256-880770
http://www.floyd.co.uk
Floyd offer a secure page for £60 per year in association with their Shop@ssistant package.

Barclays Merchant Services -- UK 0800 61 61 61 http://www.bms.barclays.co.uk
- - will clear your payment for you. They will send you an information pack.

EPDQ - http://www.epdq.co.uk see Barclays above - there are several companies like this offering Barclays service and those for other credit card companies.

Netbanx - 01223-845594
http://www.netbanx.com
A range of services, taking a hard-coded value from a shopping list, obtaining authorisation and transaction processing
They can contact your merchant account banker for this processing, or will validate the card number and authorise the payment themselves, sending you a cheque a month later. Offerings:
£75 one set item amount + 4% of amount
(reductions if turnover more than £2000)
£125 ditto but a menu of up to 10 items per order
£300 access to iCAT software for shopping cart
£500 ACTINIC plus NETBANK packages.
Netstart service: Setup: £99 + £29.95/month plus transaction charge for each payment processed.

Worldpay: http://www.worldpay.com
Mastercard: http://www.mastercard.com
Authority: http://www.radsgroup.com/authority
Secure Trading: http://www.securetrading.com
eBanx: http://www.ebanx.net

Preset Amount shopping
Where you are selling only one thing, for example, and on-line advert which costs a set fee of £20.00, then you can invite the shopper to pay this amount with no fuss. Use any of the above services.

Shopping Cart
For multiple purchases, or with buying options and variable carriage costs you need something more sophisticated. Optionally this can be run from a database of goods and services.

The way this works is that some software is pre-loaded. When you want to buy something you specify the quantity and any options you wish, and then click BUY. You are then transferred to a review page where you can see a running list of what you have bought so far and how much the total bill is. You can then either return to continue shopping, or go to a Cashier page to specify your name and address etc, and then to either pay by credit card, or ask for a quote, a pro-forma invoice, or for delivery against a monthly account.

There are two ways to build software for a shopping cart. One is to have the software written in JavaScript downloaded to your browser so that the response when you buy something is immediate; Shop@ssistant works this way.

Or to have the code written in CGI and run on the server, in which case you see that website quicker but always have a delay when you buy an item. You takes your pick.

Sometimes you can enter the quantity and options for several items, and then click buy for the complete list.

There are a number of shopping cart packages including:
JShop E-Commerce http://www.jshop.co.uk/
OS Commerce http://www.oscommerce.com/
iCat: http://www.icat.com
Cat@log: http://www.meridian-marketing.com/CATALOG/
Shop@ssistant http://www.floyd.co.uk
Actinic http://www.actinic.co.uk

There are a variety of features available to help shoppers find and choose the items they want to buy, and then present a list of items and amounts for approval and transmission.

Payment can be either by the merchant, using manual processing as in Option 1 above, or direct processing to the bank.

Other suggestions
You can invite your customers to telephone you and give the credit card details over the phone. Or ask them to send you a fax with their credit card details. Or write to you by snailmail. But all these things are a cop-out, and you really should offer the on-line service.

Certification
Normally you can use the secure website of your ISP or another body and use their digital certificate. If you set up your own then the Digital Certificate is awarded after an inspection of your facility and costs £250.

In addition, because the merchant is remote from the customer and may not be familiar to him, many of the larger on-line shopping websites have obtained certification of efficient and honest trading from an industry body. These include:
Webtrust, operated by approved accountants and is strong in Canada and the United States
http://www.webtrust.com
Consumers Association in the UK
http://www.which.net/webtrader
Staionery Office code of best practice:
http://www.itcompliance.com
Government backed scheme and code of practice
http://www.trustuk.org.uk/
Another British standard:
http://www.clicksure.com
Direct Marketing Association
http://www.the-dma.org/
Trade Safely - produces security software
http://www.tradesafely.com/

Website by: Richard Waller Comments? Suggestions? Contributions? Please contact us

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