Actually, to just use the words Payment Proce or and 2Checkout in the same sentence is liable to get
2Checkout is very se itive about who they are and what type of service they provide. They do not see themselves as a Payment Proce or. They are an Authorized reseller/retailer of your products and services. So in e ence, you sell your products to them and they sell it, for a 5.5% commi ion fee, on to someone else. The fact that the someone else was someone who landed up on YOUR site and wanted to buy YOUR product is beside the point!
So what services DOES 2Checkout provide, as an Authorized Retailer? Strangely enough, most the same services provided by a company that provides Payment Proce or services.
If you sell your products or service through 2Checkout (or rather then, to 2Checkout), you can expect to do it in the following ways:
You can sell services
You can sell services such as advertising, hosting, copywriting and lots others. But be aware check their policies on what is not allowed. For example, although normal hosting services are allowed, IRC Chat Hosting and Game Server Hosting are not.
You can sell products
These can be tangible or electronic. Once again, make sure that you do read their policies on what type of products are not allowed.
It might be a good point to mention at this stage that when you do sign up with them, your we ite and products already need to be set up so that they can review it for compliance with their policies before your account will be opened with them.
Membershi and recurring billing
You can also sell membership services which almost always implies some type of recurring billing service. 2Checkout offers a free script (provided by a third party) to set up your membership site or it can integrate with any type of membership site that you have.
2Checkout operates in a large number of countries and also offers the following currencies:
US Dollars
Australian Dollars
Canadian Dollars
Danish Kroner
Euro
G -Sterlings
Hong Kong Dollars
Japanese Yen
New Zealand Dollars
Norwegian Kroner
Swedish Kroner
Swi Francs
One other thing to note is that 2Checkout is very se itive about the text and logos that you place on your site. You have to get the wording exactly right the way that they want it, and you ca ot just di lay any credit card logos on your site they do have a roved versio of the credit card logos that you should download from their site and use.
Like all big service providers that have millio of clients, not everyone is going to be satisfied with their service. They are very fraud se itive and therefore may freeze your account or put you under investigation if they su ect any fraudulent activity.
De ite this, 2Checkout is really a very popular provider and has a good reputation in the industry, and since it offers services in multiple countries, it does offer a viable alternative for those countries not able to easily sell through Paypal.
Finally, the question that can be asked is: Do you need your own sho ing cart? The a wer is no, 2Checkout does provide its own sho ing cart. But always remember, it is disconcerting for a customer to start doing sho ing on one site, and then move to another site as soon as the Add to cart button is pre ed. He might just not return to your site.
Wouldnt you rather use a sho ing cart that integrates seamle ly with 2Checkout but where the customer remai on your site all the time? In this way the customer will not have to leave your site and you will not have a potential lack of trust problem which might lead to sho ing cart abandonment.