Monday, January 2, 2017

How to Choose ideal Payment Gateway For Your Business


With startup balloon inflating at a high pace, businesses look to expand their reach by launching websites or mobile apps for showcasing their collection. Some look to conquer the digital arena by taking their brand from offline retail shop to modern digital store while some techies focus on building a marketplace for such business owners.

Whatever may be the case, each party looks to go online expanding business opportunities, growth prospects, an increase in revenue, wider reach and more happy customers. Building an e-commerce store isn’t an issue anymore. There are web and mobile app development companies who take care of the same from your project’s tender to maturity stage.

Launching an e-commerce store implies you’ll need a payment gateway for online transactions, which needs to be secure, easy to use, trustworthy and technically smart. People are apprehensive about the security of their personal details being leaked while performing an online transaction, which is right on their part.

There are numerous options available in the market but which one fits the bill? It isn’t as easy as stone skipping. Online stores need to try hard in order to find a perfect payment gateway provider. An in-depth research is required to find the best suit for your business needs.

There are large corporations which have ruled the market for more than 10 years while on other side of the court there lies a bunch of newbies who are innovative in their approach, technically sound and do things a different manner. So, the question is where to put your money on?

Before we move ahead in search of an ideal payment gateway, let’s first understand what does exactly a payment gateway means and how does it work?

Understanding payment gateway and its operations

For those who already know what a payment gateway is and why we require it, no need to ponder here and you can quickly move ahead to the following section, which takes you through the points to consider while choosing a payment gateway. Rest pay attention.

A payment gateway can be defined as a medium through which transactions are being processed between an online store and consumer. It enables a connection between the two allowing a secure and a direct transaction from consumer’s bank to service provider’s bank account.

How it actually works?

A connection is established by payment gateway between consumer’s bank and service provider’s website, which dictates the further terms that a transaction can be made or not. Following are the tasks performed by the gateway in real time to access if your credit/debit card is entitled to do an online transaction or not.

  • Fetches customer’s credit/debit card details
  • Seeks verification from the issuing bank (Accepted or declined)
  • Passes verification status to the customer visiting the website
  • If verification is positive and customer made a payment, then gateway accepts the payment from issuing bank and transfers to the acquiring bank
  • In the fund transfer process, gateways charge their cut and process the remaining from issuing bank to acquiring bank.

How to figure out which gateway fits the bill?

Here are certain points you need to consider before you seal the deal.

1. Integrated or hosted

There are basically two types of gateways- integrated and hosted. As the name suggests, integrated, it will be integrated into your store and visitor won’t be redirected to another platform for payment procedure. Unlike, in the case of hosted gateways where a website visitor is redirected to another platform for completing payment formalities.

Selecting a hosted gateway pops up several doubts related to its popularity, reliability and trustability. People would be reluctant in entering their account details on a platform which isn’t popular or seems unreliable to them, therefore impacting your conversion rates. Directing a customer off your website is always a risky affair.

Instead, integrating a gateway into your website is a smooth, seamless experience for you as well as your customers. If they make a purchase on your website, it means they trust you and they won’t give a second thought before sharing their account details on your website.

Both gateways have their pros and cons, it is advised to analyze the same before taking a final call.

2. Supports your business model

It is crucial to ensure at the start if your future payment gateway provider supports your business model. Go through their websites in the quest for finding a list of businesses they feel comfortable working with. It will save you a lot of time. There are providers, which don’t support businesses like dating, gambling, gaming, trade etc. while others might be up for an association. Also, check if they offer additional protection schemes as well like fraud detection, chargeback management etc.

3. Customer support

It is one of the important aspects if you run an online business. Your web visitors expect you to be available all the time for any query, doubt related to product’s size, color, availability or material. Similarly, you might also require support if in any rare case something goes wrong. Make sure gateway provider provides around-the-clock support.

4. Targeted audience (Local or Global)

Analyze what your targeted audience is? Do you want to reach global audience too? Do you ship internationally? There are local and global payment providers. Former can take care of all the transactions done via local banks, cards etc. while the latter comes with a plenty of new possibilities and support like multiple global cards support, multi-currency support, currency exchange settlements, alternative payments and much more.

5. Fees charged

There is a certain amount charged by providers in return for setting up the gateway and real-time transactions. This can vary from provider to provider, hence it is advised to research good before picking one. They generally charge on a percentage basis with every successful transaction done.

However, don’t get too excited by providers with low fees. They might entice clients with low pricing but can trouble in future due to lack of technology or expertise. Focus on the real cost of the system, considering technology involved, expertise and bank collaborations. You can definitely negotiate rates, but squeeze the lemon to a certain limit.

6. Security comes first

Security is crucial, not only for you as a business owner but also for your customers who’ll be sharing their personal details on your website. Hence, it is important to ensure that your gateway provider has everything covered and sorted around the same. Ensure maximum protection is achieved every time an online transaction is made on your website.

Effective online payments are one of the prime factors in determining the effectiveness of an online business. Don’t compromise on the same and ensure you have a reliable and safe payment gateway provider onboard.