There is a great deal of interest in a small scale eCommerce platform.  Let's break out a couple of scenarios in which a small business would require on-line payment services.  I will try to keep it simple and around a limited amount of products that do not require a full scale eCommerce shopping cart. Let's say no more then 10 products or services.   Before we dive into the various online services there are some merchant requirements to consider.

• A business account is required.
• Merchant Account
• Payment Gateway 

You can use an existing business account to open an merchant account and then open a payment gateway account or you can get the merchant account and payment combined as one like authorize.net, Google Checkout, PayPal and SimplePay.  Some of it is around brand and all lot is about functionality.   A merchant account allows you to accept credit card payments, that is process and deposit with a 'slight' charge for the trouble.  The payment gateway provide an connection between the Internet and the banks's secure network.  You need a account with both or a single provider of both services to transact sales. 

Authorize.net

Simple Checkout allows customers to purchase single items in any quantity using a hosted platform to provide 'Buy now' buttons or Donate.  Unlike PayPal or Google Checkout,  Authorize.net provides a lot more services and allows you to break out the gateway provider from the merchant account.  A business can do it ether way with Authorize.net.   Credit card payments can be processed on-line via a credit card terminal or via a Pay now button on the web site. Authorize.net is a scalable solution that can be expanded to a full eCommerce platform in the future.  This is not to say authorize.net is a virtual web store, it provides the payment processing and gateway services only. 

Google Checkout

Google Checkout provides gateway services and a merchant account.  Google also offers it's many shades of the old 'Froogle', Base, Merchant Center at any rate this provides a means of selling products 'virtually' without any real web site outside of Google.  It's far from simple for the average person although not totally out of the learning curve.  Google Checkout has the disadvantage of requiring a Google account and a Gcheckout account.  This is not so simple for someone not on the Google network.

PayPal

The ubiquitous PayPal provides a lot for so little.  That is a PayPal account is free. A business account is a little more work but offers some merchant tools for selling online.  The fees are higher then authorize.net but PayPal does not charge a monthly service charge for the gateway and merchant account like authorize.net.  

PayPal deposits payments directly into PayPal only.  Something else to be aware with on PayPal is indeed they do accept ‘out of network’ payments but that can put a hold on the funds or worse become a 'chargeback' because the user is not a verified PayPal account holder.  So we lose with PayPal because of this issue (I don’t want to play it up as serious: it works both ways as it is a convenience too).  I would recommend PayPal in cases were payment is required and no ‘conversion’ needs to take place.  Someone owes you $50 then PayPal is great.   If someone has $50 they want to spend and it’s a choice between authorize.net and PayPal they will go with Authorize.net 100% of the time and as a secondary payment method PayPal comes in at around 15%  These are actually industry eCommerce statistics that I have seen myself in eCommerce sales based on the findings of Internet Retailer various polls with merchants .

PaySimple

PaySimple is similar to Authorize.net as a on-line merchant account and provides some of the convieneces but not many of the integration functions of authorize.net.  PaySimple does offer the Pay now button option and is less expensive (currently a special on application fee being waived) although monthly fees are higher which reaches a break even in a year with Authorize.net and then you are saving $12.00 a month, $144 a year with Authorize.net

In most of my examples above the offerings do not include a 'web store'.  The only one is Google Checkout that can provide some kind of storefront.   There are some other solutions that enter into the higher end of the small business horizon.  I will describe some of these services in my next blog post.