We're not quite there yet
I'm running a conference on the business of software (www.businessofsoftware.org). This is the second venture I've set up, so I thought it would be a whole lot easier than the first (in 1999 Simon Galbraith and I set up Red Gate Software). It should have been easier because i) I've learnt a lot and ii) The technology now is a lot more mature.
Up to a point. It's still damn fiddly.
Back in 1999, taking credit card payments was hard. You had to set up at least two merchant accounts (one for mastercard / visa, one for American Express). Or you could use a provider like WorldPay (very expensive, atrocious service and not to be touched - at least my experience has taught me something).
Nowadays, there's PayPal and Google Checkout. Right, I thought - I'll just use one of them. PayPal charge about 2.5%. Google Checkout's actually free, assuming you're an adwords users.
However, the next few days revealed a few glitches. Google has an unfortunate habit of not actually paying its customers the money it owes them. And I couldn't even manage to work my way through PayPal's sign up process. That didn't stop them from debiting my credit card though. Twice. And they've got no record of my payment.
It's not 1999 any more. This stuff should just work.
So, back to square one. I'll soon have my old-fashioned merchant accounts through my local bank. At least they've not asked me how much inventory I've got in my warehouses this time.
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