We are thinking of letting our customers who use our web ordering site to now pay by credit card. I know absolutely nothing on how to implement this. Can anyone out there bring me up to speed on software etc that i would need to implement this?
Oxburger is right, there are a number of pieces to this, not the least of which is an SSL certificate. If, as you say, you already have a web ordering site, most of those parts should be in place. Maybe all that's missing is the PayPal business account oxburger mentioned, plus a basic merchant account. You'll probably want to offer both. Yes, your customers can use PayPal and have the order charged to their credit card, but most will prefer the conventional way of just keying in their number into a merchant account. PayPal is usually used in lieu of a check. Having a secure site (SSL) for either of the two is a must.
If you don't have a shopping cart, you'll need the whole package: Shopping Cart with a dedicated IP and its own domain, SSL Certificate, PayPal, and Merchant Account. Here too, I recommend GoDaddy. We're just in the process of setting up our own cart at Home - Printfirestore and had the whole thing up and running in a just a couple of hours. The only mistake I made was to use an existing domain name that wasn't hosted by GoDaddy. I ended up having to go through Tech Support to modify the A record for the dedicated IP required for the SSL certificate. Had I transferred the domain name to GoDaddy beforehand, or just set up a new domain name with them as part of the package, the whole process would have been automatic. As it turned out, it wasn't a big problem because their Tech Support is superb.
FYI, I'm not in any way associated with GoDaddy. In fact, three of our five sites are hosted by BlueHost.
It's definitely worth the effort. I've found it really helps out with people who prefer dealing with computers versus talking with our sales reps. Hopefully I'm not in the minority.
Brent could be dealing with a custom website and shopping cart. In which case, he wouldn't have the software to just turn on Credit Card Processing. It could mean a complete redesign of his web ordering site.
PCModem brings up a good point. Any chance you could post your web address so we can look at your site to see what you're up against? In some earlier posts you mentioned that your company is using PageFlex. Their web site claims credit card processing is built in:
"Integrated Credit Card Authorizations - Pageflex Storefront manages the credit card authorization process through an integration with Authorize.net and VeriSign".
Any reason why their gateway wouldn't serve your needs?
Last edited by Morning Flight; 08-30-2009 at 02:24 PM.
We have found that the fundamental components any web2print solution must offer are these:
Online Estimating - with backend that is easy to setup products and pricing options
Online Shipping - with connection to live services at UPS, FedEx, and US Postal servers
Sales Tax - with backend configuration and Tax Exempt options
Shopping Cart - with multiple line item capability
Credit Card Processing - with support for a broad set of gateway providers
I would be happy to discuss these and many more features that TribalSketch offers.
Your bank might provide Merchant Account services and have online payment processing options.
It fairly straight forward to interface with payment gateways like Authorize.Net. To accomplish payment processing you will need to have a basic understanding of a web application development.
Since you're new to this type of service you might want to find an off-the-shelf product to handle order submission with credit card processing.
Beyond the actual processing of credit cards, there are security matters you will need to understand and address such as PCI compliance that govern everything from access control to system security to physical security.
When considering the addition of Ecommerce to a Printing Company website it is important to understand the basic difference between typical products and printing products.
Conventional shopping cart technology is based on the fixed product - fixed price model. Think of a brick and mortar store. Customer walks in, selects one or more products from a shelf, carries them to a checkout counter, pays and leaves. In this model the products are all predefined and self contained. Imagine if someone picked up a box of crackers and told the checkout person - hey I only want 250 of these crackers!
To solve this first problem for the printing company requires some kind of online estimating tool that allows the printer to be as flexible as reasonably possible - while still letting the customer select the options that matter to them.
This then brings up the next problem. In the conventional store the items actually exist! You pick it, you buy it, you pay for it. In the printing marketplace this is not the case. The customer is purchasing the "promise" of something coming into existence in the future. This is further compounded in that the customer must participate in this "coming into existence" process by providing "stuff".
Conventional shopping cart technology is not really designed to manage ongoing projects where there may be several interactions before a final purchase is made. It is even an interesting discussion about where in the process should a website "Ask for the order".
One more point to consider is "When do we collect the funds?". Again conventional systems perform what is called an "Authorize/Capture" where the credit card is authorized for the purchase and the funds are captured (transferred to your bank) in one step. For printing companies this would actually be against the rules, as funds are not supposed to be captured until delivery is made. So credit card processing for printing companies is supposed to be done in a two step process, first the credit card is authorized for the amount of the purchase - which puts a hold on the account, and when the final printed job actually ships - then the previously authorized charge is 'captured'.
There are many other considerations but I figure I've already said more than people will read.
Conventional systems perform what is called an "Authorize/Capture" where the credit card is authorized for the purchase and the funds are captured (transferred to your bank) in one step. For printing companies this would actually be against the rules, as funds are not supposed to be captured until delivery is made.
Not against the rules, David. Cash with order (prepaid) is a very common payment method in the printing industry. And not just for web-based companies such as VistaPrint. No print shop owner in his right mind would accept an order from a new walk-in without getting paid up front. Those that do won't do it for long. All it takes is a little hindsight - the memory of a couple of cartons of letterheads and envelopes collecting dust in the pick-up corner because the start-up with the big plans decided to start up some other day.
The rest of your post is right on the money (pardon the pun). So far, every web-to-print shop I've visited tries to emulate a brick and mortar store. VistaPrint included. It will take a pricing engine easy enough for the average consumer to use to take us beyond the "predefined products at set quantities" business model.
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Originally Posted by david
