Any sole traders out there who take payment by credit/debit cards at a reasonable cost?
I could (infrequently) find this really useful. Spoken to my bank (Lloyds TSB) who have a cardnet system, but it doesn't seem designed for the little guys like me. Works out about £50 a month + a set up fee. Too much for the infrequent use.
I'm don't feel good about PayPal only because of the huge amount of phishing spam I get pretending to be them.
Any alternatives?
I found Lloyds TSB in general and Cardnet in particular to be a totally useless lot, although someone who works for them has told me it seems to depend up whether the branch started out as Lloyds or as TSB. I use HSBC for card handling and IIRC, the minimum charge is £20 per month. They are also more likely to be willing to negotiate rates to get a new customer than if you go to your existing bank.
Not to mention the horrendous cost. Last time I looked, they started at 3.4% plus a 20p transaction fee, which adds near enough another 1% on my average order value. OTOH I pay 3.1% for American Express and 1.8% for Visa/Mastercard or Maestro/Solo.
Colin Bignell
Thanks Colin, I could live with £20 a month. I might give HSBC a try, or use it as a bargaining tool.
Hmmm. Quite a difference, although I could build it in to the job cost I suppose.
The message from "The Medway Handyman" contains these words:
Well, we're a limited company, so I don't know if this is of any help, but charges for _debit_ card payments cost us less than those for credit cards. (If I read the info properly). I leave all the financial/payment stuff to my grand-daughter, she's more 'on the ball' than I am.
Given that the bank charges more for paying in cash than they do cheques, there's not really a lot of choice, is there...
Any way, it's all tax deductable...
In message , The Medway Handyman writes
I pay £20 or 25 / month with streamline via the FSB (£60 / year subscription)
You might like to look into the FSB, for what other facilities it offers
In message , Anne Jackson writes
For me, there's a fixed charge for debit cards and credit cards are a percentage, maybe you could check
On 13 Apr, 16:17, "The Medway Handyman" wrote:>
I'm not convinced that phishing spam is really a problem -- it's easily identified and I've never had one that related to an inpayment. The main drawback is their fees.
You could consider accepting pnline Bank Transfers which save you a walk to the bank with a cheque. I don't know what the charges are (if any). You have to decide whether it's safe to give your bank details to your customers -- many people get the screaming abdabs at this idea, but you don't provide any information not on your cheque, which also includes your signature.
Chris
Just had a quick look & it seems to offer a lot for £60 a year. Thanks Geoff.
In message , The Medway Handyman writes
I wonder if I can get commission ...
I'll mention your name if I apply :-)
Google Checkout?
Gordon
It is far too easy to get an account, so it is widely used by rip-off artists. I would avoid it because of the bad reputation that is building.
Colin Bignell
That will depend on your average order value and what rate you pay for credit cards. It is usual to pay a fixed fee for a deibt card and a percentage of the transaction value for a credit or charge card. I find that debit cards are not used that much, except by my trade customers. As they tend to make large value purchases, in that case debit cards are cheaper, but for retail customers, there is not a lot of difference between the two for me.
Colin Bignell
In message , snipped-for-privacy@proemail.co.uk writes
Yep, and I use a unique address for my Paypal account, and that never gets spam , so it's obvious anyway
We found that for the small volume of CC business we would do, none of the traditional merchant account arrangements were really that good.
However we find google checkout works quite nicely. If someone wants to pay by cc of dc then we just raise a checkout invoice and they can pay online. (there is nothing to stop you raising an electronic invoice that gets sent to your own email address either, so you record a customers card details you could process a payment from them like that as well).
I don't find it a problem - especially as its usually used with established customers etc. In TMH's case he would have already done the work anyway - so not much scope for charging and not delivering.
Average order value tends to be in the thousands, for the larger companies; most of the big companies that buy from us regularly pay by BACS, and the other smaller companies we supply pay by debit card. Our 'one off' customers are more likely to pay either by credit card or cheque. Occasionally we get paid cash (which grand-daughter doesn't like!). I'm reasonably sure that we use Streamline, too, but what do I know - I'm only the MD!
BACS transfer. A few of my more techno-savvy customers pay me by transfer. Obviously you've got to trust them but that's all part of not being a cowboy anyway. And of course it doesn't cost a penny.
He has to get people to ask him to do the work before that arises and that is where I see the problem. Google Checkout and PayPal are where people go if the banks won't give them a merchant account, so, if I look at a small business and it only accepts one or both of those, I would view it as potentially unreliable. In the case of a Handyman, it could imply that he will do an inferior job and have flown by the time I try to get it rectified.
Colin Bignell
Trouble is with that, the customer has to be resistered & sign in. Many of my clients don't use the Internet much or simply couldn't be arsed to create the Google acount.
Its also linked to Adwords which I have found to be the worst advertising rip off I've ever encountered. I'd rather deal with the mafia than Google to be honest.
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