Help me understand ecommerce esp in UK

I am new to zencart and all other shopping carts. I have no previous experiance in setting up and maintaining a ecommerce solution. I have however run several cms solutions. And now I think is the time to try to sell items online. I have many questions and need help here because I am new to this field. I have tried to read up on this subject but all places I looked the writer assume people have a more basic knowledge then what I hold. So:

1: What is a merchent account? And who might issue me one? (use small words pls)

2: Can my business bank issue me what I need to do online sales?

3: Can companies in the US issue me accounts or paymentgateways when I run a company in London UK, and holds a UK business bank account?

4: Does it excist solutions that I can use along with Zencart that do not charge a leg and an arm for their services? (I am new to this and my budget is limited)

5: Will I easily be able to run Zencart either as a standalone application in its own directory or as a module for a cms?

6: Will it be possible to set up and maintain Zencart without much knowledge to
PHP and MySQL?

7: What kind pf payments-gateways can I use with Zen?

8: Will the company I choose to deliver payment gateway also issue a merchentaccount?

Noobie need help

1: What is a merchent account? And who might issue me one? (use small words pls)

2: Can my business bank issue me what I need to do online sales?

3: Can companies in the US issue me accounts or paymentgateways when I run a company in London UK, and holds a UK business bank account?

4: Does it excist solutions that I can use along with Zencart that do not charge a leg and an arm for their services? (I am new to this and my budget is limited)

5: Will I easily be able to run Zencart either as a standalone application in its own directory or as a module for a cms?

6: Will it be possible to set up and maintain Zencart without much knowledge to
PHP and MySQL?

7: What kind pf payments-gateways can I use with Zen?

8: Will the company I choose to deliver payment gateway also issue a merchentaccount?

A merchant account is the same as a business account yes your bank can use your existing account for you to receive payments but you will need ssl for secure payments or you can use a payment gateway like paypal
why would you want a US bank account when your bank or payment gateway will give you the option to receive all payments in £'s rather than dollars
Your bank should be able to help you with how much they will charge you I know it is more expensive than using paypal but talk to your business advisor first to see what your business needs are
You can run zencart as a standalone application
It if fairly easy to setup Zencart but you will need a little basic knowledge on how to set up databases on your server and then just fill in the easy to follow steps to install the cart. Customizing can be tricky but there are lots of people who have probably asked the same question on this forum who have solved all the problems you may encounter so please look through the numerous self help and faq's if you get stuck
Yes your payment gateway i.e. paypal will set up your account so you can pay money into any bank account of your choosing

First just let me ask you this:
With a cart like Zencart, can I have different paymentgateway and merchent account?

What is the difference between paymentgateway and merchent account?

The reasson for using an amarican company would be purely motvivated by lower prices from i.e https://www.authorize.net or similar. Because when I have studied the prices it seems to me I rather often see great offers for new customers in the US market, and much less frequently here in UK. There is all kinds of fees to pay here in UK, sign on fee, fee per transaction monthly fees etc.
Basically I am setting up a small online store, and I do not excpect to make much money off it for the forst 12 months. So I must try to find the right cart (Zencart I belive), the right payment gateway, and the right merchent account. Common keywords here would be light and affordable.

After reading your post I did some reading at paypal, and I belive it will be a nice addition to the three most used creditcards like visa mastercard and amex. I might add another card if doable but that is mostly used in UK I think.

I think I know what you mean so I will try and answer you
you can set up different payment options if that is what you are trying to do i.e. paypal and your current merchant account if I understood correctly. But paypal excepts most major credit cards anyway so it may be cheaper for you to just use paypal

hope this helps

I have a subjective feeling that many sites that only have paypal payments appears less proffesional then sites that also offers verified by vias and mastercard secure. So my goal is to offer both these options and I hope paypal as well. I am aware that this might just be my opinions, but this is the route I will go.

When I asked the follow up questions before, it is because I would like to keep the bank I currently use and I hope I can have a merchent account with them, yet have the option to add a payment gateway from a third party.

