If you plan to offer products for sale (shopping cart) on your website or would like users to subscribe online, you will want to accept their product or subscription payments online.

Credit card payments also allow you to take advantage of the impulsive nature of customers: _

Impulse buyers. After reading your advertisements and hype on your site, buyers would be all fired up about your product. If they have a means of making a purchase immediately, you've secured that sale. If you only allow cheque payments, the additional time it takes for them to get their cheque book and mail out the cheque may be a deterrence. They may also have second thoughts later. _

 International customers. Credit card payment is a tremendous convenience if your customers are overseas. It automatically takes care of the problems of currency differences as well as the time it takes for a cheque to travel to the vendor. You will lose a large number of overseas customers if cheque payment is the only way you can accept payment.

Methods of Accepting Credit Card Payments

There are  ways in which you can accept credit cards on your site.

_ Through your bank. To accept credit card payments through your existing bank you need to set up an 'internet merchant bank account'. Your bank charges you an additional fee for this: usually a setup fee of $200 - $400, monthly fees of $30 - $60 and a transaction fee similar to normal credit card transactions, 2.5% - 3.5%. _

 Through an online payment gateway like Secure Pay. This handles the transaction and delivers the payment straight to you normal bank account. Again, there are fees: For low-volume accounts there is no monthly fee but a 2.4% per transaction fee. They also charge the buyer a fee of 3% plus $0.50 which you may wish to absorb.View the current PayMate fees.

_ Through the well known Paypal. This is an online option that collects the payment from your customer (via credit card or their own Paypal account) and places it in your Paypal account which can then be transferred to a normal existing bank account. Paypal is free to set up and charges no monthly fees, but typically charges 1.1% to 2.4% + $0.30 per transaction fee. _

Through a Third Party Merchant. There are numerous companies around that are willing to accept credit cards payments on your behalf in exchange for various fees and percentages. These are also known as "payment gateways".

Typical payment gateway pricing

Post Paid Plan 1 $395pa 45 cents per transaction

Post Paid Plan 2 $450pa $25pm 25 cents per transaction If transaction volumes per month exceed 5,000 the transaction rates reduces to 20 cents.

If transaction volumes per month exceed 10,000 the transaction rates reduces to 15 cents

Pre Paid Plan 1 3,000 transactions $800

Pre Paid Plan 2 6,000 transactions $1,400

Pre Paid Plan 3 10,000 transactions $2,200

Payment Gateway Application form