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Deal Addict
Feb 22, 2007
2268 posts
373 upvotes
Toronto

Online Shop

Good morning,

I will be starting an online shop soon. I'll be selling little novelty items.

My question is what is the best way of accepting money online? I will be selling worldwide. I've researched a bit and understand there is PayPal, Email Money Transfer (only within Canada) and also services such as Shopify. Will Shopify allow me to upload my own website that I built and use their E-commerce services?

I heard horrible stories when it came to PayPal...they can hold your money for as long as they want without giving you a reason and all the other scams going on with Paypal.

Also I personally do not have a credit card, would I be able to use a pre-paid credit card to pay for hosting my website?
36 replies
Sr. Member
Jul 10, 2005
763 posts
123 upvotes
Toronto
I've been receiving $$ with paypal for 10 years. Never had an issue.
But you also need to get a card processor to accept visa & mc.
Deal Addict
Feb 22, 2007
2268 posts
373 upvotes
Toronto
Thanks Dani and Andex

Dani: Do you have a personal account or merchant account?
Sr. Member
Jul 10, 2005
763 posts
123 upvotes
Toronto
realg123 wrote: Do you have a personal account or merchant account?
Merchant, and last year they called me to offer a Payflow account to process cards through them with very competitive rates.
Deal Addict
Feb 22, 2007
2268 posts
373 upvotes
Toronto
dani_toronto wrote: Merchant, and last year they called me to offer a Payflow account to process cards through them with very competitive rates.
Thanks for the quick response.

Do you use your work address or home address? Does it matter what address you put down?
Thanks
Sr. Member
Jul 10, 2005
763 posts
123 upvotes
Toronto
realg123 wrote: Do you use your work address or home address? Does it matter what address you put down?
Thanks
It doesn't matter at all. They'll never mail you anything. You can put a PO box if you want to keep your home address private.
Deal Addict
Feb 22, 2007
2268 posts
373 upvotes
Toronto
dani_toronto wrote: It doesn't matter at all. They'll never mail you anything. You can put a PO box if you want to keep your home address private.
Thanks a lot, appreciate the quick responses.
Deal Fanatic
Nov 17, 2004
7311 posts
1672 upvotes
Toronto
If you are using shopify then use the shopify credit card processor, the stupid thing with shopify is that they will ding paypal transactions with a % fee if you do not have the shopify credit card payments enabled, majority of the purchases will probably be made through paypal so the shopify credit card payments is just for show and in return your paypal payments do not get dinged with a fee.

Paypal is horrible, but for a small business starting out your customers will feel more confident in their purchase because paypal goes out of it's way to protect purchases. Once you build a good brand name, then you can transition to another form of payment.

You should get a paypal mechant/business account as the transaction fees are lower than for a personal account.

Shopify will not let you upload your own custom website, you will have to customize one of their many site templates.
I workout to get big so I can pickup bricks and ****.
Deal Addict
Feb 22, 2007
2268 posts
373 upvotes
Toronto
toalan wrote: If you are using shopify then use the shopify credit card processor, the stupid thing with shopify is that they will ding paypal transactions with a % fee if you do not have the shopify credit card payments enabled, majority of the purchases will probably be made through paypal so the shopify credit card payments is just for show and in return your paypal payments do not get dinged with a fee.

Paypal is horrible, but for a small business starting out your customers will feel more confident in their purchase because paypal goes out of it's way to protect purchases. Once you build a good brand name, then you can transition to another form of payment.

You should get a paypal mechant/business account as the transaction fees are lower than for a personal account.

Shopify will not let you upload your own custom website, you will have to customize one of their many site templates.
Great info. Thanks Toalan. Appreciate it
Newbie
Sep 11, 2012
19 posts
2 upvotes
MAPLE
From my personal experience, both PayPal and Shopify are pretty expensive. If you are very technical, build your own website and find a credit card processing company to handle your online payments and invoicing.
Member
Dec 22, 2012
233 posts
22 upvotes
mystichisoka wrote: From my personal experience, both PayPal and Shopify are pretty expensive. If you are very technical, build your own website and find a credit card processing company to handle your online payments and invoicing.
This is a good site with some good WordPress e-Commerce themes to use. I have filtered out the Payment Gateway's for Canada:

http://www.woothemes.com/product-catego ... untry=1105

I am in the same boat as you OP. These payment processors list a license fee of $79.00 I guess that's a one time fee and then you have to pay their rates. I wonder if some contributors to this site that accept payments online could enlighten us and share the rates they get.
Newbie
Sep 11, 2012
19 posts
2 upvotes
MAPLE
I actually started to work for a payment process company recently for online payment solutions. I do not want to talk about rates in the open forum cause I don't want to make it seem like I am advertising. But you can pm me, I will be more than happy to help.

