Accepting Online Payments
PayPal
Pluses
- Low upfront costs
- Allows you to accept online payments even if you do not have a credit card account for your business or organization.
Minuses
- You will not be able to accept credit card orders by mail or fax.
PayPal can be a good option for accepting online payments on your site because there is virtually no initial outlay. Setting up a PayPal merchant account is free; all you need to do is complete the registration process at the PayPal website (www.paypal.com). To activate the account on your website, you simply add a “Pay Now” button to your product page. When visitors click this button, they will be taken to a separate PayPal checkout page. PayPal even allows visitors to your site to purchase multiple items in a single transaction.
Once you start receiving orders, PayPal charges a 2.9% transaction fee, plus $0.30 per transaction. If after 90 days your merchant account remains in good standing and you log at least $3000 per month in transactions, you may apply for special merchant rates with lower transaction fees (from 2.5% to 1.9%, depending on how much business your site does).
PayPal is also compatible with the Constant Contact eNewsletter system. If you have a PayPal account, you can send out eNewsletters with direct links to your account – a plus for non-profits seeking donations for a particular purpose or businesses running a promotion on a special item.
PayPal has many advantages, especially for start-up businesses or non-profits. One former drawback was that your customers had to have a PayPal account in order to buy from you. That is no longer the case. Now PayPal Premier Personal and all Business accounts allow you to accept credit card information directly from anyone.
Network for Good
Pluses
- Allows non-profits to accept credit card donations without setting up a credit card account
- Provides exposure to new donors who might not otherwise know about you.
Minuses
- Only available to non-profits
- Takes 3% of all donations to cover costs.
Network for Good is a portal site that provides information about, and enables online donations to, 501(c)3 organizations registered with the site. It also offers “Gift Baskets” and other packages that allow visitors to donate, either in their own name or as a gift to a friend, to a group of charities with a common mission. The way Network for Good works is that each charity affiliated with the site sets up a link to NetworkForGood.org. Visitors click through from each charity’s site to the Network for Good site to make their donations. After taking visitors’ donations and processing them with its credit card account, Network for Good sends checks to the charity or charities specified by each donor. To cover costs, Network for Good takes 3% of the donation. However, because they also send a full report of all donations made to you, they do save you time with your record-keeping.
Network for Good has been thoroughly vetted by Vermont Design Works and we recommend it as a cost-effective way to add credit card capability to a non-profit website. It is an excellent way to avoid the costs of setting up your own credit card account; in addition, signing up with Network for Good means that you will gain exposure beyond your existing donor base. People come to the Network for Good site to “shop” for charities to donate to – and they may read about your mission and decide that they would like to support you, either individually or as part of a category such as “Civic and Community”.
If you are a non-profit organization, there is no reason not to join Network for Good – there is no initial outlay and you may get donations from people who otherwise would never have heard of you.
Credit Cards
Pluses
- Because you will be in control of your own credit card account, you will be able to offer your customers flexible payment options, such as payment in monthly installments
- You will be able to take orders by phone, fax, or mail as well as online
- You will be able to have a shopping cart system that is integrated with your site, instead of relying on a third-party solution such as PayPal.
Minuses
- In addition to transaction fees, there will also be monthly credit card account fees; you will have to do your own bookkeeping instead of having a third party do it for you.
- If you decide that you would like to be able to accept credit card payments online, you can still continue to offer visitors to your site the option of paying with PayPal, and, if you’re a non-profit, of being registered with Network for Good. This means that you can start out with PayPal and/or Network for Good and then, as your budget allows, add full credit card processing functionality. You will not have to throw away what you’ve already done.
- If you decide that you would like to be able to accept credit card payments online, you will first need to set up your own credit card merchant account. There are two main options for doing so:
- Card Payment Systems of Vermont, a local credit card company, has set up a discount for all Vermont Design Works customers. When you call them or fill out their online order form at www.cpsvt.com, simply indicate that you heard about them from Vermont Design Works to receive your discount. We find that Card Payment Systems is generally able to beat the rates offered by banks and credit unions.
- You can set up an account with your local bank or credit union.
Once you have set up your credit card account, Vermont Design Works will purchase a secure SSL certificate for you (which guarantees the security of the information sent by visitors to your site) and set up the necessary back-end programming to make it possible for credit card information to be transmitted to you via a secure online order retrieval system.
Please note that although the programming is a one-time cost, you will have to renew your SSL certificate each year. Vermont Design Works will send you a reminder when it is time to renew your certificate.
There are two different kinds of certificates: a basic certificate that provides secure online data transmission, and a premium certificate, which provides the same security but which comes with a “Geo Trust” secure seal that can be placed on your site to promote customer confidence.
Manual vs. Automatic Credit Card Processing
Once the basic credit card processing framework is in place, there are two different options for processing payments by credit card:
- Manual credit card processing. If you elect to process credit card payments manually, you will need to log into the secure order retrieval system regularly in order to download the information that has been sent to you. You will then need to type the information into a credit card processing machine (which will be sent to you when you set up your credit card merchant account).
- Automatic credit card processing. If you would like to automate credit card processing on your site, we can arrange for this service through Authorize.net. (Note that you will still need to keep your original credit card merchant account.) Authorize.net will charge a monthly fee plus a transaction fee.
Credit card processing can be added to your site, or upgraded, at any time, so no decision you make now is set in stone.
| Service | Overview |
|---|---|
| Network for Good | For non profits only. 3% transaction fee per donation; complete record-keeping is provided by Network for Good. |
| PayPal | 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fee per sale; special merchant rates available for larger eCommerce sites |
| Manual Credit Card Processing | $75/year for Secure Certificate, plus merchant account fees (will vary depending on credit card provider) |