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* The Business of Software

We had a thread about PayPal.

Now, what about 2Checkout.

Is it:

1)Easy to use (for end-user)?
2)Secure?
3)Be customized to fit with your website (in terms of appearance)?

Yes to all three and I'd recommend them unreservedly.

I found 2CheckOut to be easier to setup than PayPal.  I thought it was way more efficient and user friendly as well.

I put in a button and it takes them to a cart page, they click continue, it's a credit card form, they come back to my site and pass back info I need.

Done.

I've been with them for recurring payments for over 2 years and have had great success with them.

There is plenty of support options as well.

Payouts have been on time and regular bi-monthly for all this time.  No problems there either.

I have nothing but good things to say about them from my experience.

I was interested in them to see if I could get decline/failure codes programatically.  But it seems they don't support that.  Here's their response to my inquiry:

My Question:
"I read that results aren't returned if the sell failed or declined.  I'm interested in receiving information about a decline for recurring billing.  If there is a decline, I want to disable the service being provided.  Can you give
details about how that works?"

Their answer:
"Thank you for contacting 2Checkout.com, I apologize for any delay or inconvenience you may have experienced.  You can view a report of all your currently declining recurring sales from your account homepage.  After logging
in, click on the 'Reports' link under the Helpful Links section, then click on the 'Declined Recurring Sales' link."

PayPal does support this by the way but they have aweful human support.  People seem to like 2checkout all around.  Does anyone know if 2checkout actually sends back decline/failure codes some way?  Or other suggestions about how I can deactivate a service if payment declines/fails?  Guess I could just always do it on my side by auto disabling the service on the renewal date.  I just want to automate as much as possible.

> Guess I could just always do it on my side by auto disabling the service on the renewal date.

Since you know your users' renewal dates by looking at your service's DB, you can generate your own report without needing anything from 2CheckOut.  It is sufficient to keep accurate records of the sales that *have* gone through.  Then, you can see which users should have paid but have not for whatever reason -- the payment was declined or not attempted yet or perhaps the user called 2CheckOut and asked for payments to cease.

But, yeah, it would be really nice to see a history of *all* failed order attempts.  Unable to authorize, improper 3-digit security code, missing fields, how many users made it to each step but did not submit, etc.  People give up too easily, it would be nice to know why.

2checkout looks good, BUT (and a very big but):


The appearance of the checkout page can't be customized seamlessly (with the same html layout, without the 2CO logo) from what I can tell.

For example, for any product, it would look something like:

https://www2.2checkout.com/2co/buyer/purchase

Does anyone know definitively whether or not it (the appearance) can be changed? Any examples?

I can take care of disabling the service.  But what about if the user comes back and pays? After successful payment, the service should just start up again.

But that's my point, if 2checkout isn't sending back any type of code, how will I know the user came back and paid?  Or, what will they send back on a successful recurring charge that I can programmatically capture and no humans were involved with.

One other thing, if the recurring charge fails at some point, how will I know?  I'll probably get an email but than I have manually disable the account.  What are other JoSers doing in these situations?

I don't like 2CO for a very good reason - they've let Visa drop the ball for them.

Visa has a local banking program where during the backend transaction they pass verification off to the issuing bank and allow them to serve up web pages during the transaction. (Oh sweet mother of God! Can you smell the disaster approaching?)

This wouldn't be much of a problem if there were some kind of intelligent standards there, but there aren't.

The issuing bank for my Visa uses an ActiveX control during the authentication, so I can't buy anything using 2CO if I'm on Firefox.

The real problem is the issuing bank being run by nitwits that don't have a clue. Visa doesn't seem to mind, and hasn't set any intelligent standards for this, otherwise they'd never allow an ActiveX control to be used.

I don't know about anyone else, but the moment I see an ActiveX control being used by a web site, I just close it and go away.

2CO participates in this Visa initiative, which while it probably does reduce fraud, drives people like me away.

Now, as for using 2CO, I'd probably go ahead and use it if I were looking for a secondary platform. I have nothing against them when it comes to using them for a payment provider.

The problem isn't specific to 2CO - it affects other providers as well that participate in VISA's ill conceived attempt to reduce fraud. I had another nightmare when buying an iPod Nano from the Apple store in Poland - It caused me to end up buying 2 of them as the process was so screwed up. I got one cancelled, but still - I shouldn't have that many problems when trying to buy something online. (Again, due to the local issuing bank dropping the ball with a completely idiotic system.)

It shows a complete disregard for the consumer and the end-user experience.

The technical part of getting codes back from 2CO: https://support.2co.com/deskpro/faq.php?do=article&articleid=364

Well, in the end there's also PayPal, which seems to have the lowest transaction cost.  If you know how to use their API, you'll be fine most of the time.  They are probably  the best value overall.  Just don't ask for help but then again, isn't that the way it is?

I have used the company as a customer several times and it was a fine experiance. As a additional bonus they could convert the $ amount to my local currency and chage me in the local currency.

2Checkout:
># $49 one time signup fee
# $0.45 per Sale
# 5.5% of Sale Amount

On a $34.95 transaction that is $2.37 (not including the set-up fee). PayPal charge me $1.49. What exactly would I be getting for the extra $880 per thousand transactions?

I used to only provide PayPal but added 2CO as an option as I heard some customers/companies won't touch PayPal. As a result I get 7/10 using 2CO and 3/10 using PayPal, I was amazed by this!

Yes 2CO is more expensive but more of my customers want to use it. I sell to organizations as well as individuals and some will not touch PayPal.

I had one customer just the other day who wanted to pay via Purchase Order as their company banned the use of 2CO claiming "the 2CO site has a lot of fraud on it". This was also a surprise, I suspect this sort of problem exists with all payment processors and is not unique to 2CO.

All in all I really like 2CO, I have always had a responce from their support even if it wasn't great.

As far as I can tell they are the second best value after PayPal.

I am one of the customers that wouldn't touch PayPal. I had so many outrageous experiences with them in the past, that I won't ever deal with them.
If I see a website that only accepts PayPal ... well, end of story right there.

So to the person asking what would he get for the additional $880 per thousand transactions? An additional $1000 or whatever in revenues as PayPal is quite unpopular with many.

I do have a second processor for people that don't like PayPal.

Lots of techies hate PayPal, but I don't think that is the case amongst non-technical people. In fact PayPal might be the only processor they have heard of, so they will mostly prefer to entrust their credit card company to them, rather than a company they have never heard of.
NB/ This is speculation - I don't have any numbers to back this up.

I recently had a minor issue with paypal, blogged about it, got a comment to ditch paypal, and responded with my reasons why I won't.  They might be of interest to some people:

http://microisvjournal.wordpress.com/2007/01/16/why-i-use-paypal/

Brief preview: Fees, Paypal ecosystem is a handy critter, Andy is totally right in above comment about non-technical users.

I had an e-commerce site for a few years and found out over time (by asking for consumer feedback) that PayPal's checkout forms caused me to lose many many sales. People want to know it's secure then they want an easy checkout experience. They didn't have an easy checkout experience. I know a number of people that immediately don't trust the integrity of the merchant if they only offer PayPal as an option. That being said, I have a new site, which is listing directory and I am interested in 2Checkout, but I fear the same response to PayPal and am asking this group if a company like charge.com is good. And by good I also mean adds value to the site in the way that PayPal would detract. Thoughts?