The last few years have seen a dramatic growth of eCommerce, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to a spike in online spending, requiring online businesses to provide customers with fast and secure digital transactions and payment gateways available such as Stripe, AliPay, Apple Pay, etc. Many great online payment gateways allow you to receive payments for the products or services you sell on your online store.
For example, using PayPal as your online payment gateway allows you to accept different types of payments simultaneously, making it easier for people to buy from your online store. This also helps reduce the amount of work you need to do as an online retailer. While there are many payment gateways available, you need to choose one that best suits your business needs.
Here are a few important things to consider when choosing the right payment gateway for your start-up business.
1. User Experience
Most customers often abandon their carts due to complicated checkout processes and glitchy websites. You should choose a payment gateway that integrates easily and seamlessly with your eCommerce site, whether WooCommerce or WordPress.
It should also provide a frictionless user experience for your customers on mobile and web applications. Choosing a payment gateway that offers flawless integrations can help ensure a great user experience for your customers when making payments on your website.
2. The Provider’s Fees
Another crucial factor to consider when choosing a payment gateway is its pricing. Typically, payment gateways carry three different types of fees, including setup fees, transaction fees, and monthly fees. However, the types of fees charged will depend on the payment gateway service you use.
A payment gateway’s pricing can vary based on your business model, types of transactions you do, transaction frequency, your sales, revenue consistency, and many more. Be sure to evaluate the amount of money you regularly accept when comparing different providers to ensure you find a cost-effective one.
3. Recurring Billing
Payment gateways are often widely used in software-as-a-service companies. These businesses rely on recurring billing because they operate on a monthly or annual billing cycle. With recurring billing, your subscription-based customers get charged the same amount each month for a service.
“To achieve these, you need to integrate your payment gateway with your invoicing system. This ensures a great user experience for your customers while saving you time and money. It also helps you solve other payment-related problems, such as failed credit card payments.” – says Christian Belmont, marketing specialist at Plixpay.com.
4. Secure Transactions
Cyber security is one of the main concerns for nearly every online business. That’s because a security breach can lead to revenue loss and even damage to your reputation. Hence, choose a payment gateway that protects customers’ data and ensures safe and secure payment transfers.
Check that your chosen provider comply with the PCI Data Security Standard. This ensures they have the right security measures in place and continually update them to provide maximum protection against cyberattacks and fraudulent activities. This also gives you and your customers peace of mind, knowing that their data is safe and secure when transacting on your eCommerce site.
5. Reliable Customer Support
Most businesses with payment gateways often transact thousands of dollars each day. And experiencing a few hours of downtime would lead to not only financial but also reputational losses. As such, you want to choose a payment gateway provider with reliable customer support.
Some providers limit their support to only email or tickets, requiring you to read and follow manuals to fix a problem. However, it’s always best to choose a provider with live technical support, so you can have any issues resolved as soon as possible.
Endnote
Taking the above-discussed factors into consideration when choosing an online payment gateway can ensure you find the right one for your specific business needs.
If your business serves a global audience, be sure to select a payment gateway that supports multi-currency payments. This allows you to accept payments in different currencies from customers around the world.
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