Everybody knows it’s important for your new business to get paid, but it’s even more important to figure out how you get paid. Choosing which payment methods your business will use is essential because certain methods can make it easier for people to pay, which can make them want to come back, make you more money or help you grow your online business.
Don’t worry, no matter what you go with, all of your options are beautiful in their own way. Here are best eCom payment methods:
What are the best online payment systems for small businesses?
Since the different payment methods have distinctive charge rates and unique mechanisms to make payments, they can influence different groups of customers. Working with different companies and offering their products as your eCommerce store’s payment methods will also help increase the awareness and trust in your brand. Here are the most commonly used payment methods in e-Commerce business world:
- Credit Card Payment
- Debit Card Payment
- Bank Transfer
- Direct Deposit
- Cash on Delivery (COD)
- App Payments
- Electronic Checks
- Cryptocurrency
- Electronic Wallets
- Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)
- E-Commerce Payment Gateways
How to pick a payment system for your online store?
To accept credit cards from customers, you will need a few things:
- An internet merchant account, and
- A payment gateway
You can also choose to include an alternative payment system like PayPal. Once those pieces are in place, a customer makes a purchase from your checkout page by submitting their payment information.
This information is then sent to the payment gateway and it then encrypts the payment information and sends it to a number of approved payment processors and networks for authorization if the payment is ACCEPTED or REJECTED.
This decision then returns to your customer, and all this activity happens in about 2 SECONDS.
The final step happens after the gateway sends the transaction to the payment processors and the money is transferred from the customer’s bank into your account. Often with varying providers for each transaction. That’s because things can get really complicated very quickly. Some payment solutions make it easy to manage things by gathering everything you need in one all-in-one solution.
How can you decide which type of payment methods to use?
Before you decide on the best online payment system for your business, make sure the solution you choose provide solid answers to the following questions:
First, is it secure? Search for a payment solution that’s PCI COMPLIANT has a TRUSTED name and make sure it’s SAFE with systems that have never been breached.
Second, is it reliable? Look for a solution that’s always AVAILABLE with BACKUP systems in place.
Finally, is it easy to use? You’ll want to get up and running QUICKly so your solution should be easy to integrate and flexible. With ACCESSIBLE technical support and resources, So that it can meet your needs as your business grows.
To keep things easy for your customers, make sure you can ACCEPT an ORDER on your website in online marketplaces over the phone and even in person.
When making this important decision, it’s worth taking the time to find a payment solution that provides the security, reliability and ease-of-use needed to continue earning high marks from your customers as your business enters the world of online payments.
What is a payment gateway?
A payment gateway is an online software and it’s a crucial part of processing payments online.
Ways to use a payment gateway
There’s a number of different ways to utilize a payment gateway in your business and it will most likely depend on the credit card processing software or in some cases the hardware that you’re using.
So, first off there’s three things that are related to the payment gateway that are often confused: Understanding the relationship between them can shed some light on the payment gateways function. Those three things are:
- The payment gateway
- The virtual terminal
- The merchant account
A payment gateway also known as a merchant gateway or a pay gate or an online gateway is NOT the same thing as a merchant account. A payment gateway is the software tool most often used in an online processing environment that connects the checkout software to the merchant account.
A merchant account is a dedicated bank account that’s used to deposit money that results from a credit card transaction. A virtual terminal is an option that connects to the payment gateway giving you the ability to log into a website portal and process transactions from your customers and clients.
A virtual terminal is also slightly different from the payment gateway. The three of these things often work hand-in-hand but they are all different and serve different functions.
Back to the payment gateway, here’s how it works:
What does the payment gateway do?
It serves the purpose of securely passing sensitive cardholder data to the credit card processor from the point-of-sale device or software.
The consumer or your customer comes to your website or your business and makes a purchase via the payment page or an eCommerce store. That data is then captured, encrypted and sent to the processing company and then back into the point-of-sale device once the response is generated.
The payment gateway is essential to complete the online transaction. All this happens in just a matter of seconds so the gateway often serves as the workhorse behind closed doors. Your customer never sees it and you don’t either but it’s there, keeping sensitive data safe and making sure the transaction process flows smoothly.
3 Payment Scenarios
Let’s look at 3 common ways that the Gateway is used and these are all practical uses. This all starts with identifying what software you use in your processing environment. In other words, how do you accept credit card payments from your customers?
We can speak about three workflows and payment scenarios here to illustrate how the payment gateway fits in the transaction process:
Workflow Number 1: WordPress Website + WooCommerce + Payment Gateway
WordPress is the framework of the website. WooCommerce is a plugin that’s used to create the e-commerce environment. It allows you to set up product pages and payment pages and categorize them as you would like. So, you can have your online store. WooCommerce in this case is the software that determines which payment gateway you’re going to be able to use. There’s hundreds of gateway services that can be used with WooCommerce.
After your payment gateway is connected to WooCommerce and a purchase is made, the gateway sends that encrypted data over to the processor for authorization and then back again to your ecommerce store.
In this workflow, the payment gateway and your customer are doing all of the work. They enter their credit card number on your site and the rest of the transaction flow is automated up to the point of you fulfilling the product order. Your website is always there and offering your product for sale, the payment gateway is always live and ready to do its job when the order is placed.
Workflow Number 2: Payment Page Builder + Payment Gateway
Workflow number two is using a payment page or a form builder like
These are all subscription software tools and in this case these services allow you to create forms and payment links so that you can receive payments for your products and services from your customers.
They don’t have to be attached to your website, so these can be standalone hosted payment links that you can email to your customers for example or place links on your website.
Workflow Number 3: Virtual Terminal + Call Center Environment + Payment Gateway
Workflow number three is using a virtual terminal in a call center environment. So, a payment gateway account is almost always going to have the option to add a virtual terminal. If you have a merchant account, you can add a gateway account to connect it to your merchant account. After that you get paid per month plus a transaction fee.
The virtual terminal is not a consumer facing environment, so that just means that you and your company staff will log into the virtual terminal environment type of credit card number directly into the virtual terminal portal and process the transaction that way. So, in this case you have a virtual terminal and your staff perhaps is entering the payment information versus your customers going straight to your website and entering the data themselves.
So once the payment is entered and set to process the gateway goes to work to complete the transaction cycle and process the payment. That’s just three scenarios on how to use a payment gateway in your business. There’s literally thousands of different possibilities to use between payment gateways and merchant accounts in the software tools that they could all link up to.
Payment Links
Shopiroller payment links are easy to use and there’s no coding required. If you accept payments online, Shopiroller payment links function is a great tool and it’s ideal if you have a small number of products or services that you just need a simple page to collect payments from your customers.
Conclusion
When choosing a payment method for your e-Commerce business, consider these 5 features: Price, features, flexibility, functionality, and security. Younger consumers are using digital wallets more and more. So, consider finding a payment processor that accepts mobile payment. Don’t forget you can mix and match any of these.
So there it is, that’s the whole crew but don’t be afraid to get to know them more.