How does this work? I sign up for a payment gateway from ie worldpay, can I still continue to use my bank, or do I need to use worldpay for banking services as well?

trond.rud:

How does this work? I sign up for a payment gateway from ie worldpay, can I still continue to use my bank, or do I need to use worldpay for banking services as well?
I haven't used WorldPay personally, but I think it's best to ask them that question... they may already work with a number of banks directly and thus may have no problem dumping funds directly into an existing account; however, if your bank is not one they deal with regularly, they may ask you to set up a new account, or they may try to work with you to find a way to use your existing resources. Some gateway and merchant services are flexible. Some are not.

-Steptoe-

I did not know one had the option to also allow visa, mastercard etc with paypal. I did some reading on the paypal site, and I sent them email.
I belive this will be the obvious choice now, simple to set up, no storing of customers creditcard numbers or other sensitive info and they are rally great when it comes to fees. Paypal charges *** details removed by moderator ***. That is better then many of the other solutions I have checked. A little sad one could not opt for their Pro solution when operation solely outside US. But as it is no signup fee, no monthly fee and yet low low fee on every purchase I belive Paypal will be my first choice. Maybe I will see shortcomings with their solutions after using it, but as long as the store makes money or I have a better financial situation I could always have change of heart later on.

Thx for great adwise.

As you're in the UK you may also want to consider NoChex.

kuroi:

As you're in the UK you may also want to consider NoChex.

Thx kuroi. I just browsed their site. Looks good as well. Will need to do a compare them side-by-side with the paypal before I choose one. But it seems flexible and easy and that is what I am after

I just got yet another tip, Protx.com
Will need to do some more reading. Did no know there was som many to choose from.

Anyone whom have first hand experiance using any of these pls let me know. What is good what is bad. Ok?

trond.rud:

I just got yet another tip, Protx.com
Will need to do some more reading. Did no know there was som many to choose from.

Anyone whom have first hand experiance using any of these pls let me know. What is good what is bad. Ok?

you need an ONLINE merchant account from your bank to use protx. They are good and inexpensive. (I use them)

If you can't get an ONLINE merchant account from your bank then worldpay can give you what you need but they aren't cheap.

Paypal will do everything you need but paypal still doesn't have the consumer confidence that comes with a real bank so you WILL lose trade if you only have paypal as an option.

You also run a massive risk of your whole business going under if you rely on paypal only and they freeze your account for whatever reason.

Nochex are an other option in the UK, but are nowhere near as popular as paypal
(for example we have received over 500 paypal payments per nochex payment, and yes we are based in the UK).

I think Protx is definately the way forward, you just need an internet merchant number from your bank which isnt easy to get unless you are making 50K a year and have been established 2 years. (well thats what HSBC told me).

Right now we offer paypal, nochex and 2checkout for what its worth but would like to go down the protx route.
Id be interested in how things work out for you.
Good luck!

If you are a member of FSB (Federation of small business)you may get free setup cost( Natwest gave us free account set up for our ecommerce merchant account,but we already had a normal streamline merchant account) we are with Protx and works well.

If you are serious about your online business you really must try to stay away from Paypal and get yourself set up with a Merchant account and a payment gateway such as Protex.

Our shop has been live now for about 3 months and we are losing roughly 1 cart a day due to Paypal problems (we use the recover cart mod and lots of our customers have problems trying to pay by Paypal or just dont trust it due to the association with Ebay)

We also offer Nochex which works well but the £100 restriction they place on non account holders lets it down.

Within the next couple of weeks we will hopefully have the Protex option in place (in conjunction with our new Streamline account) and we are confident that this will bring us more business. We are still debating whether or not to keep Paypal as an option or to drop it altogether but suspect we will go with the latter.

Good luck! :smile:

You could check this; electronic-payments.co.uk/product_data.jsp, worldpay might be good for UK and if you are in EU you may consider ChronoPay, they both acquire good reputation.