Monique Powell, Gleaner Online WriterPart one of this two-part article looked at the costs involved in obtaining 'merchant accounts' from our local banks, and the fact that these costs may be prohibitive to small-businesses and self-employed persons who may wish to set up e-payment systems.
The following payment-processing solutions provide low-cos that will allow such businesses to easily sell goods or services and accept credit-card payments for these via the Internet.
PAYPALOne option is PayPal - www.pay pal.com. A PayPal account allows persons to send or receive money online, and there are no set up fees involved.
After signing up for your free PayPal account, you would either place a snippet of code on your web page, which would allow persons to make payments directly from their website, or you can send an invoice via email from within your PayPal account.
Both options allow your customers to make payments using either their credit cards or funds from their own PayPal account. You are charged only on a per-transaction basis. The transaction fee varies according to the volume of transactions processed each month and can range from anywhere between 2.4 per cent and 3.4 per cent of the transaction amount.
Once you are ready to withdraw money from your PayPal account, you may either have them mail you a check, or have the funds sent directly to your bank account you may choose to let the funds remain in your PayPal account and use it to purchase goods/services online.
CHECKOUT 2Checkout (www.2CO.com) is another e-payment solution. There is a small one-time set-up fee and a per-transaction fee of 5.5 per cent plus + US$0.45. The processes of collecting funds from customers and subsequently withdrawing these funds from your 2Checkout account are similar to those of PayPal.
GO-JAMAICA ECOMMERCEOne disadvantage of the PayPal and 2Checkout sites is that your customers would need to have either a US currency or a dual-currency credit card. While many local credit-card holders do have USD/JMD dual currency credit cards these days, it may be useful to also set up a facility that will allow persons to pay with locally denominated credit cards.
GoJamaica's e-commerce solution (www.gojamaica-host.com) will allow you to accept not only the standard Visa and MasterCard, but will also allow payment via NCB's Keycard, which is a Jamaican currency credit card.
As with PayPal and 2Checkout, you will be charged a percentage-based transaction fee.
monique.powell@gleanerjm.com
