I have a client that is a retirement resident home. They are asking if it’s possible to add a link to the site that would allow families to make memorial contributions or other contributions online to their Foundation.
For example, they recently had a resident pass away, and many friends and family members have contacted them asking how they could contribute online. Someone had mentioned something called “google wallet”. I also thought about Paypal. They had looked into something like this a while ago, but had chosen not to do on-line payment due to the costs associated to having Visa and Mastercard. It would basically be a gift giving page.
I have never worked with a site that incorporated anything like this. I have never worked with Paypal either. Could some one give me some advice, or point me in the right direction. Is there a simple way to do this?
I could be wrong here, but I don’t associate those two things at all. There are many cart services like this online, and none that I’ve used (like PayPal) required me to have a credit card like that (because I don’t have one!)
I’d say just do some Googling on this sort of thing and compare the services that are available, such as PayPal:
I believe they want an option to pay with Paypal or a credit card. Someone in their office looked into this and seemed to think that using a credit card would add some additional cost to the transaction. I have not yet worked with any online transactions before, so I am not sure where they got this info or if this is true.
I guess that would be something to check with PP. I’ve used credit cards to buy some things through PP (ha ha, my wife’s!) and am not aware of it having been charged extra; but I’ve also been paid (as a business owner) through PP with credit card and have never been aware of a card transaction fee.
I’m only aware that there is a standard fee per transaction—so that PP makes something out of it. But I’m not sure how this all applies to donations.
Sarb, there is always a small cost associated with receiving a payment online. I run an online retail shop that uses both PayPal and a Merchant Account. Here is the scoop…
Paypal would be very good for what you want to do. All you have to have is a bank account they can transfer your collected funds to. You will pay a small fee for their service - figure about 2% of each donation that people make. People can easily pay with their credit or debit cards. It is very safe and simple.
A full Merchant Account allows you to take credit card payments directly, but it is much more complicated. The per transaction fee is less than PayPal (maybe 1.5%) but all the other fees the processing companies add on really add up. This type of account is only good for those who do enough transactions that the % savings are greater than all the other fees you have to pay.