SolveYourProblem
Article Series:
Niche Marketing Opportunities
Accepting
Payments for Niche Products
by Jeff Cohen
In the early days of internet marketing accepting
payment for products sold online was a real headache, fortunately
for you this is no longer the case and you don't even need
a merchant bank account. Over the last few years a number of
companies gave positioned themselves as third
party credit card processors which allow you to accept payments by credit
card at your website for your product or service.
In a typical online purchase your customer
will enter their credit card information into a form, and
each third party processor
has their own particular form (known as a gateway). The third
party processor contacts the bank that issued the customer's
credit card and the issuing bank approves or declines the transaction
based on the information entered into the form. The processor
routes the result back to the customers computer screen either
as a "purchase declined" message or by passing your
customer onto the web page containing your sales fulfillment
information.
If the transaction was successful, the customer’s credit card
will be billed for the selling price of your niche product
or service. This service is not free and you will be charged
a set fee for each transaction. The most common third party
payment processors are:
1)
PayPal
PayPal is owned by eBay the world’s biggest online auction
and can be used by customers living in the developed world.
Opening a PayPal account id free, but you will need to verify
your bank and contact details before being able to use it for
accepting payments at your website. There is a fee charged
for each transaction and this is automatically deducted from
the selling price charged to the customer.
You can link your PayPal account to your bank account which
makes it a simple task to transfer the money made from your
sales into your account. Your normal banking transaction fees
will be charged on this service.
Be careful of using an un-encrypted PayPal payment link on
your website as it is a simple task for link highjackers to
change the details to their own so they get the money for every
sale you make...
PayPal can be easily incorporated into a shopping cart system
(i.e. you can sell multiple products at different prices all
in one transaction).
2)
2CheckOut
2CheckOut is a very popular third party payment processor
and although there is a small setup fee, they don't charge
a monthly fee for their services; they do charge a small fee
for each transaction processed. As with PayPal, you can use
2CheckOut with a shopping cart system.
One advantage of using 2CheckOut is you can accept credit
cards payments from customers living virtually anywhere. The
will transfer money directly into any US or Canadian bank and
send a monthly check or Bank Wire to non-US bank account holders.
3)
ClickBank
ClickBank is another similar third party payment processor
who have restricted their service to suppliers of downloadable
products or internet services. For example, e-books, one time
membership fees, software programs etc. To open a ClickBank
account there is a small one time setup fee, no monthly fee
and you are charged a small fee on every transaction processed
on your behalf. You will be sent a check twice a month for
all the sales you make during that period.
One major benefit of Using ClickBank for your niche product
is you can set up your affiliate program through them and they
will automatically pay your affiliates for every sale made
on your behalf.
One big disadvantage of using ClickBank is that there is you
can't incorporate their payment gateway into a shopping cart
system.
4)
Digibuy
Like ClickBank, Digibuy can only be used if you sell digital
products or services that can be downloaded, the major advantage
of using Digibuy is that you can use a shopping cart with their
payment gateway (i.e. you can sell multiple products).
Unfortunately they don't include an affiliate payment system
like ClickBank.
Your choice of third party payment processor is going to depend
on how many products you sell and whether you intend to run
an affiliate program. One extra consideration is some customers
will be unwilling to use their credit card on the internet.
For these customers you need to decide whether it's worthwhile
accepting alternate forms of payment... Some third party payment
processors, for example Digibuy, allow you to accept alternate
forms of payment through them as default.
# # # # # SolveYourProblem.com : 2007
> Home > Niche Marketing: Main Page
|
