Payment Page
Wouldn't it be nice to have a payment page on htp://yoursite.com that
simply records the payment information for later processing with the credit card
merchant. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to email customers an exact invoice and
have them go to a secure payment page on yoursite.com and supply credit
card or other payment information? So many internet payments cannot be processed automatically at the time of
sale because of things like unavailability of exact shipping costs, credit
confirmation, order customization that needs double-checking, stock
problems, inability to send out an order quickly, and many other foreseen and
unforeseen problems.
 No
Credit Card Processor Needed
It is amazing that internet (and even non internet) companies are not using this technique
on the web. What is an internet payment
page? It is like a custom-written paypal.com. It is a secure web page on your own server under your complete control, it
is not at a hosted by another company on another server.
You send customers to this page to provide credit card payment
information for a specific invoice you have sent them or yoursite.com sends them there to pay for items
they have just purchased. This payment page queues a
notice to you to check an administration page where you can see the payment
information then delete or blind it. You process the payments using a web page at
the bank or credit card merchant vendor web site.
Why better?
The big difference is that you, the site owner, press the "Process Payment"
button later after the sale, not the customer at the time of sale. This is better for so many kinds of transactions,
especially for larger amounts. The customer likes it also because they
have the assurance that they have some kind of control of the payment and that
their bank will only be charged when the goods are ready or have been shipped.
When the payment function is separated from the web store they also have a sense of
greater security, especially if the payment page is password protected and you
give them the password to get there.
PayPal is controversial
A trip to sites like http://paypalsucks.com
will help you quickly realize the dangers of using PayPal. Remember also that
Paypal is the constant target for scammers and lowlifes trying to swindle
people, many people will not or do not feel comfortable using paypal. What
happens if PayPal goes down tomorrow? The traditional approach of becoming a
credit card vendor at the bank is more secure, more reliable and less expensive
and most banks support many different credit cards. You can then sign up with a
credit card or debit card processor like Authorize.net. The payment page
then talks to the Authorize payment server to deposit the money in a business account.
Actually, at the beginning your administration page does not even need a Process
Payment button, you can simply log in to the processors site (e.g. Authorize.net,
Versign.com) and use their online credit card terminal to process the payment.
We can then add the payment button to automate this later.
Ebay Sales
It is far better to tell potential buyers that you will accept a credit card. When it comes time to pay simply send them to
the payment page. This gives breathing room for shipment (credit card rules
require immediate shipment after payment processing) since you can
process payment when you like and it also gives you the ability to tell buyers
that you reserve the right to adjust shipping and other costs up until the time
of shipment.
Other Payment Methods
There are lots of other payment methods that can be handled on an internet payment
page. For example, visitors could fill out the page, print it and then mail it
with payment. Or they could print and then fax credit card or other information. Or they could provide a
purchase order number. It could show bank transfer information and
notify you when they have made the transfer. Lots of other payment techniques
are also evolving and with a custom payment page you can take advantage
of them quickly and focus all collection efforts in one place. Imagine a payment
page that can consolidate multiple credit card transactions to take a large
payment amount on line.
Related
Do you want the payment page to record the persons address in a people
database that you can later query? The advantage of a people database is that
you can later implement a login and controlled access. A people database
typically becomes the centerpiece of a site and everything else integrates with
it.
Do you want the payment page to record information about the purchase in a
sales and invoice database. This enables you to create an
invoicing page and email invoices to people with
instructions on where to go to make payment. Or you can resend an adjusted
invoice. Later you can also do sales and payment reporting from the site if you
have the data.
How about a private messaging system integrated into your
control page (or internet control panel) so you can see
who has paid, quickly contact buyers, log message history, etc?
Evolving to 'Instant Payment' on your web site
Of course, at some point a Pay Now button
right on the public web page might be needed. You can go
the route of buying shopping cart software and shoe-horning it into your
web site, but don't. A custom cart is better, it does exactly what you want and
no more, it can evolve it into anything needed later. Start simple, better
something simple that a complex monster you cannot control. I write custom shopping carts, contact me.
Get a Payment Page Now
I can write a page like this for you now. All you need is an internet web site hosted on
a server that has an SQL server and support for the PHP language (all Linux
servers have this). If you do not have a website I can tell you how to buy your
own URL (e.g. http://yourname.com) for about
$35 a year and where to rent space on a server for as little as $5 a month.
I can also tell you how to get to the top ten on the search engines. You found
this page and it places ahead of banks and credit card vendors, so my method
must work!
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