Thank you very much Silas.

I just realized that for the payment part I shall just get a safcom line as well as a Zain line registered and then ask my clients to use the services to send their payments.
I hope that works for now before I get into a whole lot of complications.
 
Regards,
From: silas@afrikanism.com
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2010 11:07:53 +0300
To: skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke
Subject: Re: [Skunkworks] Domain names and hosting



On 3 August 2010 10:35, James Sudi <james.sudi@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi guys,

I need some information about acquiring a web domain, hosting services, and payment gateways (ZAP and Mpesa).

  1. What is the best web domain and prices? is it better to own a local one (.co.ke) or a .com/.org/.biz is just okay?
There all the same (in theory) although .co.ke ISPs happen to be abit "peculiar" Also, support for .co.ke is not that good. Finally .co.ke's are more expensive that .com/org/etc
  1. Same applies to hosting services and which the best free-hosting sites?
Hosting is amazingly cheap, why would you want free hosting that comes laded with adverts? Hosting in Kenya, read above!
  1. How do you include a payment gateway in to a website or how best can I use ZAP and Mpesa to allow member of a particular organisation pay for courses offered?
What sort of payment do your targeted clients posses? Do they have credit cards? How much will they be paying per transaction? How are your margins like? Payment gateways such as paypal take a percentage off each transaction, so how much of that can you let them take before it starts eating into your profits? As far as I know, Mpesa and Zap are not that well suited for high frequency online transactions as you will require a whole load of coding which depends on them never changing the format of the excel sheets with the transactions that they provide. One fine day Safcom changes the format of the excel sheet and you are out cold. Plus there is the small issue that its not realtime


I am no sure about the last question but please if you understand I would appreciate your contribution.

Thanks in advance.

James.

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