NZ Shopping Cart Guide | Credit Card Payment Processing

eCommerce Website Design – Credit Card Payment Processing Costs

eCommerce Website Design Tips

Shopify Payments vs Stripe vs Paypal

Shopify Payments

Shopify Payments (based on Stripe) is Shopify’s built in credit card payment processing facility and we highly recommend it if you don’t have an existing credit card merchant account (for your retail store). It’s a breeze to set up and it eliminates payment gateway fees from both the shopping cart and the payment gateway provider. Shopify Payments is both a payment gateway and a credit card merchant facility. Only available with Shopify.

On Basic plan: New Zealand cards: 2.65% + 30c | Amex: 3.5% + 30c | Other international cards: 3.3% + 30c
On Grow plan: New Zealand cards: 2.45% + 30c | Amex: 3.4% + 30c | Other international cards: 3.2% + 30c
On Advanced plan: New Zealand cards: 2.35% + 30c | Amex: 3.3% + 30c | Other international cards: 3.1% + 30c
High volume plans are also available.

Note: if you use Shopify with a 3rd party payment gateway such as Paystation you will incur extra fees (not shown here). It’s usually better to use Shopify Payments and avoid the extra fee.

Stripe

Stripe changed the game by introducing low transaction fees, no monthly fee and 30 minute set up of your credit card merchant facility, including all the verification steps which we’ve seen take 8 months with a bank. Stripe is both a payment gateway and a credit card merchant facility. All you need to add is a shopping cart.

Stripe fee: New Zealand cards 2.65% + 30c per transaction, international cards 3.5% + 30c per transaction

Manual Credit Card Processing with Stripe

Stripe has some nice options for processing phone/manual orders and your choice depends on whether you prefer to use mobile or desktop, if you want PayWave or if you want to manually process payments through your shopping cart so payments are attached to orders.

Manually via Stripe Dashboard

From the stripe dashboard you can create a payment and enter the card details. Works well on desktop but quite clunky on a phone. Note that you can not create payments using the stripe mobile app. Stripe does not allow this to be your primary payment option and say it should only be used under exceptional circumstances.

PayNow Mobile App

Allows manual payments from your phone or tap a credit card on the back of the (NFC capable) phone to charge it. The fee is 0.5% per transaction.
paynow-app.com

Manual Payments Attached To Shopping Cart Orders

Some shopping carts allow you to create an order from the admin screen and process a payment from there. You may need a plugin for this, for example WooCommerce has the Phone Orders Manual Orders plugin by Ignitewoo for US$99 per year.

You can see more mobile apps for stripe here.

Paypal

Paypal is the original (relatively) fast set up, low transaction fee, and no monthly fee payment option. The downsides with Paypal are that Paypal may take fees when sending your money to you and your website’s checkout process requires more steps because payment is made through the Paypal website, which can confuse customers and impact your sales. The plus side of Paypal is that some people prefer to pay with Paypal so even if it’s not your main credit card processing facility, it can be a good idea to include it.

Paypal fee: 3.4% + 45c per transaction

Manual Credit Card Payments & PCI Compliance

If your business never sees your customers credit card details (because your customer uses your online checkout and payment gateway) then your payment processing service is fully responsible for PCI compliance.

If you plan to manually process credit card orders, for example a customer calls in and gives you their credit card number over the phone, then you need to be aware that you are taking on responsibility for being PCI compliant and this is not to be taken lightly. Becoming PCI compliant is an expensive and time consuming process that is probably not viable for a small business. If all you ever plan to do is take a customers credit card number over the phone and type it into your payments system as they read it to you then you may be ok. If you write down the credit card number on a piece of paper then you may have a PCI compliance problem.

If in doubt it’s best to call your payment processor for advice. We’ve found Stripe to be very helpful with these sorts of questions.

Fee Comparison

The tables below show both estimated monthly fees and set up fees for Shopify Payments vs Stripe vs Paypal. Number of transactions is estimated based on a $40 average sale.

Because there are so many payment gateway options available, gateway fees are rough estimates but they are realistic and applied consistently.

	Shopify Payments Card Fees	Stripe Fees	Paypal Fees
Gateway set up fee	$0	$0	$0
Merchant account set up fee	$0	$0	$0

Monthly Turnover	Transactions ($40 avg sale)	Annual Turnover	Shopify Payments NZ Cards	Shopify Payments Overseas Cards / Amex	Stripe Fee	Paypal Fee
$500	13	$6,000	$17	$21	$17	$23
$1,000	25	$12,000	$34	$42	$34	$45
$2,000	50	$24,000	$68	$85	$68	$91
$3,000	75	$36,000	$102	$127	$102	$136
$4,000	100	$48,000	$128	$166	$136	$181
$6,000	150	$72,000	$192	$249	$204	$272
$8,000	200	$96,000	$256	$332	$272	$362
$10,000	250	$120,000	$310	$405	$340	$453
$20,000	500	$240,000	$620	$810	$680	$905
$50,000	1,250	$600,000	$1,550	$2,025	$1,700	$2,263
$83,333	2,083	$1,000,000	$2,583	$3,375	$2,833	$3,771

How the turnover figures are worked out

Monthly Turnover	Transactions ($40 avg sale)	Annual Turnover
$500	13	$6,000
$1,000	25	$12,000
$2,000	50	$24,000
$3,000	75	$36,000
$4,000	100	$48,000
$6,000	150	$72,000
$8,000	200	$96,000
$10,000	250	$120,000
$20,000	500	$240,000
$50,000	1,250	$600,000
$83,333	2,083	$1,000,000

Shopify Payments

Set up fee	Cost
Gateway set up fee	$0
Merchant account set up fee	$0

Monthly Turnover	NZ Cards	Overseas Cards / Amex
$500	$17	$21
$1,000	$34	$42
$2,000	$68	$85
$3,000	$102	$127
$4,000	$128	$166
$6,000	$192	$249
$8,000	$256	$332
$10,000	$310	$405
$20,000	$620	$810
$50,000	$1,550	$2,025
$83,333	$2,583	$3,375

Stripe

Set up fee	Cost
Gateway set up fee	$0
Merchant account set up fee	$0

Monthly Turnover	Fee
$500	$17
$1,000	$34
$2,000	$68
$3,000	$102
$4,000	$136
$6,000	$204
$8,000	$272
$10,000	$340
$20,000	$680
$50,000	$1,700
$83,333	$2,833

Paypal

Set up fee	Cost
Gateway set up fee	$0
Merchant account set up fee	$0

Monthly Turnover	Fee
$500	$23
$1,000	$45
$2,000	$91
$3,000	$136
$4,000	$181
$6,000	$272
$8,000	$362
$10,000	$453
$20,000	$905
$50,000	$2,263
$83,333	$3,771

As you can see, once your turnover reaches a certain level it becomes all about the payment gateway and credit card commission fees so this is the bit you need to shop around for the most.

See Also:

• Credit card gateway and merchant account costs

Questions? Now would be a good time to contact us and have a chat about your ecommerce requirements.