Best e-commerce payment system?

[warp9]

Hi. I'm in the process of setting up an e-commerce system and am unsure which payment system to use. I have heard bad things about paypal from the traders POV, but is it a necessary evil?

I've had a brief look at Worldpay which would appear to do the job but am not familiar with costs, security and ease of integration.

Can anyone comment on these or suggest any alternatives, plus give some practical suggestions going forward?
Cheers

[warp9]

Thanks for the responses. It's a start up business, which will deal in higher value and lower volume transactions and are estimating around 1000 transactions in the first year. Site is being built in WordPress.
Cheers

[warp9]

Hi All
Appreciate your responses and suggestions.

I have a business partner who is looking after development as they are experienced in WordPress. I believe we wouldn't use BigCommerce, shopify et al because of control to the site and what we are doing doesn't quite fit the ‘off the shelf’ solution they provide. However, I will discuss this with her to see if we are missing a trick.

From your comments (and my limited understanding) I would definitely not want to deal with PCI compliance. The following gateways have all been mentioned in this thread: Paypal, Worldpay, Stripe, Realex, Sage Pay, Datacash, Amazon.

I'm a bit confused here. Do they all do the same thing – as in host and process client payments, or is there a link I am missing?

In my mind this is how it works:
1) Client wishes to purchase product(s) from our site.
2) Client is passed to one of the above gateway companies along with transaction value.
3) Gateway company hosts and processes client payment.
4) Gateway company does relevant checks then accepts/declines payment and sends confirmation to client.
5) Gateway company transfers funds to our account and keeps fee.

Is that about right?
Thanks