Payment gateways are almost a necessity for online stores that allow credit card payment. This page outlines the pros and cons, the types of gateway set ups and how they work with VP-ASP. If you are only looking to accept cheques, bank deposits or any "offline" payment types, you will not need a payment gateway.

What is a Payment Gateway?

1. An electronic gateway is a company that validates credit card information in real time. This means they can normally catch stolen or invalid cards. A few days after the payment is made it is directly deposited into your nominated bank account.
2. VP-ASP does not require that you use an electronic gateway but if you need one, then we support many of the major gateways in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

We are not associated why any payment gateways, and have no specific recommendations. However, to give you an idea of which one to choose, the following is a list of the most downloaded gateways from VP-ASP:

1. Paypal (Global)
2. Authorize.Net (US)
3. Verisign (Global)
4. Linkpoint (US)
5. 2Checkout (Global)
6. WorldPay (Global)
7. CyberSource (US)
8. Protx (UK)
9. EWay (AU)
10. Moneris (CA)
11. QuickBooks Merchant Services (US Only)

Gateway Advantages

Gateways can provide many benefits, with its main benefit being security. We recommend to all our customers that they use a payment gateway to handle all credit card payments. While VP-ASP does provide credit card number encryption and can ensure that the software is secure, it is still stored in a location that a hacker may be able to access. Whereas, when using a payment gateway, the credit card information is sent directly to the bank for verification and therefore no credit card details are stored.

In addition to security, payment gateways also provide the following benefits:

• Credit card validation and processing in real time
• Less fraud (but there are many stolen credit card numbers floating around)
• Money is normally deposited into your bank account automatically
• Reports and refunds normally allowed via browser by gateway company (not VP-ASP)

Gateway Disadvantages

Every gateway company charges fees. Fees can include some or all of the following:

• Fixed fee per month
• Percentage fee per amount spent
• A fixed fee per transaction
• In addition your own bank or the gateway's bank will charge a merchant fee for the privilege of allowing credit card purchases. This can range from 1-5% or more.

VP-ASP and Gateways

VP-ASP Shopping cart DOES NOT REQUIRE that you use a payment gateway. You can process payments with or without credit cards using VP-ASP. You can process them as you would any phone or mail order but all the details are stored in the VP-ASP database. However, as mentioned previously, processing credit card transactions via a gateway is still the preferrable method.

VP-ASP simply provides the interface to the gateway company. This eliminates the need for you to do your own programming.

It is still your responsibility to sign up with the gateway company, pay whatever fees they charge (each have different fee structures), follow their administration rules and policies.

Types of Gateways

Currently, there are 3 main types of gateway interfaces:

• COM based gateway interface
• Form based gateway interface
• XML transport gateway interface

A COM based gateway requires that you install software called a DLL provided by the gateway company on your web hosting server. However,many web hosting companies, such as GoDaddy, do not allow such installs. These gateways also require that you have your own dedicated SSL certificate (shared SSL is not adequate for these types of services).

XML transport gateways work similarly to COM based gateways but do NOT require a DLL install. They use a facility already installed on most Windows servers. A dedicated SSL is also required for a XML-based gateway.

Form based gateways, and possibly the most common type, do not require any extra software to be installed on your web hosting server. Some, but not all, require that you have your own SSL certificate.

The advantage of COM/XML-based gateways over form-based is that it integrates with your store, and the customer will not be directed to an external server for credit card processing. However, the disadvantage of this is that credit card details will need to be sent over the Internet from your server to the payment gateway for processing and thus making it less secure.

New Gateway Support

We do develop new gateway interfaces on request. There is a small fee associated with this development to cover the cost of designing, programming and testing the new gateway interface. We can quote a cost for developing new gateway support; please send your requests to our helpdesk here.

Supported Gateways

These are just some of the gateways we support.

VP-ASP can integrate with over 150 electronic payment systems from around the world making it one of the most versatile online shopping cart systems available.. We provide them free for VP-ASP customers, and can be downloaded here.