ecommerce

[issan2]

Hi

Does anyone have any experience of setting up web sites with shopping carts and the ability to accept credit cards ? Ive been looking into this and things like payment methods and merchant accounts.

I wondered what systems people thought were the best at a reasonable price. Also, what do people do about setting up merchant accounts. Lastly has anyone tried to set up off shore ?

Do any of you guys have shopping carts on your sites ? If so do you encounter any problems with the merchant account ie rejected transactions, fees, delayed funds transfer ?

cheers

Issan

[eek]

Last time I looked (October last year) Protx was by far the cheapest solution for the web side of things.

For a merchant account the best bet is to shop around the UK banks, choose two and then try and play one off against the other. Its probably best to avoid offshore accounts as that would mean finding another provider for the web side of things (unless of course you are looking at the more dubious side of the internet).

Remember that with online purchaes any problems will simply come back to haunt you later (unlike real shops you are liable for all chargebacks....). Its best to find a means of verifying every customer somehow or other (using 192.com to verify addresses and actually calling the potential customer are cheap sensible solutions).

[issan2]

Thanks eek, Ive got 192 access so I could do that. There is nothing dubious here. Its just a retail setup for an offshore mail order business. Just trying to look at all the angles of hosting and billing ie totally offshore (Jersey / Isle of man) or UK based front end and UK taxes ...

[eek]

That shouldn't make any difference with the uk based provides as its the provider /bank connections you need to worry. Assuming you can find a suitable highstreet bank with an offshore bit I don't think you'll have a problem.

On a different matter I'd avoid Jersey and the IoM and look at Guernsey or one of the small channel islands. There are rumors that Jersey will be introducing VAT in the near future (and that will probably defeat the object of being there).