There are very few event organizers that sell tickets online exclusively through their own website and merchant account since it takes the longest amount of time to set up and requires no small investment. However, if that’s your goal here’s a brief summary of what’s involved. For more detailed info, see our Sell Tickets Online guide.
Considering you already have a website, you’ll need to add custom shopping functionality. Depending on what you envision that functionality to be you might be able to get away with using a free, open source shopping cart solution, which still requires an expert /paid consultant to install and configure. The same team that developed your website should be able to help you with that. This may, however, cost you thousands of dollars for setup and customization.
Then you’ll need to get a merchant account with an Internet gateway to connect your shopping cart to a credit card processor. If you are already running a business that accepts credit cards, you can contact your existing merchant and ask what Internet gateway they support. Authorize.net is the industry leader but there are many others. Just watch for those extra fees that are going to be added to your bank merchant fees. Your merchant bank probably charges anywhere between 2% and 5% plus around 20 to 30 cents for every transaction. Your Internet gateway will probably add a monthly fee plus a transaction fee, so shop around and compare before you make a decision.
This is clearly an involved process and requires a sizable investment. If that’s the route you need to go, we can recommend a great development company. However, most event organizers, artists, and venues chose to list their events for Free with a ticketing platform that merely takes minutes to set up.
Prefer PayPal? Find out what options are available to sell tickets online with PayPal.