12 Factors To Consider While Selecting The Payment Gateway Provider

By Author: Sahil Verma
Total Articles: 160
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The unprecedented growth of E-commerce has also paved the way for the payment landscape to evolve over time, with customers having access to more efficient and seamless payment options. The eCommerce industry's evolution is being driven by its innovative integration of advanced solutions, adaptive technology at its best, and extensive customization.

Global eCommerce sales are expected to skyrocket, accounting for a sizable portion of total retail sales, according to current trends. This places a tremendous amount of responsibility on eCommerce shop owners and businesses to keep up with this ever-changing industry and provide their customers with the most seamless services possible. With the stakes so high, any wrong decision can be disastrous for any growing business.

This is when selecting the best payment gateway for the platform that ensures a personalized experience for customers becomes critical.

An online payment gateway is a software that securely connects an eCommerce website to a customer's preferred mode of payment, which could be a bank account, credit card, ...
... debit card, gift card, or any online wallet.

The goal of payment gateways is to make payment processing more efficient, secure, and convenient. Instead of transmitting payments, the payment gateway approves funds transferred to the seller in a safe and secure manner for the buyer.

Payment gateways even adhere to PCI compliance standards, employing a plethora of security measures to prevent fraud.

12 Important Factors to Consider when Choosing a Payment Gateway Provider

Before making any decision to select an online payment gateway provider, the following factors should be considered, depending on the business and functional requirements for the eCommerce business:

1. Choose an Appropriate Payment Flow

The eCommerce payment gateway should be able to scale easily as the business grows. To add a payment gateway to a website, retailers must first determine the best payment flow for their business.

To send information to a secure payment gateway, a website with an integrated payment form is used: Payment information is sent via a secure form with this option. The form contains all of the necessary information and sends it to the gateway provider via API calls. This may necessitate additional programming, raising the overall cost of the payment gateway integration process.

2. Choosing the Correct Product

When it comes to selling products and services online, every website must have a payment gateway provider. It enables customers to purchase a product or service while making it easy for business owners to receive payments. Retailers should consider how adaptable their payment solution is while keeping security in mind when selecting the right product.

It's also critical to figure out how to add a payment gateway to the website – this doesn't mean retailers should do it themselves; instead, they should hire an expert to do it. Choose the best online payment method for your company and your customers.

3. Make Customers Feel Safe and Secure

Large corporations have elevated the online shopping experience, raising customer expectations of all eCommerce websites. Even if a website is only a small business, its customers will expect a high-quality website that uses the most secure payment methods.

If they sell online, they are directly or indirectly competing with Amazon and others.

Some payment gateway solutions, for example, allow website owners to customize the entire payment experience to reflect their brand's typeface, logo, and color palette. Some customers are unaware that they may be temporarily redirected to a third-party website to complete their transactions safely.

Check that the payment gateway provider is certified to adhere to information security standards such as PCI-DSS. The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council is in charge of enforcing the PCI Standard, which is mandated by the card brands.

4. Consider Fees and Service Agreement Requirements

Payment gateway pricing is frequently based on the type of transactions a company conducts (online or in-person), as well as business sales, revenue consistency, transaction frequency, and the markets served.

It is critical to compare how the business model aligns with the fee structure of the payment provider or a gateway. Some services may charge setup fees and contracts, or they may charge transaction fees if a minimum order and transaction volume is not met.

5. Ensure Effective Transactions

According to a survey, more than a quarter of customers will abandon a purchase if they are required to create an account in order to complete it. If the checkout procedure employs a third-party shopping cart that includes an enrollment procedure, ensure that retailers can make it an optional factor that allows for "guest" checkout.

Similarly, the payment gateway should allow retailers to remove unnecessary form fields for a faster checkout process. Big eCommerce companies anticipate that eliminating redundancies, such as requiring customers to enter both billing and shipping information, even if the postal addresses are the same, will increase conversions by up to 50%.

6. Make Checkout Easy on All Devices

According to studies, 79 percent of smartphone users have made an online purchase using their mobile devices in the last 6 months, and 62.24 percent of people will own a mobile phone in 2021, with these figures steadily increasing. When evaluating payment gateway options, website owners must ensure that they provide an adaptable checkout experience that is optimized for different mobile devices and network types.

7. Multiple Features to Choose From

Depending on their business needs, online payment gateway service providers provide a variety of features. For example, if retailers sell their goods and services all over the world, the payment gateway should offer a global solution and accept a variety of credit cards, debit cards, and currencies from various countries.

Payment gateways have an impact on the efficiency of a website as well. Check to see if the chosen payment gateway supports electronic invoicing, all payment types, text/email customer reminders, smart chargeback management, and so on.

8. Easy Integration Process

Integration of an online payment gateway is not a do-it-yourself project. The majority of payment gateways offer detailed instructions for integrating with popular eCommerce platforms.

The ideal solution is to choose a payment gateway system that does not degrade the user experience of the website by requiring a lengthy payment process. Choose a payment gateway that makes it simple and convenient for customers to make payments on your website by allowing them to select a payment method of their choice.

9. Merchant Account
To receive funds via an online payment gateway, you must have a merchant account.

What exactly is a merchant account? When a customer makes an online payment via a payment gateway, the funds are temporarily transferred to a separate retailer account. This is not the same as a bank account.

The funds in a merchant account must be held until they are approved by the customer's processing bank. Following approval, the funds are transferred to the bank account.

Despite the fact that it appears to be an additional task, merchant accounts provide an additional layer of security and funds management for both sellers and buyers. Some payment gateways, on the other hand, do not require a merchant account and instead transfer funds directly to the seller's account. Payment gateways may charge a higher processing fee in such cases.

10. Recurring Billing

Recurring billing enables retailers to set up an automatic billing cycle for their customers, making it a must-have for businesses that accept monthly payments. Netflix and other subscription-based services use a recurring payment model.

Furthermore, non-profits have discovered the value of recurring billing, which allows organizations to easily collect funds from regular contributors.

11. Mobile Payments

In the coming years, mobile payments will supplant credit card purchases, even at point-of-sale. Payment gateway providers, using mobile payments, enable buyers to transfer money using their mobile phones, either through top-branded apps or a mobile-optimized site.

Payment gateways power mobile payments, which are optimized for mobile devices such as phones and tablets. The rise of digital mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay, among others, has altered how customers pay via mobile, and payment gateways are adding support for all major digital wallets.

12. 24×7 Customer Support

Several payment gateway services provide only ticket or email support. In this case, users must follow manual instructions to resolve a problem. If the website owners prefer to talk to someone rather than send emails, see if the provider provides live technical support, at least during standard business hours so that any technical issues can be resolved quickly.