Best payment module for Canada?

Well, I have it like another option (without merchant, so I don't pay the 8%), since I have my own merchant. I don't think 8% is much since you don't pay anything else. When you add fees that go from $30-$95 a month, how much rate are you really paying? If you are getting 100's of transactions a month, doesn't matter.... but for someone starting will be a killing issue.

I've seen merchants that collect not 8% but 9%, 10%, 15%.

For us Canadians it pretty much down to InternetSecure or PSIgate.

We've been using IS for about 3 years and it suits us well. Another nice thing is that IS can be used through the Authorize.ent payment module so no extra module required. Not sure if PSIgate can do that.

Both gateways can collect payments in CAD and/or USD and accept; Discover, American Express, MasterCard, and Visa cards.

PayPal is under 3%, no monthly fees at all, and can accept in CAD, USD, EUR, GBP, YEN, etc etc etc etc.

There are so many upsides to PayPal. One enormous downside.

• Steven

s_mack:

PayPal is under 3%, no monthly fees at all, and can accept in CAD, USD, EUR, GBP, YEN, etc etc etc etc.

There are so many upsides to PayPal. One enormous downside.

• Steven

What's the one enormous downside?

What's the one enormous downside?
We all know the problems with Paypal, a lot of people don't like it, a lot of people don't use it, a lot of people don't trust it.

And therein lies the problem. There's really no good reason to "not trust it", but you can't convince your customers of that (at least not all of them). It is actually FAR more secure for your customers than a traditional merchant account... because the merchant (you) never see the transaction details. This removes liability from you as well.

But ideasgirl touched on the other part.... preference. Whether it be trust, or they just don't want the headaches involved, some people WONT use it.

PayPal almost got the gold star when they made it "optional" for customers to be a PayPal member. Well...it is optional... sort of. But PayPal keeps track of the credit card numbers used... if that card:

1. Has ever been associated with a PayPal account, it needs to be used through a PayPal login.
2. Has been used to purchase more than $XYZ worth of items from PayPal processed sites, even if they never new they were PayPal processed (because they all used the "optional" feature), PayPal enforces some arbitrary (and unknown) limit on the card and eventually will force the user to create an account to continue using it.

And that's b.s.. That's my biggest problem with them. They can't get it through their thick skulls that not everyone in the world wants to be a PayPal member... and I am their customer! I'm the one paying them money! So they should help me get as much PayPal sales as they can.

In 1999 we did some reasearch at Industry Canada that showed a particular demographic that this was likely to effect (older than 45, male, semi-computer literate or lower, all income and education levels) and my recent personal experience and observation says this hasn't changed much in 7 years.

As I said before, I know for a fact I lose sales because of PayPal. But I still use them exclusively for credit card transactions (I do give an option for cheque/money order/Interac EMT) because, so far anyway, the losses are offset by the benefits.

More and more businesses are using PayPal as their reputation continues to grow. As these customers run into this more and more... they'll probably eventually get over their issues and start using them. But not all of them.

When I say "reputation"... I'm sure you guys have seen the sites like https://www.paypalwarning.com or paypalsucks.com or one of the many other ones out there that were created because some "merchant" got screwed. Everyone has heard the rumour how PayPal has frozen or even taken their funds. I'm pretty sure that's all a bunch of bull. If you have a legitimate business that's operating normally, your funds will be safe. Its those businesses that are trying to use PayPal as a financial haven (they choose PayPal because they'll get 'caught' at the banks) or blatently violate the terms of service that have issues. I've been using PayPal as a merchant for years and have never had a problem. Mind you, I've also never had a chargeback or a customer file a Dispute Resolution with PayPal either... so maybe its just a matter of taking care of your customers.

Wow, that became a bit of a novel, didn't it?

• Steven

Hi,

Great to see some discussion on gateways for Canadian users! This is a question for Website_Rob. Did you run into any problems setting up Authorize.net (AIM) with Internet Secure?

I really want to go this route, but after reading this thread I'm not sure if I can.

Any problems you encountered would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Colin

Hi Colin, the thread you referenced is pretty old and perhaps things have changed?

I am not currently using the ZenCart, Authorize.net API with IS. I will be shortly though with another script. I can only presume the Authorize.net API is a Standard one included in most scripts that collect payment. Once I am using the emulation with the other script and regardless of the outcome, I will update this thread with the results.

Anyone know of any paradata modules that have been updated to work with 1.3.6?

Reason asking when a customer goes to confirm checkout it takes them back to 2 nd step of the checkout and not confirming, unless there is something causing this, I assume its is the paradata mod.

Thanks
Rob

I have a solution that I use it is cheap and I use it anyways, I set up an account with paymentech they were mentioned above, I use Their Touch Tone Verification POS, and I use the normal zen cart module for credit card, it's not real time, but it works and it is pretty affordable.

Advantage for me is I do a lot of conference and trade shows where I also sell my product so I can bring my cell call the 800 number and verify credit cards right there, I don't need another piece of equipment to bring and I don't need to pay any extra fees for a phone line at shows, so it has been an all around way of doing things. Not real time, but I don't ship that very second anyways so it is negligible.

Ok, it has been MONTHS since the last post, so I know I'm dredging up old history... but the issues are still current.

I posted above a couple times how I use PayPal exclusively for my credit card processing in Canada. It is still hard to leave, because they really do offer an excellent balance of flexibility and cost. However, PayPal's policies mean that eventually you will out-grow them. And that time has come for me. So I will be very shortly moving away from them to my new service.

After a lot of research, I determined that Paymentech is likely the best solution for me. After giving them the transaction data for my store, they came back with these costs (all $ in CAD):

$100 one-time setup
$39.99 a month (representing various things)
2% + $0.15 per transaction

If you want a USD account, that's fine but its a separate account (so double the setup and monthly fees)

The biggest down-side, is that they do not support Zen-cart, and vice-versa. I hope to change that. I'm confident I can develop a payment module to work with Zen-Cart. You can do as upperroom suggested immediately above, and use the included credit card module with zen-cart and use Paymentech's Virtual Terminal to process the charges manually - but I think it won't be long before that gets real old, real quick!

If you pm me, I can provide you with the contact info of the VERY helpful person that has been assisting me so far. She came to me with the best rates right out of the gate... I didn't have to negotiate or play games at all.

• Steven