If you have a business providing a product or service that might interest a lot of people, and you’re tired of having these shoppers abandon your store because they can’t find one convenient way to pay for their purchase, then you should choose online payment options according to your products or services. Use this information to help guide you when researching an online payment solution for your business!
What is an online payment solution?
An online payment solution is simply a platform that accepts payments for your business. With a paying gateway, customers can choose to pay for their purchase using one of the many available options in their location. A merchant account is what allows your business’s online store or shopping cart to accept credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, and check payments from shoppers.
Types of online payment solutions
There are two types of online payment solutions: hosted and merchant-hosted options.
- Hosted means that your online solution is stored on someone else’s server (usually PayPal’s).
- Merchant-hosted means that your online option of paying is stored on the server that you have control over.
Hosted solutions are usually better for businesses that are just starting and don’t have a strong online presence. Merchant-hosted solutions are more appropriate for businesses who want to control more of their data, especially if they’re handling sensitive customer information.
Reasons for using online payment options for your business
Online payment solutions are used by businesses that sell products and services online. The following sections explain some of the reasons why businesses choose to use them:
- Security
Most businesses want to minimize the risk of fraud, so they choose a trusted bank or credit card company to process their transactions, in the form of hosted online payment solutions. Choosing an online payment solution that’s provided by a trusted bank or credit card company is one way of reducing the risk associated with accepting payments.
- Simplicity
Many businesses look at the ease of use when selecting an online payment solution. This includes selecting a hosted or merchant-hosted option that makes it easy for customers to complete their purchases. This could mean making sure that any software you choose is easy to install and update. Or it might simply mean choosing a well-designed shopping cart system.
- Processing power
Businesses that sell products or services online need the processing power to process their transactions. The bigger your business gets, the more transactions you’ll need to process, which means you’ll need a payment gateway that has enough processing power for your business. Most credit card companies offer very reliable card-processing services that are available immediately at no cost for small businesses.
- Support
Many payment gateways offer excellent customer support, which is one great reason to choose an online payment solution that’s provided by your bank or credit card company. They’ll be available to you 24/7, should you ever have a problem with your registrar (the website where payments are processed).
- Cost
Each payment gateway has a different cost structure. Depending on how many transactions you need to process, and how much processing power your business needs, the cost can vary significantly. The cheaper fees associated with a merchant-hosted option might not be as reliable as credit card companies’ hosted services.
Thus, it is best to run a test to compare the various online payment solutions, and then choose one that meets your business needs.
Paypal
Paypal is a widely used online payment solution. It’s an online, hosted payment gateway with a clean interface and excellent processing power. PayPal is currently owned by eBay, which makes it an ideal choice for eCommerce businesses, since most people are familiar with the company, and know that they can trust them.
WePay
WePay is a nice alternative to PayPal. It’s online, hosted payment solution that’s easy to use. WePay also has a competitive price structure, with fees starting at 2.7% + $0.30 per transaction and going up to 6% + $0.75 per transaction, depending on your volume of transactions and the options you choose for processing your transactions.
Checkout.com
Checkout.com is another popular online, hosted payment gateway. It’s an excellent choice for eCommerce businesses since it’s an online service that offers excellent customer support and the option to accept payments from a variety of sources, including PayPal, major credit cards, and wire payments.
The following are reasons why you might choose to use Checkout.com:
- Easy to set up – It only takes a few minutes to set up the Checkout.com service on your website.
- Secure – They offer 256-bit encryption for payments and sensitive data, which means that your orders are processed safely without being intercepted by hackers.
- Reporting – They provide easy-to-use reporting options, so you can track how many customers you’re reaching with your online store or shopping cart.
- Customer Support – The quality of their customer support is excellent since they have multiple support options, including email, phone, and live chat.
This payment gateway works best for eCommerce businesses that sell products and services.
BlueSnap
BlueSnap is another great payment gateway option for eCommerce businesses. They offer two hosted payment solutions, one for eCommerce stores and the other for online retailers. BlueSnap’s online retail solution doesn’t offer a shopping cart that’s compatible with most shopping carts and websites, so it might not be best for all businesses. But since it’s provided by BlueSnap, you can be sure that every order you process through them will be tracked, so you’ll know exactly how your customers are buying from your store or website.
Braintree
Braintree is an online, merchant-hosted payment solution that’s part of PayPal’s Affiliates program. Braintree offers a hosted service that works well with shopping carts and offers one of the lowest fees of any credit card company’s hosted services.
Braintree claims to offer up to 10X the processing power of PayPal’s normal processor. So if you have a big enough business where you need fast payment processing, then Braintree is probably your best choice for an online payment solution for your business.
Conclusion
An online payment solution is something that you can easily implement on your website to help the owners of your business increase their sales and increase the number of customers that they’re able to serve. Choosing the best solution for your business will depend on how you want to make your payments, how many transactions you need to process per day, and how much processing power can be provided by merchant-hosted payment solutions. We hope that this article helps you choose between the various online payment solutions available for your business.
Please comment below if you have any questions about online payment solutions or if we left out any important information.
