Payments Gateway Question

gavney1

Hi All

I have set up a new site but I don't really have any experience with the payments side of things.

I bought an SSL cert a month ago, as I assumed it would be needed, but now I'm not so sure.

We are using Realex as our payments gateway, and they have 2 options for us

1. We host payments on our own secure server and integrate our own SSL and make sure to be PCI compliant etc..

2. We use a re-direct, which takes our customers to Realex secure site.

If possible, I'd prefer to use option 1, as it seems more professional, and less likely to turn off any customers.

However, I'm wondering if I'm just biting off more than I can chew with this option? I really want to get credit card payments sorted in the next week, so maybe better putting off option 1 for a while, go with option 2 for now to get things going, and then switch over later?

Thanks
John

antoinolachtnai

Your plan sounds like a very good one. Getting PCI compliant is not something you are going to get done between now and next Friday. Customers are fairly used to going through third-party payment gateways at this stage.

The Apprentice

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Your plan sounds like a very good one. Getting PCI compliant is not something you are going to get done between now and next Friday. Customers are fairly used to going through third-party payment gateways at this stage.

And their more secure !!! Im long in the tooth at this stage at buying online and i cant reallly remember any site these days that uses the first option.

Most have visa, Mastercard Paypal option, or others such as moneybookers and realex etc

Best of luck buddy

Duckjob

I would go for Realex redirect everytime.

Have done lots of redirect sites - it's a cinch to setup and you get great support from Realex if you have any problems.

Re. the trust issue, as another poster pointed out, if anything people might be more trusting of entering payment details on a page on a well secured Realex server with published security standards.

Another plus with redirect model - , you are not handling CC info at all, so you do not have to worry about being hacked etc.

Only download I've found is that on the payment page, you are restricted to static HTML content on the page around the payment form - no server script, no client script etc is allowed, so if your site has sidebars with dynamic content you need to find a creative way to replace it with static stuff for the payments page. It's small price to pay though.

HellFireClub

I launched a year ago OP with Realex and ran with the re-direct method. Couldn't be happier with it, taking in around 1k-3k a day in orders depending on the volumes we are getting and have never had a days trouble.

The Apprentice

Good stuff.. thats some nice turnover.

gavney1

Thanks Guys!

Am alot happier to use Re-Direct method now, as you all seem to be coming to the same conclusion, which is a relief for me, as obviously it's also the easier option!

To be clear though, when I said "our own server" in the opening post, I meant a secure URL hosted by a professional server (in our case Blacknight). I'm not hosting anything myself, and never intended to.

But btw, is there anything to be said for going with option 1, apart from what Duckjob said? Just for future reference.
One website I often use is www.chemist-direct.co.uk, and their payments page appears to be hosted themselves. It's probably the only website I buy stuff off regularly apart from Ebay/Amazon.

Duckjob

Only other possible adv I can think of hosting the page yourself is you have the option to save CC details and autofill the fields on subsequent orders, saving the user having to enter them again. You can't do that with redirect AFAIK.

Also, you don't have much control over the look of the payment form itself, other than a bit of CSS styling.