PayFast - what's your experience?

[JackStone]

I'm in the process of setting up an online business and am looking at accepting a variety of payment methods through PayFast.
I've already read a bit on about them on this forum but the information seems a bit outdated. What do you reckon about them at this stage?

I'd like to hear from merchants and customers who have used, or at least tried to use any of the PayFast payment methods.
Your input would be much appreciated!

 

[PayFast]

Hi Jackstone,

I'm glad to hear that you're considering PayFast and hope that you receive positive responses from the forum members!

If you have any direct questions for us, please don't hesitate to email [email protected] or simply post them in this thread

 

[JackStone]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the reply! There are a few thing bothering me about PayFast. A major draw back is that users have to register to pay, I think people are sick of submitting their details to every other site. I understand that one can pre-populate the form but it's the fact that people must click "Register and Pay" instead of "Pay Now" that keeps a few people from proceeding.

Could you not just base it on session IDs and IP addresses?

I'm also very keen on the PayFast Voucher as Ukash fees are pretty ridiculous. I'd like to know where they will be available when they go up.

I wonder if anyone can shed light on the uptime of the PayFast service?

Thanks in advance! Ciao for now.

 

[PayFast]

As dequadin rightly puts it, registration is beneficial for a number of reasons, risk-reduction, fraud-prevention and security being the most significant.

PayFast is also a "register-once-use-in-many-different-sites" service and chances are that users may already be registered before coming to your site.

Ukash fees are actually not that bad considering the kind of service they offer. Guaranteed payment, 1000's of physical issuing points, ability to accept vouchers issued in foreign countries and currencies etc. PayFast vouchers will only be digital vouchers, there will be no physical issuing points.

If you want to sell to a cash based market (and an international market too), Ukash vouchers are a very good option and because we have a bulk agreement with them, it will be cheaper (and simpler) for you to use Ukash through us than go direct (as odd as it may sounds).

As far as uptime goes, the only unscheduled downtime we have had in almost 3 years is due to unscheduled outages at Internet Solutions in Bryanston where our servers reside. If you search MyBroadband you will find news articles on these outages which affected a vast number of South African sites including ours.

 

[JackStone]

I get what's being said about the registration process. It's just an extra bother for new customers, though I do appreciate that it might facilitate sales to existing users. Many people have their details stored in databases for security reasons.... The process seems simple enough from the first screen but I haven't proceeded from there.


Ja wat, I suppose that the Ukash fees aren't as bad as I make them out to be. Their 8.5% is a touch heavy but I see you've got it for 7% which doesn't look quite as bad. It would be nice if their vouchers were dynamic too... not many South Africans would care for having R40 stuck in some silly card which can't be used at all that many places (as far as I'm aware). What they offer is however pretty impressive.

The service all sounds pretty solid.

I've got a few questions:
How many people have signed up to pay through PayFast?
Do Ukash customers also have to register before they pay?

What happens if the customers bank doesn't support EFT? Should I instruct that customer to pay strait to my account using the regular EFT method or are you able to process that payment?

Thanks for the input! Anybody else have anything add?

 

[PayFast]

It would be nice if their vouchers were dynamic too... not many South Africans would care for having R40 stuck in some silly card which can't be used at all that many places (as far as I'm aware).

I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, but as far as I am aware, Ukash vouchers are available in any denomination up to R15,000.

How many people have signed up to pay through PayFast?

1000's

Do Ukash customers also have to register before they pay?

Yes, although we are looking at ways to remove this requirement.

What happens if the customers bank doesn't support EFT? Should I instruct that customer to pay strait to my account using the regular EFT method or are you able to process that payment?

Yes. We only currently support customers paying from ABSA, Standard Bank, Nedbank and FNB via EFT. That covers the vast majority of your customers, but for anyone else, you can rather ask them to pay you directly. Once PayFast vouchers and other payment methods are implemented, we will be able to handle this more gracefully.

 

[JackStone]

Hi again,

Regarding Ukash, what I mean by dynamic vouchers is, could I walk in and load myself a R25.50 voucher? I understand they have denominations buy then you might still be left with some bucks in a card you probably won't use for a long time.

The reason I ask about registering for Ukash is that I'd like people to be able to pay using Ukash straight from their cellphones... the registration process would complicate this as I assume customers would need to confirm their registration.

Isn't removing the registration process for Ukash customers simply a matter of a few if statements? How long do you reckon it will take to remove it?

