Payment Gateway Case Studies
It is useful to follow the progress of an ecommerce site and be able to compare the difference a well set up payment gateway can provide. You may have a similar idea or site and need to gauge the difference a payment solution would provide.
Case Study: Coolshade.com.au
Cool Shade sell Marquees Flags and Banners Greenhouse kits and more. They also supply Custom Marquees for companies like McDonalds. John is a good operator (us web developers prefer experienced business people for clients).
This is a unique situation because instead of building the site myself with a custom shopping cart which can integrate PayPal and or a Payment Gateway I used my designer Tim and web developer Josh.
The design of the site is very good - I can say that because my designer Tim is excellent especially at discussing ideas with clients and meeting thier expectations. Josh came across my path as an elite student at Griffith University in the IT Industry course. He was the type of guy who would work all day on his day job programming and then go home and work on his own projects. The courses I taught were eBusiness and Advanced eBusiness which was tailored for programmers in enterprise Java for industry - it had students from IBM Banks Australia Post etc. So I found this a great situation to teach and learn at the same time.
So we have the right people on the job however does it actually succeed? and lets look at the costs involved including the ongoing costs.
Site Development Costs
- Design $1100
- Shopping Cart and Programming $2200
- Search Engine Optimisation $1100
Payment Gateway Costs
Josh suggested eWay and used backend software called Prestashop.
Costs associated with establishing Eway;
Plan name: eBusiness Budget Plan
- Yearly rate: $350.00
- Link to Eway: Save ($50.00)
- American Express: $99.00
Total Cost Eway: $399.00
Bank facility;
- Institution: ANZ
- Establishment Fee: $99.00
- Annual Fee: $29.95
- Minimum Merchant Service Fee: $29.00
- Merchant service Fee: 1.650%
- Termination Fee: $250.00
- Amex: $100.00
Use our payment gateway comparison tool to calculate real costs based on sales per transaction.
The results
New site launched on 27-Nov-2010 so we wait to see if we can generate some sales. Bookmark this page to check for results later.
I am predicting at least a doubling of both online traffic and sales generated online.
Case Study: Finshop.com.au
Finshop is an online store for surfboard fins. It is an ideal candidate for eCommerce because of the following factors -:
- Not easy to duplicate
- Required in remote locations
- Easy to post
- Known product to its purchasers
- Owners experienced in surfing retail industry
Not easy to duplicate
This solution needed a custom shopping cart to be able to adequate describe the product and break sets of them up if need be whilst ensuring the correct fin was sent.
 (is left the top or bottom of the board view) We included a the Flash presentation that indicated the different configurations for different types of boards.
A Custom Shopping Cart can be built to the specific requirements of the products you sell - it allows you to stand out from the typical look of an online eCommerce site.
Starting with PayPal
We started with Paypal back in May 2008 and integrated our shopping cart with PayPal
In the case of surfboard fins many of the purchasers are young and familiar with eBay the owner of PayPal. Hence PayPal being free to setup was a great choice to launch the site and test the market.
Moving to a Payment Gateway
The problem with using Paypal or any system that is processed by transferring to another site to complete payment is that you will lose a significant number of sales because of this.
"If they cant process the payment on thier site - is this secure
and can I trust them to deliver?"
 Using Payway
In the end it came down to choosing the solution that suited the banking requirements of the clients. We looked at Secure Pay and ANZ (a good option). We ended up with Westpac and thier Payway system (a good option).
Payway comes with a 46 page developers guide an online system that is very easy to use. They also have phone help which allows you to get technical support without being put on hold. You can use a test account that allows you to test your payments without being charged whilst you set up the site.
Hosting - Making the Payment Secure using an SSL certificate
Setting up secure payments is easier when you have great Java Hosting support.
The site needs to be set up to issue a SSL certificate that is recognised by the browser as a secure connection. This setup will vary depending on the host setup. We use our own dedicated servers and VPS both in Australia and OS. Another good mob to deal with for Australian Web Hosting is rackservers.com.au.
Search Engine Optimisation
We are not shy to mention we are search engine optimisation experts
There is not much point in launching a site and not being found in Google. This site is up the top of Google on terms like surfboard fins and FCS surfboard fins
What does it all cost
Check our website prices for full details however this solution costs-:
- Optimised site $3300
- Custom Shopping Cart $2200
- Hosting $27.50 per month
The results
Come back to check the results - will sales improve when changing from PayPal (offsite) to a secure Merchant facility onsite?
My prediction is a 20%-50% improvement over a year. This solution was implemented live on 10th September 2010 - so lets check the results over the next year.
Comparison of Nov 09 to Nov 10
Completed sales online up %
Duplicate entries reduced dramatically - hence people understand what to do and how to order.
Duplicate enries often occur where someone is not sure how the system works or wants to see if they are going to be charged freight etc
Discontinued orders reduced dramatically
Note we moved the site to our dedicated server which would have also contributed to the success.
Phil Hoile - GoldCoastLogin.com.au programmer
Griffith University Lecturer in e Commerce and industry courses
- e Business & advanced e Business ph 07 55320651
Email Me
Disclaimer Information is presented here that may go out of date. This is intended as a guide, consult the web sites of Solution providers for up to the minute information. |
