If you have been thinking about setting up a business on the Internet, you have probably already thought about on-line payments and asked yourself: "how is it done?. what do I need to get one on my website? ".

It is actually very simple, but it does require thorough planning and this planning is mostly about the business you want to run. Although we will mention some business facts here, we will not go into the actual business planning, as it would be probably be enough for a whole article.

First,  if you want to have a payment system, you probably want to sell a product or a service or even a compination of both. So how are you planning to sell it?

There are solutions such as catalogues, on-line subscriptions, service provision, bookings and presentations that you can use in order to sell your products or services, this will probably be your internet shop.

Second, you need to plan for the size of your business, as there are payment solutions that will be suitable for the range of products. Think very carefully about the size of your internet venture.

Third, you will need to think about your customers and their location, this is a very important factor for the sucessful implementation of an on-line payment system. As you are probably aware, the internet is accessible by anyone anywhere on this planet and in effect you will need to deal with time differences, currency exchange and language integration. Although this is great for many businesses sometimes you just want to keep things simple and sale and deliver locally or within your country, or completely the opposite you want your services to reach our all the 5 continents. The type of payment porovision that you choose will depend on this fact.

Now to the real thing, the payment interfaces. We will mention just the ones we know but we are aware that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of interfaces that operate all over the world.

Paypal: this is a cheap and cheerful way to make on-line payment transactions, this is ideal for small business as there is really no setup fees and you can deal with your local currency. Paypal is owned by the same people that own ebay, so it is integrated to the ebay interface. Paypal also offers code that you need to copy and paste on the pages of your website (you will probably need a web developer for this). We would estimate you can have paypal ready on your website in about a day.

Paypal's security has at times been questioned as there have been many cases of fraudulent transactions. There have also been documented cases of bandits hacking Paypal. Paypal often find themselves in a situation where they have to refund the customer if they receive any complaints. They are not a direct card transaction system but are in effect a broker that accepts your card and your customer's credit card and act as a middle man. You then request a money transaction to your bank account once you have collected enough funds, you will get charged a fee for this.

We recommend paypal to people that only want to make low amount payment transactions, products under £10 but would recommend alternative options for highertransactions. 

We have recommended Worldpay for many customers and actually use it for our own company. WorldPay has many great advantages such as multi- currency settings, levels of service, multi- languages and customisation. Worldpay also has reports that you can use for your accountancy, which is great when you get to your year-end returns. Worldpay is a professional on-line credit card transaction system that will work very well for international transactions with multi-currency and multi-language integration. Worldpay is a world-class payment interface with a good reputation for reliability and security.

Some things you will need to be aware of:

Worldpay credit scores you and before they do you must prove your credibility, so you must get together company documents, bank statements, proof of solvency and probably a few other documents that we do not know about.They always change their requirements. What they score you on remains a mystery, but then again all credit scoring systems are a mystery.

You will also need to have about £400 to start your e-merchant account and about another £200 you have to pay every year, and that is for what they call the Junior account.

We recommend his account for small and medium companies as this is a reliable secure transactions interface that scores well worldwide.

If you want to see Worldpay in action click here,  you will be using the Loboski test system to buy a "test product". No real transaction will take place, however it will validate your credit card details if you enter them.

Every country has their own on-line payment providers and we recommend you to use your own countriy's as they will be most financially adapted to your business situation.

If you need any more specific advice or if you would like Loboski to investigate any particular options for you please contact us by using our query system or email info@loboski.co.uk