 

[JackStone]

Wrong on so many levels....

Re: fraud checking using session IDs and IPs.
How's it so wrong?

 

[PayFast]

Regarding Ukash, what I mean by dynamic vouchers is, could I walk in and load myself a R25.50 voucher? I understand they have denominations buy then you might still be left with some bucks in a card you probably won't use for a long time.

I'm not entirely sure, but I thought that that was the case. Direct your query to http://www.ukash.com for a definitive answer on that.

The reason I ask about registering for Ukash is that I'd like people to be able to pay using Ukash straight from their cellphones... the registration process would complicate this as I assume customers would need to confirm their registration.

User's don't need to confirm their registration for their 1st payment. Their 1st payment goes ahead regardless of if they have confirmed their registration or not, so this should not be a problem.

Isn't removing the registration process for Ukash customers simply a matter of a few if statements? How long do you reckon it will take to remove it?

No, unfortunately, nothing is a simple matter in a system as large and complex as ours which is used by 1000s of people on a regular basis. Changes have far reaching complications, and must be done taking all other system aspects into consideration.

Sign up for our newsletter and we'll let you know any developments in this regard.

 

[shogun]

Their 8.5% is a touch heavy but I see you've got it for 7% which doesn't look quite as bad.

This is what I do not understand. Why are these fees percentage based? How is my product that I am selling for R5000 going to cost any more to process than if I were selling cheap R100 T-shirts online?

If someone could please explain that to me, i'd appreciate it. This percentage of sale business makes no sense to me.

And I don't want to hear "it's because everyone does it".

I am also looking for a payment gateway for a product we are looking to launch. Could someone break down the fee structure for me?

 

[PC Direct]

Jackstone, what online platform will you be using? Ecommerce?

What you are looking for is a dedicated credit card processor, like mygate, vcs etc.

For EFT's (sorry payfast not trying to chase business away) but if you want to alleviate the registration process, just do your own thing, and register your own four business bank accounts. It's free and quick to do. We have our own four, and it allows clients to pay instantly and we ship right away.

The voucher system is relatively new in SA, not many people using it, especially Ukash..

mimoney is growing, but the dev implementation can be a biatch.. as well as ccard gateways...

Payfast DOES work, people buy via it all the time, you should not worry too much about the process, many people actually feel secure knowing they've registered, gives them a sense of security.

Check sybaritic.co.za they transact all day with payfast..

Benefit of payfast = quick and easily to implement, and is becoming trusted

GL

 

[PayFast]

Why are these fees percentage based? How is my product that I am selling for R5000 going to cost any more to process than if I were selling cheap R100 T-shirts online?

One reason would be risk. Risk increases proportionately to amount processed. Larger amounts = more risk = larger insurance = more security etc.

Also, it's the fairest way to do it across the board. If it were a fixed cost, what would that fixed cost be? A cost of R25 may be reasonable to you for processing a few R5000 transactions, but it's not reasonable to someone selling 1000s of items at R40 each!

And seeing as how most businesses conventionally work on a profit margin which is a certain %, charging a processing fee as a % makes it easy to factor into projections and costs.

Make sense?

Could someone break down the fee structure for me?

We charge NO setup or monthly fixed costs. We only charge per transaction fees, so we only make money when YOU make money!

Our per transaction costs are detailed on our Fees page at:
http://www.payfast.co.za/c/std/fees

Fees are only charged to the receiver.

 

[PC Direct]

I recommend Payfast! It's just a pity the creloaded bug never got sorted, else we woulda been on board

 

[shogun]

One reason would be risk. Risk increases proportionately to amount processed. Larger amounts = more risk = larger insurance = more security etc.

Also, it's the fairest way to do it across the board. If it were a fixed cost, what would that fixed cost be? A cost of R25 may be reasonable to you for processing a few R5000 transactions, but it's not reasonable to someone selling 1000s of items at R40 each!

And seeing as how most businesses conventionally work on a profit margin which is a certain %, charging a processing fee as a % makes it easy to factor into projections and costs.

Make sense?



We charge NO setup or monthly fixed costs. We only charge per transaction fees, so we only make money when YOU make money!

Our per transaction costs are detailed on our Fees page at:
http://www.payfast.co.za/c/std/fees

Fees are only charged to the receiver.

Thanks for the link. On that page, for credit card payments it ways 4.90% + R2.00.

I also see this on the site: "As a receiver, your money accumulates in your PayFast account and we transfer it to your bank account at your request."

