Sage pay / PayPal etc ?

[Dave271069]

Hi
im in the process of possibly taking over a running website business already established etc, one of the things I need to do is set up sage pay in my name etc, now at present I've used PayPal on my own site, can anyone explain to me what exactly sage pay is? Do I really need it to run a successful web site? I've looked and its £25 per month, is this what others are using to take card payments on line etc or is there other options?
dave

[James990]

I don't bother with sage pay, just use Paypal!

I have now also signed up for izettle, so that I can take credit/debit cards, and that doesn't have any mothly payment, just a charge for each payment taken.

[Dave271069]

I currently have Izettle but didn't think you could take card payments online , I do have the card reader for personal transactions.

[James990]

Sorry, yes the izettle is for when I am on a show or something like that.

On line I stick to Paypal.

[Dave271069]

do you think you could lose out just having paypal as not everyone has a paypal account, At least with some sort of card payment you are widening your customer base?

[James990]

You don't need to have a paypal account to use Paypal. You can use your credit/debit card on the Paypal system without haing an account that is what so good about it.

[purpledragon]

You don't need to have a paypal account to use Paypal. You can use your credit/debit card on the Paypal system without haing an account that is what so good about it.

the problem is you find yourself forever explaining that to customers i have sagepay backed up by streamline on one of my sites mainly because my contract customers dont see paypal as a professional solution

[James990]

I have never had a problem with anyone needing to have it explained to.

[socialgiraffe]

I am not in your league guys for taking credit card payments as i only have a few customers with a high turnover. However on the rare occasion that I have needed payment upfront and they can only pay via credit/debit card I only offer Paypal and even tell them that it is an additional 5% due to PP charges. None of them complain and have never questioned the professionalism of PP. Likewise I have never asked if they have a PP account, but rather send them an email asking them for the email address of the person with the card and state that they can pay via card as a guest user when they get the invoice from PP. But as I probably take about 3-5 payments per month its not a hassle if I do have to explain it each time.

I think the perceived view of PP is down to which industry and/or age group. The companies I work for are young trendy types who understand PP and most of them will offer it as a payment solution for their online sales anyway. I could see it being a problem with older, more traditional types of retail outlet.

[pisquee]

I think the perceived view of PP is down to which industry and/or age group. The companies I work for are young trendy types who understand PP and most of them will offer it as a payment solution for their online sales anyway. I could see it being a problem with older, more traditional types of retail outlet.

... we still have stockists who will only pay by cheque, rather than BACS, and some don't even have an email address to contact them, so catalogues, order forms, invoicing, etc has to all go out to them through the post - I wouldn't mind if their orders were bigger!