Good Article by 37Signals on Credit Card Processing
Posted by jonchase
Update: See the bottom of the post for some updates.
I was delighted to find this timely article by 37Signals on credit card processing. I’ve been facing the question of how to process payments online and it’s very helpful to hear reports from successful businesses in the trenches.
It’s noted in their approach that they are using Authorize.net as their gateway and Chase Bank for their merchant account. This bodes well, as I was already considering the same combination of gateway/merchant account - Authorize.net is the leading payment processor and Chase Bank sounds like a name I can trust:).
As for recurring payment processing, it also sounds like they are not using the recurring payments functionality of Authorize.net and instead just running a nightly job to take care of it. I’ve been looking at the recurring payments functionality provided by Authorize.net, but I’ve been slightly turned off by it because it looks like it would be tough to implement recurring payments using their API because of all the little business process exceptions (prorating months, etc.) that need to be handled. This gives me confidence that I can ditch the recurring payments API and just run a nightly job to take care of this aspect of the billing.
As for now, I recently had slated the implementation of SendAlong’s billing processing as part of my next two week iteration. However, I’ve been doing some thinking about this over vacation (the lines at Disney World give you a lot of time to think) and I’ve almost decided that I’m going to forgo automatic payment processing for the time being in the hopes of releasing version 1.0 earlier. I can handle the first few accounts on a manual basis (as long as Authorize.net or my merchant account provides an adequate web interface to do so) - this will minimize the wait for the 1.0 release and may give me more insight into what SendAlong’s billing system needs to do.
A couple other things to note:
- Credit card details are usually NOT stored by you, but instead held by the payment processor’s system (Authorize.net) - this is much safer and easier for you. The payment processor returns a unique token that can be used to identify that customer at a later date for more charging/crediting. You should probably store the credit card expiration date in your system if you’d like to proactively contact your customers to let them know their card will be expiring soon.
- Make sure to check the comments of the 37Signals post - there’s sure to be some good information in there too.
Update: After reading through the comments on the 37Signals post, I found that 37Signals actually stores all of the credit card information that they collect. This involves a fair amount of overhead, and from other readers’ comments, I can’t say I would recommend it for the average microISV. It also sounded like a few people are having good success with TrustCommerce’s Citadel.
Web Site Marketing Effectiveness Report, Take 2
Posted by jonchase
It’s time for an update on the perceived marketing effectiveness of SendAlong’s site. Having just released a newly updated beta, let’s hope it does much better.
Alright, the results are in:
Compared to late October’s results, it looks like the grade has improved (although not as much as I would have liked), however there’s still a lot of work left to do.
Want to grade your site? I used Web Site Grader.
Trying to Decide on a Payment Processor for Credit Cards on Web Site?
Posted by jonchase
If you’re going to try to process credit card payments from your web site, you’ve got a lot of learning to do. On the one hand, there are the third party providers like PayPal, and there are the merchant account providers like Authorize.net. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, have a read of the following articles.
Solve the Payment Processing Problem - I found this particularly enlightening. Good description of the differences between a merchant account (like Authorize.net) and a third-party processor (like PayPal).
Put your Money where your Mouse Is: 6 Payment Gateways Reviewed - This one was great too - a good review of several payment gateways.
I’ve looked further into Authorize.net. On the plus side, you can do everything through an API, and no “Pay now with PayPal” button is required on your site. It also offers a nice looking package for recurring payments, and even handles trial periods to boot.
As for prices when using a merchant account, they’re not as clear cut as, say, PayPal is. There will be some calling around involved and prices are definitely negotiable.
I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of leg work involved as I go through the research process, so subscirbe to the RSS feed to get the updates I post to the blog.
Good Start Up Resource - Startupping.com
Posted by jonchase
I just stumbled upon Startupping.com, which looks to be a good resource for start up information. They have what appear to be some decent looking forums, a nice wiki, and a large list of start up blogs (in OPML format - can be imported into most RSS feed readers). Not to mention I think they have a nifty logo:).
Great Blogs on Small Business
Posted by jonchase
Starting a business is difficult. Even more so if it’s done in isolation.
But blogs can help. Really.
Although blogs aren’t a substitute for face to face contact with others, they do serve many purposes: they can be inspiring, insightful, educational, and a great way to get in touch with like minded others.
With this is in mind, below is an (incomplete) list of some micro-ISV and startup blogs that I find particularly useful with helping me along on my micro-ISV/startup journey. My hope is that they prove helpful to you too. And believe it or not, some of these guys can even be funny from time to time (but don’t hold your breath!!).
- Ian Landsman - UserScape/HelpSpot
- MicroISV on a Shoestring
- Successful Software
- Bill Boebel
- Don MacAskill - SmugMug
- Ryan Allis - iContact
- Andrey Butov - Antair
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