Handling Money

RWBRWB Icrontian
edited August 2004 in Internet & Media
Dumm how tow orkd this properly, but it goes along with the website I am building for my neighbor.

Basically, he is a physical trainer, he wants to offer advice through his website to his clients. His clients have to pay him somehow, but I am not too sure about setting up a database to handle money, cuase it would require a secured server.

So how, or what method, or way should his clients pay him for services rendered?

So to further this for less confusion(I am bad at explainations sorry). I'll give you an example. But I haven't spoken with him too much on this quite yet so I am not too sure on how much it costs or if it is monthly or whatever.

You login to his website, you ask a question, or look at any articles he has made. If you have paid, you have access, if not, then you don't have access.

I figure he COULD have a MO system setup, so that he logs into his phpmyAdmin account, and updates manually so whoever turned in their MO's continue or gain access, and those who haven't paid, loose their access.

But then, manually is not very fun is it? :buck:
I don't know how CC's work, or if it costs money to handle them, plus then there is the whole secured server like what newegg.com does.

OK, that is about as well as I can explain my brain farts without further questions............. so, any questions?

Ohh yeah, and any comments or knowledge in what I can do?

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    CC handling hits you with a 3-4% overall fee if you do high volume and direct. The bigger the dollar value of each transaction, the lower the percentage of income that gets taken. CC processing providers charge by transaction, plus a monthly fee, plus software to talk to them(per upgrade and original cost of software), plus the percentage take. Many 10.00 transactions will cost more than a yearly subscription, in terms of profit lost. For low volume, try a PayPal seller account. for high volume, later on, Visa\MasterCard only are best and most economical, discover charges more per transaction and AMEX really wants a hefty fee from seller\merchants. Talk to GoDaddy if you want a cart plus medium flow CC account, they are not bad.

    Low volume sites, they send the check, and you ACH process it (in essence a check to electronic conversion via a reader that converts and talks to a bank computer, the ACH process can be more economical than the CC process). Medium low with many small transactions, PayPal. High volume or HIGH DOLLAR VALUE per transaction with medium volume, you go to CC processing.

    Services start local, mostly, and unless the person is best of class as far as reputation, payment can be manual for cheapest money impact to start. If this trainer has lots of folks who know him world-wide, PayPal can handle multiple currencies, so can Element5 ( this company specializes in international sales processing and is not too expensive, many of the Linux folks use them for international transactions, and other software publishers and book sellers also do).

    I'd say talk to the trainer first, see how he\she does business and how much of that business is local, and how he wants subscriptions to be done-- if he\she takes CC, I would say for a half year or year minimum subscription for CC use to start with. To draw folks, you will need some work samples out in public view-- just as publishers of books that web sell publish sample chapeters on the web, so should a knowledge subscription site publish things that give the tenor of the person's skills at communicating as samples. GoDaddy is getting into business and e-commerce hosting, and is middle-of-the-road price wise for ecommerce hosting and cart provisions and some provision of processing through partners.
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited July 2004
    Secure server for the access end (username and password) and a Paypal account for payment, one that can accept credit cards. Why re-invent the wheel? Use something that already works :)

    Dexter...
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited July 2004
    Would he need a secured server if he just handles the money and inputs the values himself? IE: He gets the check in, so he either allows or disallows the user access?
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited July 2004
    You would still need a secure login area. ISP's can provide this, for a fee. Often, they will host this on a secure server, so it will likely be an https://domain.com URL, but not necessarily.

    Dexter...
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    Any guides you know of that will help me in finding more information on how to go about all this? Doing secured servers and such for handling money... he is probably going to go for the whole credit card thing.
  • JBJB Carlsbad, CA
    edited August 2004
    based on your hosting package the web host can offer you an SSL certificate. I have that free 1and1 hosting, but they offer shared SSL for $49/year.(i.e. https://1and1.com/secure/yoursitename). For a dedicated certificate (https://www.yourdomain.com) it runs around $200 something.

    If you are doing the credit card option there are companies that will handle them for you, and all you have to do is direct your users to their SSL page to complete the transaction. Ill look around for one of the companies.

    also...maybe it would be a better deal to look at hosts that offer a webstore package that you can customize? Not to pimp 1&1(i havent looked around much) but they offer a web store with credit card handling.

    here is an eshop example:
    http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/EshopsBusiness;jsessionid=EC80DF346C8B99061575CA5B2FA895BC.TC63b?__frame=_top
Sign In or Register to comment.