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I am planning to start my uISV business next summer. I am out of US, and will start with one utility program for Windows.

In the moment I am exploring options for payment, and am willing to consider all the alternatives out there. However, some payment processors offer credit cards only, some offer phone, fax, mail orders etc. in addition.

My questions are the following:

  1. By your first hand experience, how important for me is to have phone/fax/mail order as an option for my customers to purchase my product (small Windows utility program)? How many of your selling activities are thru these XX century tools?

I hate to mix payment processors to cover all the possibilities, and would like to stay with one, (credit card) if possible, but if that's not the way ...

  1. From your selling experience, which credit cards are most used in your International selling? How important is to have Diner's, Optima, Carte Bleue, JCB ... covered as an option for successfull selling? I understand that the more the better, but if only 0-5% is from this providers, than I can swollow that percent and go with big US four (VISA, MasterCard, American Express and Discover).

Thanks in advance for your time and efforts answering these questions.

Have a nice day.

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What is uiSV please? – A. Garcia Dec 2 '09 at 22:22
micro ISV? u instead of the "µ" symbol... I think... – Gabriel Magana Dec 2 '09 at 22:34

3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

It depends slightly on the market for your product (individuals vs small business vs big business, etc) but in general simply supporting credit cards should be fine (in fact, I wouldn't even worry that much about amex/discover - visa & mc cover the bulk of the market).

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Yep, market rules it all... That includes the market's potential reticence to use their CCs online (of they even use CCs). Being that this is international, attention must be paid to that. The rest of the world lags in readiness to hand over financial info over the internet, no matter how many security certificates a site has displayed. – Gabriel Magana Dec 2 '09 at 22:36
Hi Denis, Thank you very much for your answer. I completely understand the interantional "moment" in my selling. What I would like to know is.. If what I am selling is desktop utility in the price range from 20-40$, how many of my potential customers are (willing to) going to call my payment processor in the US, and making International call charges to order 20$ product? I guess not to many. What is your experience? – Spiro Dec 3 '09 at 9:58
Hi Spiro, In my experience, the idea of calling a number to hand over credit card details is almost unheard of in Europe (I can't speak for the rest of the world). On the other hand, people are getting used to entering their credit card on a secure site (thanks to Amazon, etc). – Denis Hennessy Dec 3 '09 at 15:18
up vote 0 down vote

Over a 5 year period, I would say about 1-2% of my orders (for a C++ development library) were from a method other than credit cards. Most of those were not by phone or fax, but rather by wire transfer and almost all were from BRIC countries.

I would suggest going with whatever provider is easiest for you to set up (or whichever takes the lowest commission). If you get email from customers complaining that you don't take phone or fax orders it's easy enough to migrate to a provider who will do that.

Also, don't neglect the fact that, by default, you kind of already do take phone/fax orders. Just take them yourself using a US based Vonage phone number or something similar.

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Hi Doug, Thank you very much for your answer. It was really close to what I was looking for :). I would like to ask you (and others), if you can share more experience about the following. If what I am selling is desktop utility in the price range from 20-40$, and am willing to sell it internationally, how many of my potential customers are (willing to) going to call my payment processor in the US, and making International call charges to order 20$ product? I guess not to many (nobady) :). What is your experience? – Spiro Dec 3 '09 at 9:54
Tough to say. Since most of my customers downloaded a trial which they then built on top of there was a lot of buy in even before the purchase was made. So even if there were a few roadblocks buyers were committed to following through, even if they had to deal with occasional aggravation. Also, I was selling products in the $300-1200 range so my experience may be different from yours. I advise not worrying about it too much and just make a decision. If you find out it was the wrong one it's no big deal, just change it. – Doug Bright Dec 3 '09 at 14:22
up vote 0 down vote

For a cheap little program like yours, selling through a webshop that accepts major credit cards (and maybe paypal as well) should be all that it takes. Unless your program is to big for downloading, you (really!) want electronic delivery, to avoid the costs and hassle for shipping CDs etc. Phone orders and fax orders obviously don't play well with electronic delivery.

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Hi ammoQ, Thanks for your answer. Can you please tell me is this your first hand experience? Downloads are extremelly small (2-5 MB). They will be quick 30 days trial downloads. What is your opinion about having Wire transfer or Purchase Order available for this kind of small business? – Spiro Dec 3 '09 at 13:30

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