Accepting Payments Online

Once you're happy with the products on your website, it's time to decide how you're going to accept payments on your store. ShopFrontPro has a very flexible payments area that allows you to accept payments online and offline through a variety of methods.

Option 1) Accept Credit Cards Online

• Accept Visa, MasterCard and American Express
• Requires an Internet Merchant account
• Requires a Payment Gateway account
• Transaction is processed in real time and funds are deposited into your merchant account
• Cleared funds are then automatically transferred into your business bank account

Option 2) Accept Payments Through PayPal

• Accept Visa, MasterCard and PayPal payments
• Does not require an Internet Merchant account
• Transaction is processed through PayPal and funds are deposited into your PayPal account
• PayPal funds can then be transferred into your business bank account

Option 3) Offline Payments

• Transactions are processed offline.
• Accept payments by Electronics Funds Transfer (EFT), Cheque and Money Order
• Process order online and have customers pay in-store
• Process order online and have customers pay Cash on Delivery (COD)

Accepting Payment FAQ's

What is the best way to accept payments on my website?
If you're going to be selling online, accepting credit cards is a must.
There are a variety of different ways you can accept credit cards online, but they all fall into one of two groups: manual or real-time transactions.

What's the difference between a real time and manual transaction?
A 'real time' transaction is one which is processed immediately.
When a customer makes a purchase, your website communicates with the banking networks via a payment gateway. The bank verifies the status of the card and if successful, approves the transaction. The entire process is done electronically and takes just seconds to complete.

Unlike a 'real time' transaction which is processed immediately, a manual transaction is processed offline after an order has been received. For example, a merchant may receive an order via telephone, mail order or email and process the transaction with an EFTPOS terminal.

What is an internet merchant account?
An internet merchant account is a special type of account provided by your bank for the specific purpose of receiving funds that have been processed through your web store.

Is an Internet merchant account the same as an EFTPOS merchant account?
No.
An EFTPOS merchant account is specific to face to face transactions where the card is present. An Internet merchant account is specifically for internet businesses processing payments online where the card is not present. An Internet merchant account is the only type of account you can have to process online payments into.

What is a payment gateway?
A payment gateway is the service that connects your website with your bank to process your customers online credit card payments.
In other words, the payment gateway is the middleman between your web store and Internet merchant account.

How much does it cost to accept credit card payments online?
Banks determine merchant rates on a case by case basis.
Factors such as the amount of time you've been in business and your expected turnover are taken into account.

For the average online merchant, approximate fees are as follows:

SSL certificate $199 setup and $99 per year
Payment gateway setup $350
Payment gateway fee per transaction $0.25 to $0.50 per transaction

Internet merchant account setup: $110 to $250
Internet merchant account monthly fee: $22+/month
Internet merchant rate for Visa & MasterCard: Between 1.2% to 2.2%

Can I accept PayPal payments on my store?
Yes, ShopFrontPro allows you to accept PayPal payments on your website.

What's the difference between using PayPal and a payment gateway?
Although PayPal does offer a lower initial setup cost, there are a number of benefits of using a dedicated payment gateway + internet merchant account:

1) Your customers don't leave your website on checkout, reducing the overall purchasing process
2) You can negotiate merchant rates with bank

Can I launch my store with PayPal and add an Internet merchant account later?
Sure.
Many of our customers launch their sites with PayPal only and add an Internet merchant facility after a few months.

Can I accept payments from overseas?
Yes. If your customer is using a Visa or MasterCard you can accept their payment from anywhere in the world. If you have a standard Australian Dollar Internet merchant account your customer will be charged in Australian Dollars only. The currency conversion will be charged to the customer by their card provider.

Can customers pay by electronic funds transfer (EFT)?
Yes, you can setup your store to automatically generate a tax invoice upon checkout.
The tax invoice will include an order reference number and your bank account details (BSB and Account Number), which your customers can use to pay you via EFT.

Can I accept funds manually?
Absolutely.
You can accept mailed cheques or money orders, direct bank transfers, or perhaps have an option to pay for an order in-store.

I have an EFTPOS merchant account can I use this?
In most cases - no. An EFTPOS merchant account is specific to face to face transactions where the card is present. An Internet merchant account is specifically for internet businesses processing payments online where the card is not present.

Additionally, processing online orders via EFTPOS creates a number of issues:

a) Double handling - you have to manually process each and every transaction that comes in;
b) Card validation - because no validation is done on the card at the time of purchase, customers will often enter incorrect information (e.g. wrong expiry date), forcing you to manually follow-up with them.
c) Insufficient funds. Again, because no validation is done on the card at the time of purchase - customers may not have the funds available for the order they have processed.

What factors should I take into account when choosing which payment methods to accept?
Internet shoppers are an impatient and impulsive bunch, they want instant gratification.

Once you've got a customer interested in your products and services - you don't want anything to get in the way of them making a purchase.
For this reason, we recommend the majority of online merchants setup their own merchant account and process transactions through a payment gateway.

What is a secure certificate and why do I need one?
Research shows that privacy and security are two of the biggest concerns for online shoppers.
If you are capturing credit card details online - you'll need a SSL certificate to keep all sensitive data safe and secure.

SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer and is a system for securing and transferring private information over the Internet.

A secure certificate is basically a set of instructions that encrypts sensitive information (like credit card numbers) while they are being processed. This prevents third parties from hijacking sensitive information and using them for fraudulent purposes.

Once you've purchased an SSL certificate, we install it for you for free on your website.
When customers navigate to the checkout area on your store, a padlock will appear in their browser indicating that the transaction is secure.