Online Payments

Make It Easy for the Customer to Pay
Keep Customers at Ease
Cancellation
Manual Processing
Automatic Processing
Automatic Processing - Internet Merchant Account
Jargon

Make it Easy for the Customer to Pay!

Credit cards are currently the most common way to pay for goods and services over the Internet, but a happy, engaged, loyal customer is one who is presented with a number of payment options.

Always:

Offer a "Print Your Order" button/option at the time of Checkout so the customer may choose to send a cheque instead of paying online.
The customer still "builds" the order form dynamically by clicking on your products to add them.

Provide easy-to-find telephone numbers for:

clients to phone orders and credit card details through; and
clients to make enquiries about existing or potential orders.

As an alternative, offer a check box for the client to click if they would like you to phone them to obtain credit card details.
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Keep Customers at Ease

Your customer wants to feel their personal information is safe.

Always:

Provide visible links to a privacy policy which should outline how you plan to store and use credit card details and other personal information, how the payment will be processed and how you deal with customer service and complaints. Customers will take comfort in the assurance that their personal details are not passed onto other parties.

Provide customers with your address and phone details.
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Cancellation

If you‘ve received payment by credit card and that customer cancels the sale, the bank will automatically deduct the disputed payment from the merchant’s account and credit the customer’s account. The merchant carries the risk and has to prove that the transaction actually took place. The cancellation period is set by the banks and may apply for a number of months.

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Manual Processing

This is the most economical way of accepting credit card payments. Your customer places the order and enters their credit card details via your website. The order and customer details are sent to you via email and the credit card details are stored in a secure spot online. You must log in to the secure area to get the credit card details, then process the transaction as you would a phone order.

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Automatic Processing

Also known as real-time payments - you use a payment gateway to replace yourself as the middle man. The customer places the order and enters their credit card details via your website. The payment gateway processes the transaction electronically with your bank and deposits the funds to you. The order details are still sent to you via email or kept in a database for you to download.

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Automatic Processing - Internet Merchant Account

Check with your bank - it’s likely you’ll need an internet-specific merchant account before you start to set up your online shop.

If you’re not eligible for a bank merchant account, you can consider using a third party online credit card processor to do the transactions for you. They will take the credit card payments and deduct a small percentage before transferring the money to you electronically or by cheque.

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Jargon

You’ll hear the terms Secure Socket Layer (SSL), Secure Certificate and Authentication when dealing with payment gateways and web designers. The terms relate to providing a secure "session" between your client, your website and the facility used to take and store the payment details.

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