Honestly, finding a web host, probably cost $90ish a year, domain is $11.99, then depending on theme: probably $150ish one time fee or free(design it yourself with html, CSS, javascript) and free shopping cart API plugin, CMS(content management system) from you web host. And then just find a payment process company that can open up a merchant account for you to process credit cards and BOOM, you are in business!

It really easy or i just been doing this for a long time LOL!

PayPal, Shopify, wix can charge a lot cause they are a all in one solution for the non-tech-savvy people and thats where they make their money. There are always alternatives, but the big guys just market themselves really well blinding the majority.
Deal Fanatic
Jul 7, 2004
6948 posts
2695 upvotes
I've been doing design/marketing etc for coming on 17 years now. I wanted a solution that was really simple, didn't want to worry about having to update stuff, learn the system inside and out, etc., so I went with Shopify.

I've been using it for about a month now, haven't gone live yet. But I like the simplicity of it. Really good for new people, almost don't need to know anything. It can be a bit expensive, but I don't mind paying it if I'm making good money.

I see some negatives though. There are some limitations. One thing that irks me is my content pages are in /pages/ directory so any content I add will be www.mysite.com/pages/content.html.
There are other little things, which are annoying, but for the most part, and for the average person, it's more than enough.

Looking back, I would probably be better off doing it all myself with a different solution so I can do whatever I want with it, but I was just so tired of doing that crap and dealing with it, I took the easy way out. I like the fact they are all in one solution and I don't have to deal with 2-3 different companies.
Deal Addict
Feb 22, 2007
2268 posts
373 upvotes
Toronto
Thanks for all the information guys.
I'm not that techy, but I am working on the website myself, I just want to add a credit/debit card processor that won't cost a lot.

Does anyone know if the whole site has to be SSL or only the checkout page?
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Nov 18, 2002
7041 posts
652 upvotes
BC Interior
realg123 wrote: Thanks for all the information guys.
I'm not that techy, but I am working on the website myself, I just want to add a credit/debit card processor that won't cost a lot.

Does anyone know if the whole site has to be SSL or only the checkout page?
Strictly speaking any page that captures sensitive information should have an SSL cert inc. authentication pages, checkout pages etc. So checkout for sure. If you're paranoid and want to avoid cookie replay exploits etc you can do SSL for authenticated users site wide but checkout at a minimum.
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Nov 18, 2002
7041 posts
652 upvotes
BC Interior
mystichisoka wrote: I actually started to work for a payment process company recently for online payment solutions. I do not want to talk about rates in the open forum cause I don't want to make it seem like I am advertising. But you can pm me, I will be more than happy to help.

Honestly, finding a web host, probably cost $90ish a year, domain is $11.99, then depending on theme: probably $150ish one time fee or free(design it yourself with html, CSS, javascript) and free shopping cart API plugin, CMS(content management system) from you web host. And then just find a payment process company that can open up a merchant account for you to process credit cards and BOOM, you are in business!

It really easy or i just been doing this for a long time LOL!

PayPal, Shopify, wix can charge a lot cause they are a all in one solution for the non-tech-savvy people and thats where they make their money. There are always alternatives, but the big guys just market themselves really well blinding the majority.
There's a wee bit more to running a 'successful' online business than just putting out a store :)

As much as most hate paypal it's here to stay so you have to support it.
Newbie
Sep 11, 2012
19 posts
2 upvotes
MAPLE
realg123 wrote: Thanks for all the information guys.
I'm not that techy, but I am working on the website myself, I just want to add a credit/debit card processor that won't cost a lot.

Does anyone know if the whole site has to be SSL or only the checkout page?
read this about SSL, it should give you a little but more insight! =)

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2025 ... -to-use-it
Newbie
Sep 11, 2012
19 posts
2 upvotes
MAPLE
ichpen wrote: There's a wee bit more to running a 'successful' online business than just putting out a store :)

As much as most hate paypal it's here to stay so you have to support it.
Trust me, I want to kill Paypal in a merchant stand point!

But on a consumer stand point, I love them LOL!
Deal Addict
Feb 22, 2007
2268 posts
373 upvotes
Toronto
Sorry to bring up an older thread, I'm a bit closer to staring the website.

I don't have a credit card and I don't want to sign up for paypal incase the hosting company decides to charge unnecessary fees later down the road

I contacted Hostpapa and asked if they accept pre-paid credit cards. The person sent me a link to the type of payments they accept. It listed Visa/MasterCard and paypal, but pre-paid credit cards weren't mentioned. I asked the person I was speaking with to clarify if they accept it or not, and they just asked me to read the link again.

Any information regarding this would be appreciated!

Thanks

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