Is that 4.9% including the merchant account fee that the bank would take? Is there still that fee now? Do we need a merchant account?

 

[PayFast]

Is that 4.9% including the merchant account fee that the bank would take? Is there still that fee now? Do we need a merchant account?

No merchant account required. That's the total fee you will be charged. The only extra fee indicated on that page is when you request a payout which is R10 (VAT incl) regardless of amount (ie. R10 for R500 and R10 for R50,000).

We operate the same way someone like PayPal does and are not a pure credit card gateway.

 

[PayFast]

For EFT's (sorry payfast not trying to chase business away) but if you want to alleviate the registration process, just do your own thing, and register your own four business bank accounts. It's free and quick to do. We have our own four, and it allows clients to pay instantly and we ship right away.

Indeed, you can do this if you want. Most people don't want the hassle though (especially if their volumes are small), and it's definitely not free what with the various bank charges.

What you are forgetting though is reconciliation ;-)

In your case, you do manual reconciliation with your orders. With PayFast, everything is automated as our interfaces are able to provide positive confirmation of funds received for the 4 major banks in under 2 secs with no manual intervention from the receiver.

No logging in, no emailed proof of payments (which could be faked), nada!

And you get the benefit of our aggregation in that you are able to accept payments funded by credit card, EFT, Ukash and any other system which we add in future with no changes to your integration required.

Payfast DOES work, people buy via it all the time, you should not worry too much about the process, many people actually feel secure knowing they've registered, gives them a sense of security.

Check sybaritic.co.za they transact all day with payfast..

Benefit of payfast = quick and easily to implement, and is becoming trusted

Thanks ;-)

 

[PC Direct]

Your system is good. Recommend it to anyone looking for a fully packaged all in one system.

 

[shogun]

I see the 7% quoted earlier is only for those vouchers (which makes me think we'll never touch them). 4.9% means we pay R245 just to process one of our products. If we move just 1000 products a month, that's R245 000 in fees. That's a little steep I think.

Ok thanks. I have what I need for now. To think we go through a whole manufacturing process for someone to claim 5% irks me. I think we may stick to EFT for now, but we have your details if we decide to go further with this.

 

[PayFast]

4.9% means we pay R245 just to process one of our products. If we move just 1000 products a month, that's R245 000 in fees.

We do give volume discounts by default and can go even lower for the kind of volumes you're talking about (R5 mil).

We do this on a sliding scale where as your volumes increase, so our fees reduce.

We're not out to screw you, but do need to make money as well

 

[JackStone]

@Shogun

I agree with what you're saying about the percentages. To hell with this risk factor, if you don't trust your own systems what are your customers supposed to think? As everybody knows it makes no difference to the computer whether it moves the number 100 or the number 10 000 around, therefore there should be no percentage charge.

Unfortunately the banks merchant accounts take around 6%, though it can of course be negotiated if you're any good at that sort of thing. I think MyGate.co.za charge a flat fee per transaction but you still have to pay the bank their percentage of your hard work.


@PC Direct - It's more the automatic processing of the payments that I'm looking for, somebody actually mentioned signing up with multiple banks today, thanks though for the input. I'm expecting quite a few payments of smallish amounts... I wonder if I can work with the banks to do the processing automatically.

I'd anyway have to setup "manual" reconciliation for EFT payments from other banks. It would just have to process more payments.


Quote PayFast "No, unfortunately, nothing is a simple matter in a system as large and complex as ours which is used by 1000s of people on a regular basis. Changes have far reaching complications, and must be done taking all other system aspects into consideration."

@PayFast - I don't know man, it can't be that difficult to direct customers to a Ukash payment page that doesn't ask them to register....


The system seems good in theory but I'm not too sure on the technical side of things. The website isn't the quickest around, things seems to be under development and it all works a little funny in that Ukash customers should never have been asked to sign up and their isn't a mobile payment page for Ukash (I assume)... it makes sense that Ukash customers will be the people on the street who don't always have a stable internet connection (let alone know how to use it, not to mention the trust issue), I'm pretty sure I read about voucher denominations on the site which is just ridiculous unless they're issuing voucher cards like the airtime okes.

I've a fair bit to think about. I've negotiated a bit and got Ukash down to 7% if I sign up for a merchant account through them and do the extra development. Which includes for mobile phones I'd guess. Virtual Card Services seem a great card processing option if you can get the bank down a couple percent.

What say the people?