Ask HN: Accept credit card payments in Europe

4 pointsschtono17y ago3 comments

Hi guys,

we're a startup from Germany which is selling "offline-goods" (yes, things with "a price") to consumers. So far, we're using Paypal to accept credit card payments, but to be honest: it sucks. big time. Not only that the interface is counter-intuitive, our customers are also reluctant to create an account on behalf of Paypal. In a nutshell, we estimated that the current system kills 40% of our sales.

Question:

(1) Do you know any good/ working payment services, that can be integrated into our custom-built shopping cart? Best case would be to have something built into our own site, so the user will not be redirected to a third-party site to complete the payment? (Dev skills are present, no worries about that!)

(2) What are your experiences with this provider?

Thanks a lot and keep up the good work! Philipp

3 comments

3 comments · 1 top-level

WarTheatre17y ago· 2 in thread

I've setup a hosted payment solution (i.e. the customer is redirected to the provider) for a minor e-commerce so I have some experience on the matter.

My recommendation would be to select a provider that: 1. is based in Germany. Having a provider that has the same business hours as you and to whom you can actually phone and talk in your own tongue is very important. When - not if - you get into trouble and require support, you need to get it ASAP, not wait for an email many hours later.

2. Provides the features, technology and support you require. You'll need a solution that accepts major credit cards, but this is raraly a problem. Equally important and often neglected, is how good the solution is techniqually. Can you work in any programming language (you should)? Are you provided with good documentation, examples, needed graphics, etc?

schtonoOP17y ago

Thanks for your reply!

ad 1) see your point

ad 2) true. in our case: we want to accept at least visa and mastercard. programming skills are definitely present (and very good), so this should not be an issue.

I wonder which provider you chose for your project?

WarTheatre17y ago

The company had actually already chosen Samport, a provider mainly (only?) active on the Scandinavian market. However, Samport fulfills all requirements that I previously described.

Actually, if there are any Scandinavian developers/entrepreneurs reading this - give Samport a chance. In addition to the previously described advantages, they are also cheap and -- besides the hosted solution where customers are redirected to their servers -- allow you to seamlessly integrate Samport with your own e-commerce.

Regards, WarTheatre

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