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Best way to accept payments?

by Glottis
19 replies
Hey there!

Quick question for the experts on the Warriorforum!

I'm a college student going into eCommerce / Management / Marketing
and wanted to start my own eCommerce website using drop shippers.

I've currently contacted several drop shippers, verified them, and pretty
much am good to go on that front. My problem is since I am a college
student I am on a shoe string budget but have an idea that seems to be
cheap but need some ideas and insight on the best way to go about getting
payments processed and accepted.

Basically, this is how it has come together so far. Customers come to my site where they sign up for a newsletter. When they sign up and verify their information they are sent a simple catalog with the name, price, and shipping of each of the 2,500+ products I have ready to drop ship. In short, a large excel spreadsheet of all the items and the price I'll be selling them for.

Now, this is where I'm having a problem. From here I'm not sure how to collect the information I need to process orders and receive payments.

I know there are free shopping carts such as OpenCart and Magento. However, I would like to follow the K.I.S.S principle and keep it simple! Unless, it is absolutely necessary to have a shopping cart I'd prefer to keep it simple.

I was thinking I could have them send the excel spreadsheet and then deposit the money directly into my Paypal account and then have the email automatically shoot over to my drop shipper. But, I'm not exactly sure how to get that to work.

I've contacted a couple of payment gateways to see what their thoughts are, but while I wait for their responses I thought I'd try a brainstorming session here on the warriorforum.

Thanks all!
Have a great week!
#accept #payments
  • Profile picture of the author Aswad
    If you on budget. Use paypal. Unless you got more than 20 sales a day, you need some management system like shopify.
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    • Profile picture of the author L.James
      Paypal would be the best depending on the type of products you plan on selling. Because your account will end up limited. Also I waited to the end of each day and I sent the orders over to the drop shipper. When he received the order, he sent me a invoice which I paid through paypal.
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  • Profile picture of the author Warrior X
    Just something you should be aware of ...

    If you're using Paypal for physical products, where you would need to pay a dropshipper, you can run into trouble if your account gets frozen or suspended for some reason.

    If your funds are held, you may have problems paying your suppliers. This happens. I don't mean to discourage you in any way. Just to point out that there are risks that go along with using Paypal that way, and you don't have the same protection as with a regular merchant account.

    Wish you the best with your business,
    Jeremy
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  • Profile picture of the author Gary336
    Paypal is reliable but the charges are more. But as you grow you can accept credit card payments. It's good to have all the options made available to your customers.

    Customers can use their credit card or bank account (where available) with paypal even if they don't have an account with them. Paypal is a safe and secure way for your customers to make purchases online. I use paypal on ebay and for all other online shopping. I also use it for my online websites.

    Another great one to try is 2checkout, I have used them as a customer but have not yet added them to my websites.
    www.paypal.com
    www.2checkout.com
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    • Profile picture of the author tycoonms
      always start with paypal. its super simple to get set up and verified. Plus it accepts payments from cards and is asy to integrate with any wesite
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  • Profile picture of the author Tad 100
    My vote goes to paypal too
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  • Profile picture of the author virtue121
    paypal and how about google wallet?
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  • Profile picture of the author Jennifer82
    Paypal is suitable for you, at least for the time being.
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    • Profile picture of the author Glottis
      Thanks everyone for the replies!

      I contacted Paypal last week because I heard that they often freeze accounts to make sure that things go through smoothly, and since I have to pay a drop shipper it would stop business all together if I can't get to it -- they have yet to reply.

      However, I did contact Amazon Payments and Google Checkout and currently working with them to see what I can do to help prevent frozen accounts and to make things as smooth as possible.

      I'll look in 2checkout too!

      I have one more question, not sure if I should start another topic but I'll just post it here for now.

      Lets say I do use Paypal as my Payment Gateway. What would be the easiest / best way to get the customers to send the money for the products.

      Like I said they will receive a catalog type excel spreadsheet with all the 2,500 + items, prices, and all the information they need about the items. What would be the easiest way to get the customer to send the correct amount of money to Paypal?

      Would it be too much for the customer to add up all of their products and then send the money to my paypal account with an email of what items they want to purchase? Obviously there is room for error on their part which might make things a little complicated. Or is there a way to set up some sort of &quot;Buy Button&quot; where they can go in and order the products without having to worry about it?

      I hope that makes sense.
      Let me know if you need more clarification and I'll do my best!

      Thanks again everyone for your suggestions!
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  • Profile picture of the author fedor50
    Originally Posted by Glottis View Post

    Hey there!

    Quick question for the experts on the Warriorforum!

    I'm a college student going into eCommerce / Management / Marketing
    and wanted to start my own eCommerce website using drop shippers.

    I've currently contacted several drop shippers, verified them, and pretty
    much am good to go on that front. My problem is since I am a college
    student I am on a shoe string budget but have an idea that seems to be
    cheap but need some ideas and insight on the best way to go about getting
    payments processed and accepted.

