Payment gateways make shopping online convenient. It can also minimize risk to your customers, reduce shopping cart abandonment rates, and improve their overall experience with your online store.
Jan 16, 2019 Online payment gateways are the eCommerce services that process payment information for websites. Online payment gateways offer two main benefits to eCommerce businesses: 1.They make the checkout process fast and easy. So you should carefully select a suitable Payment Processing Solution for your Blog or Online Store that fulfills your unique business requirements. Hopefully enough, this post on 10 Best Payment Gateways for Blogs and E-Commerce Sites proves immensely helpful for you in choosing the right Payment Gateway for your online business. Enable PayPal Express Checkout with your gateway and let customers pay through your store or their PayPal account. If you prefer to bill your customers later, simply enable our deferred payments option. The custom payment gateway feature lets you enable gift cards, debit payments, cryptocurrency, pay with a tweet, and more.
Yet, at least half of all shoppers never complete their purchases. Some reports show that customers are abandoning their shopping carts because of the quality of your payment gateway:
- 17% didn’t trust your site with their credit card information
- 6% abandon because there weren’t enough payment options available
- 4% give up because of technical issues
With so much depending on your choice of gateway, how can you know which is the right one for your online shop
Let’s take a closer look at how you can ensure the best and most secure payment options for your customers on your eCommerce website.
Factors to Consider When Choosing a Payment Gateway
You’ll need to set up a payment gateway to accept online payments through your website or eCommerce site. With so many payment gateways available to you, it can be challenging choosing the right one for your site.
Each gateway has different policies, transaction processing fees, and integration features that make choosing the right one for you a bit of a challenge. Go with the wrong one today, and you could pay more than you want to in monthly costs and hurt your online business in the long run.
Here are a few factors to consider when choosing a payment gateway for your online business.
1. Availability in Your Region
Depending on where most of your customers are, you’ll want to choose a gateway available in your country of business and your customers’ location. Take a look at the supported countries list for your chosen gateway. If the country you’re looking for isn’t there, email them to be sure. For example, PayFast is only available to merchants and customers in South Africa.
2. Transaction Fees
Most payment gateways charge a fee for each transaction they process from your online store. The fee is typically based on your location, the card type used to pay, how many transactions you do in a month, the individual gateway you choose, and more.
For example, international customers may cost you more because your gateway may charge higher fees for “cross-border” transactions, such as Amazon Pay. These higher fees can eat into your profit, so compare the transaction fees from several payment gateways before deciding which to use.
3. Recurring Payments
Many online businesses sell subscription-based products or services, like membership plans or subscription boxes. If your site sells those, you’ll want to choose a gateway that allows recurring payments, so you don’t have to charge customers manually each time.
And while some gateways offer recurring payments, not all offer the advanced features you might need for your subscription-based business, such as allowing customers to upgrade, downgrade, or pause their plans. Be sure to check the payment gateway to see if they offer recurring payments if your business requires automatic renewals.
4. Miscellaneous Charges and Fees
Another factor to consider with your payment gateway is any non-transaction fees they may charge. This includes set up fees, account maintenance fees, charges for withdrawals or deposits to your bank account, chargeback fees, and more.
Braintree, for instance, has a flat $15 for all chargebacks and an additional 1% fee for all U.S. $ transactions on top of their regular transaction fees. Depending on your sales levels every month, these fees could be a nuisance, especially if you’re just starting.
5. Customer Payment Options
As an eCommerce business, you want to make it as easy as possible for customers to pay you. This means you’ll want to choose a gateway that lets you accept payments from as many different card issuers and processors as possible. Some gateways only allow particular payment options which may exclude your customers’ preferences. For example, not being able to take Apple Pay or only accepting Visa and MasterCard.
6. Payment Security
With fraud a real concern, many online shoppers want to know their payment data is safe with your online store. You’ll want to choose a gateway that uses the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) system, a series of standards put in place to protect customer data and payment information around the world.
Before picking your gateway, verify that they maintain PCI compliance to protect your customers’ data. For example, a quick check of the Stripe website shows they’re PCI compliant.
With so many payment gateway options available for online stores, it’s hard to know which to choose. The right one can maximize convenience and offer high-quality security to your customers while still being affordable to you as a site owner.
Use these factors to find out which one’s right for your online business and start selling today.
Payment Gateways For Your Online Store Account
Payment Gateways and Internet Merchant Account Vendors
Most of our clients that are enabling their online stores ask us for information and a recommendation regarding taking credit cards on the Internet with their e-commerce or BigCommerce Store. To process Internet payment transactions, you need both a Payment Gateway and a Merchant Vendor. Some companies such as PayPal are both, but as your online store sales grows and to get the best rates, you will eventually need both a Payment Gateway Vendor and an Internet Merchant Account Vendor. We initially recommend you signup for a No Monthly Fee Payment Gateways/Internet Merchant Account Vendor. These accounts such as PayPal and SecureNet are free and you only pay when you use them. The PayPal Accounts are useful if your customers are members of the growing PayPal Community of Online Shoppers
After you do this, we recommend you contact your local Bank and ask them to provide you with their contact for a Merchant Account. Tell them you already have an Authorize.net Payment Gateway Account with your e-Commerce Store Vendor, and that you want a Credit Card Merchant Account for processing online website payments and other related services (see other services below). This is a fiercely competitive market with hundreds of Merchant/Payment Vendors, many wanting Contact Terms such as a multiple year agreements and Monthly Fees. There are also many fees and it’s usually difficult for almost every business to obtain and understand the entire fee schedule until you get first bill. We recommend you sign a month-to-month agreement and ask for their detailed Fee Schedule before signing an Agreement. You can use the free account while you are negotiating your Agreement. Most banks such as Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo have their preferred Merchant Account Vendor.
We recommend using the Authorize.net Payment Gateway since it is a widely used and reliable platform. These Payment Gateways and Merchant Account Systems need to have 99.999% reliability and uptime. The good news is that the setup of these Gateways and Merchant Accounts are much easier in recent years. We can enable a new Merchant Account very easily. Every business should have multiple Merchant Accounts, one to be used as a backup. At the very least, a PayPal Account can act as a backup alternative for your customers.
A Comparison of Payment Gateway and Internet Merchant Account Vendors
Payment Gateways For Your Online Store Official Site
Vendors with No Monthly Fee | |
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Vendors with a Monthly Fee | |
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