wait a minute....why plimus or bmt when you can go bare?

[ibsta]

I really don't understand why I haven't seen anyone posting about simple e-commerce credit-card processing solutions yet. Wait I mean is instead of the fancy affiliate system, one can go the "bare" route. Afterall, the main hurdle is credit-c processing, and many companies offer this. For canada, the rate is
from 2.75-4% and thats it. US its like 2.5-3.5%.

Maybe its because u know somthing I don't?

[Sirrus]

Hassle?
A lot of it?

Most simple commerce solutions require tons of manual labor - in addition to manually mailing out registration codes...
This results in frustrated customers, frustrated developers, and loss in efficiency...You could be spending that time working on your next game.

6% more is definately worth it for all the trouble you save.

[george]

because servics like bmt and plimus:

1) handle product delivery
2) handle order support
3) have more advanced anti-fraud, and don't charge you for fraud orders
4) provide many tools for software vendors (like affiliates, etc.)
5) provide phone, fax, and mail orders
6) and much more to help software vendors run their business

i thought about going bare, or even using something like 2checkout (which is easier than a merchant account). but it would be too much work and managing, and the risk of paying for fraudulant orders was troubling.

services llike bmt do A LOT for you, that is why their commission is higher. but for all they do, it's a pretty cheap peice i think :-)

[James C. Smith]

That’s what we do. We have our own merchant account which charges less than 3%. We had to buy expensive software and do lots of programming to build a whole automated system around it. It was a very large investment but now we have very low COGs for each sale. It is only worth it if you are going to do lots of volume and you can afford to take some time off from making games. But it can pay off in the long run.

[svero]

Another problem with merchant accounts is that often you need several if you want to handle many card types. Some merchant accounts may only handle visa and mastercard and then you need a 2nd one for amex etc..

[ibsta]

James, could u tell me the average % of chargebacks or returns that you get?
Reason I am asking is because the provider charges $20 per chargeback!

btw, I still think going bare is better. It prob depends on what u have in mind

[DavidRM]

To add to the list of reasons to use a 3rd-party payment processor:

* Automatic EU VAT support
* Automatic sales tax collection in the US (where necessary)

(In other words, many legal issues are taken care of for you.)

We're in the process of converting *back* to a 3rd-party payment processor for Artifact, and for a new game we're about to bring online. If you don't have the volume to justify the work involved, it's actually cheaper and easier to let somebody else do it.

-David

[ibsta]

does plimu/bmt pay in american dollars? how does the pay system exactly work? is a merchant accnt required?

[keethrus]

Well, I have no experience with things such as BMT, but I plan on using "charge.com" (reseller of Linkpoint International). I think they charge something like $30-40/month, plus 2.8% (?) on charges. No need for a merchange account, they mail you a check. AND with PHP I can create a nice checkout page right on my site that looks professional and however I want it to.

It would also be easy to have PHP mail out keycodes or anything else automatcially as well.

Anyway, just my preference I suppose.

- Jeremiah

[ggambett]

does plimu/bmt pay in american dollars? how does the pay system exactly work? is a merchant accnt required?

Plimus pays by check or wire transfer. We get paid in USD so I don't know if other currencies are available.

[george]

does plimu/bmt pay in american dollars? how does the pay system exactly work? is a merchant accnt required?

no merchant account is required. in fact, nothing is required, except for a product to sell :-) they don't even charge you a monthly fee!

[Tertsi]

How about doing it with PayPal personal?

Pros:

* No real costs what so ever. Small currency exchange fees which aren't the sellers problem if the seller just accepts payments in one currency, which shouldn't be a problem to any customers either due to the automatic currency exchange.

* You can withdraw the money to your bank account any time.

* Basically 100% fraud-free, because you'll only send the game's registration details after you see a new sell in the PayPal profile. Unless they can still chargeback PayPal? If they can, PayPal still has one of the best fraud detections, right?

* Simple to put in your website as a button which directs in the PayPal's send a donation -like page (except that it's a buy now page with a product title etc.).

Cons:

* Non-customizable sign-up page.
* You'll have to deliver the registration details etc. manually.
* Not so good statistics.

[Mark Fassett]

The cons are the reason for not doing PayPal. The biggest thing for me would be not having automated key generation.

[mahlzeit]

PayPal has something called Instant Payment Notification (IPN). You can use this to generate the keys automatically.

[svero]

I would never buy anything from a site that used only paypal. So there's one con.

[Frozen In Ice]

does plimu/bmt pay in american dollars? how does the pay system exactly work? is a merchant accnt required?

Far as I remember, if you are Canadian, BMT will pay you in Canadian funds.

[ibsta]

I would never buy a something from a paypal only site. that's two cons.

[Tertsi]

I would never buy anything from a site that used only paypal. So there's one con.

Could you actually say why?
Using it you can send a payment from your PayPal account or using any of the major credit cards as with others.

PayPal has something called Instant Payment Notification (IPN). You can use this to generate the keys automatically.

That's for Premium accounts only and you would still have to do the system manually. That just lets you know exactly when a proper payment is made.

[svero]

Could you actually say why?
Using it you can send a payment from your PayPal account or using any of the major credit cards as with others.

There are many reasons, but suffice to say that it's impossible to use a paypal account you created in your home country from abroad and I travel almost year round. Aside from that though I dislike how they keep changing the legal terms of their agreement with their customers in their favor and I refuse to agree to their clauses any longer.

[Bluecat]

I also don't trust Paypal.

I won an auction on eBay where the vendor didn't deliver. In fact the vendor didn't deliver to a number of customers. When I followed the guidelines, Paypal promptly closed the ticket with no action taken. Fortunately, it wasn't a lot of money, so I didn't lose much.

But still, I was quite disgusted at the way they treat their customers and resolved to use them as little as possible and certainly for no large purchases.

[Hamumu]

Third con: I even USE paypal on occasion, and I still wouldn't buy from a site that ONLY used it (I do buy auctions and such that only accept paypal though, that's a little different). Seems a little too fly-by-night to me.

[papillon]

that it's impossible to use a paypal account you created in your home country from abroad

Depends on which abroad. Paypal has yet to do anything about my continued use of my US account for 2 years living in the UK. I've heard of them locking accounts for access from various places in Asia, Russia, etc. Obviously the UK isn't considered a danger zone.

However, they won't let me modify my existing account to be a UK account, not wanting to deal with the fact that I've had my account long enough to have more rights than the average Paypalee (Some things only apply if you opened your account past date X, iirc. I'm well before date X.) They want me to close it and open a new one. I don't wish to. Therefore I can't get any protection for any purchase, because I don't have a verified address. That's okay, I don't trust their protection anyway. No one I ebay from has complained so far.

[Sillysoft]

In practice I have found it's impossible to use a personal paypal account. People will send you payments funded by credit cards. Paypal will accept the payment then send you an email saying something like "Upgrade to a business account within 60 days or we will refund this credit card payment". At least this is what happened to me, even though I only have paypal as a secondary payment option. So I upgraded to a business account. I recently set up the automatic keycode sending using their IPN system and it's working nicely.