Payment Gateways vs PayPal/Google Checkout
To sell products or services on a website, you need an ecommerce website. The ecommerce website typically hosts yourwebsitename.com with a web design, content information web pages, a product catalog, a shopping cart where consumers save their product selections, a checkout interface where the consumer completes the purchase, and a backend administrative interface where the website owner/manager can add, remove or edit the product catalog and content web pages.
During the checkout process, the website needs to connect to a third party system to process the actual credit card payment transaction. For payment processing, Paypal is a great way to get started with no up front costs. If you want a more professional payment processor, Authorize.net is the most popular solution, however that includes startup and monthly costs, as well as banking applications and approvals. With a professional payment processor like Authorize.net, you also need a merchant account (business bank deposit account). You can startup with Paypal, then upgrade to Authorize.net at a future time. You can use both PayPal and Authorize.net together to provide a broader choice of payment transactions to your potential customers.
To setup your ecommerce website, production costs typically range from $2000 to $5000 depending upon the amount of products in the catalog and the website’s overall level of complexity. It is not uncommon for ecommerce web design productions to cost in excess of $15,000. Website hosting subscriptions will be between $300 and $600 per year, depending upon the quality of performance desired. Domain names (your-website-name.com) typically cost $10 per year.
You can setup a Paypal account by yourself right now. Go to Paypal.com, and create a paypal standard account. You then link the paypal account to your bank account, which usually takes 3-5 days to complete.
The primary advantages of an Internet Payment Gateway is ease of use and broad compatibility. Internet Payment Gateways account for almost 90% of all Internet payment transactions. A consumer can purchase your product or service right on your website with a major credit card like Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover, etc.
With a third party payment processor like PayPal, the consumer is re-directed from your website to the PayPal website where the payment transaction is completed. Some web savvy consumers use PayPal on a regular basis, however, many consumers are not comfortable paying via PayPal, which can account for a loss in the potential sale.
You can read more about the advantages of an Internet Payment Gateway vs PayPal here: https://www.authorize.net/advantage/
If you want more information about producing your own eccommerce website, contact Razworks at 941-685-8857, or email us here:
http://www.razworks.com/contact.php