    Basically, this is how it has come together so far. Customers come to my site where they sign up for a newsletter. When they sign up and verify their information they are sent a simple catalog with the name, price, and shipping of each of the 2,500+ products I have ready to drop ship. In short, a large excel spreadsheet of all the items and the price I'll be selling them for.

    Now, this is where I'm having a problem. From here I'm not sure how to collect the information I need to process orders and receive payments.

    I know there are free shopping carts such as OpenCart and Magento. However, I would like to follow the K.I.S.S principle and keep it simple! Unless, it is absolutely necessary to have a shopping cart I'd prefer to keep it simple.

    I was thinking I could have them send the excel spreadsheet and then deposit the money directly into my Paypal account and then have the email automatically shoot over to my drop shipper. But, I'm not exactly sure how to get that to work.

    I've contacted a couple of payment gateways to see what their thoughts are, but while I wait for their responses I thought I'd try a brainstorming session here on the warriorforum.

    Thanks all!
    Have a great week!
    I think the best way to accept payments online is through paypal.
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  • Profile picture of the author paulsbiz
    For most new marketers online, PayPal is the easiest and has no upfront costs. It does have drawbacks, but so does every other service. Larger volume and rising costs will probably cause you to look elsewhere in the future, but for now why start anywhere else?
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  • Profile picture of the author Sid Hale
    Been there... done that.

    The easiest Payment Processor for you to get set up with, is Paypal. And your income will be immediately available (to fund payments to drop shippers), so you won't need to keep as much available in reserve for that.

    I know that's all you asked for, but your real problem is this...
    Basically, this is how it has come together so far. Customers come to my site where they sign up for a newsletter. When they sign up and verify their information they are sent a simple catalog with the name, price, and shipping of each of the 2,500+ products I have ready to drop ship. In short, a large excel spreadsheet of all the items and the price I'll be selling them for.
    How many catalogs do you receive in the mail? How many do you sit down and look through for the purposes of actually shopping?

    Instead, put your catalog on the web site and let them order directly via shopping cart software. It's much easier (and less expensive), to put up new items and remove discontinued items on the web site, than to send out a new catalog every time one of your drop-shippers makes a change to their catalog.

    Each drop-shipper will change product offerings at different times, and you don't want to have to send out a new catalog every time one of them makes changes.

    An online shopping cart is also much more convenient for the buyer. You can categorize the listings (and offer search facilities) so that it is easier to locate specific types of product.

    Collecting their email addresses is a plus, so that you can inform them of special deals - but it's not a requirement (and many will not opt-in).

    All of the drop-shippers I worked with were willing to ship product with MY company identified as the seller (as though they were just a shipping warehouse). The packing slip had my company logo, and MY web site address on the form.

    Think about it, but I'm sure you'll come to the conclusion that an online catalog/cart is much more preferable than physical catalogs and excel spread sheets. Your order will be immediate and you won't have to wait for the customer to mail you a spreadsheet.

    Hope this helps,
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    Sid Hale
    Coming Soon... Rapid Action Profits (Pro)

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  • Profile picture of the author ifusemedia
    PayPal is the best way to go in my opinion....
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  • Profile picture of the author alamest
    Offcourse Paypal, easy to integrate and very popular and majority people have it, so go for paypal only.. start with it than you can add other payment method as well.. I hope this helps..
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    • Profile picture of the author Glottis
      Thanks everyone!

      Also, thanks to Sid you seem to have the exact information I was looking for and was curious if you would mind if I tap into your knowledge real quick.

      I think I might have worded my situation a little confusingly. I wasn't going to mail out an actual catalog. When they signed up to my newsletter, they would be sent the spreadsheet via email. It would be similar to my drop shippers catalog just with my own prices listed instead of theirs. The only problem I have is figuring out how to collect payments and orders. I looked into using Authorize.net as they allow Mail Order / Telephone payments which I guess I could some how use to collect the information I need.

      Do you think that would work?

      If that still wont work. Is there anyway you could recommend a cheap or free shopping cart? I've looked at Magento and OpenCart and they look like they look interesting, but I'm not sure how long it would take to add all my items, set it up, and all that good stuff.

      Thank you very much!
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  • Profile picture of the author davidsu
    Banned
    I use Paypal for all my dropshipping businesses. It will make you and the buyers easier...
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  • Profile picture of the author hacktheworld
    Everyone uses Paypal.Why not you?
    Go for it!
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  • Profile picture of the author bladening
    For individual users, PayPal is really convenient
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  • Profile picture of the author williamk
    Banned
    Forget Paypal. They will screw with you soon enough. Its better to try 2CO or Google Checkout.
    You will be more safe and wont lose any sales. Also I personally use 2CO and been very happy with them.
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