If your average card transaction is £10, you get charged about 50p per transaction with Google Checkout and Paypal... Then the money is transferred to your bank account... The bank charges you an additional 25p per debit card transaction. That makes about 7.5% of your sales if most of your customers spend £10 on debit card. On credit cards the banks charge a bit more.
The problem with online merchant services is that they treat all cards alike - possibly for simplicities sake. The trouble is, most small businesses have customers who pay with Debit cards. Normal card merchant services like Handepay or RMS charge around 20p (fixed) per debit card transaction. Of course the banks still charge you around 25p but still for a debit card you could be paying 45p per transaction instead of 75p on a £10 order.
It gets worse when you have the odd bigger customer. If a customer spends £100 on debit card and you have google/paypal checkout, you'll get charged 3.4% +20p +20p(bank) which is £3.80 to process that order. With RMS or Handepay, since debit cards are a fixed price, it would still only be £0.45. Something to think about if you're a small merchant or most of your customers spend a small amount, or most pay by debit card.
