The Ultimate Confusion On Payment Solutions

Hi,

Probably you've already read the threads in WF about how risky PayPal is. Warriors have been suggesting lots of alternatives. I'm confused and a bit worried about all these.

PayPal has been pretty good to online communities. But recently, it is not in favour of recurring payments. Too many incidents of accounts being frozen or closed for IM'ers with membership-based biz model. I dread the day when its my turn. wheww...

So I dig further to seek other options in the market that are suitable for Online Biz.

Say, we've done our market research, built our business model, created products that are worth selling and ready to roll them out. The next few things we need to know are HOW DO WE SELL THEM, how buyers pay us and how we can get hold of the money we earned from the sales.

Here are the options.
A) ON A SELF-HOSTED SOLUTION or
B) ON A 3rd PARTY HOSTED SOLUTION

I'm only giving the main differences related to payment solutions.

A) Self-Hosted Solution
-> all sales-related applications are on our own server
-> we decide the sort of shopping cart we want to use
-> we decide the payment processor or gateway we want to use :
====> PayPal, MoneyBookers, AlertPay, 2CO, PowerPay, WorldPay, Authorize.net, BeanStream

In the self-hosted solution, we need to integrate the Payment Processor System to our shopping cart. It can also be as simple as having a Buy Now Button with the necessary tags in it. Or even have the Payment Interface hosted on our sites, without redirecting the buyer to the Payment Processor's page. Most called this as the PRO version.

B) 3rd PARTY HOSTED SOLUTION
-> all sales-related applications are on their server
-> they have built-in shopping carts you need to use
-> they have built-in payment system we must use or a preselected list they support
====> Nanacast, Digiresults, Plimus, ClickBank, FastSpring, PayDotCom, RAPbank, E-Junkie, DigitalRiver SWREG.

Features about 3rd Party Hosted Solution that you need to check about:
- Some accept PayPal in their payment options for buyers, which is good.
- Some do not accept recurring payments.

So, if we don't want the trouble of setting-up our own solutions on our own server AND LOWER THE RISK OF ACCOUNTS GETTING FROZEN OR CLOSED, we ought to go for 3rd PARTY HOSTED SOLUTION. As long as we follow their Terms Of Services, we should be fine. But we must be on the alert about rising trends by joining the users' forum. Look for the best practices, safe routes and how to get out of any mess we accidentally get ourselves into.

For whichever solution we chose, we must consider another very important matter =>> How are we going to get hold of the money we earned from the sales.

So, consider these items before signing-up :
--> The instrument available in transferring the money to us : wire, direct deposit, cheque, CC or Debit Card, PayPal, MoneyBookers, AlertPay, AliPay.
--> The amount charged when transferring the money to us

Other important considerations are :
-> How are we going to handle REFUNDS based on their TOS and the implications to us.
-> What are their CHARGEBACK policy, the amount penalized and implications.
-> Is it safe for recurring payments
-> Do they charge monthly for their solutions
-> How much they charge us per sale
-> Do they offer Affiliate Features to grow our biz.
-> Incidents and complaints about them from user Forums and Groups.

After gathering all these info, I'm less confused. I know which one to choose from and the sort of experience I expect to have. It is very important to have stable payment processors, so that we can focus more on the business.

Personally, I'm going for my own Self-Hosted Solution. And I will have TWO payment processors instead of one. If one causes a problem, I have another one to fall back to.

Hope it will be a breeze.