Customers today expect the same level of service online as they would experience in a traditional brick-and-mortar retail outlet.
To provide a fast and secure checkout service on your ecommerce site, you’ll need to integrate a reputable payment gateway as part of your service.
Read on to discover the essential information you’ll need before starting to integrate a payment gateway for your online customers.
Source: Pinterest
What is a payment gateway?
Regardless of how you got your customers to your site, once they’ve opted to buy, you’ll need to ensure they have a fast and reliable method to process payments. Payment gateways provide retailers with access to merchant services in order to process payments from major financial institutions.
A payment gateway operates in the same way as a traditional cash register. It processes credit cards (or other online payment systems) using an automated service between the different parties involved.
First, it’ll collect and encrypt the customer’s information directly from the site. The payment gateway will use established processes to contact and request authorization from the applicable financial institution. After receiving approval, the payment gateway will allow the site to proceed to the next step in the fulfillment process.
How to integrate payment gateways with your site
To start using a payment gateway on your site, you’ll need to decide on the platform you want to deploy. WooCommerce, Shopify, and Magento are popular options with online retailers. Depending on which one you decide to use, you’ll need to follow the developer’s instructions to add it to your site.
Integrating Shopify on your website
To use Shopify on your site, you have two options. The first is to create a Shopify shop website and direct buyers to there during checkout.
The second option is to use a “Buy” button from Shopify that’ll enable customers to add your products to a basket directly from your site. You’ll need to add the button to every product, item, or collections.
Once the customer is ready to checkout, it’ll redirect them to the Shopify site to complete the process.
For both of these scenarios, you can find detailed instructions on the Shopify website.
Adding WooCommerce to a website
WooCommerce uses WordPress to process payments. After you’ve installed WordPress on your website, you can add the WooCommerce plugin by downloading and manually installing it on the site or searching for the plugin from your dashboard.
You’ll need a WooCommerce account to activate the plugin before it’ll work.
Magento developed website
Getting Magento onto your site is a little more complex. The company provides a host of commerce solutions and products, but you’ll need to design your website with their solution in mind.
It would be very difficult to integrate Magento with an existing site, and you’d likely have to rebuild the website on Magento’s platform.
How to measure the success of your payment gateway
Like everything related to online retail and marketing, you’ll need to keep a close eye on the metrics of your site’s performance. If the number of customers who abandon their carts increases, it could point to frustration with the payment gateway you’re using.
Businesses should’ve found ways to combat the 80% of carts abandoned during checkout.
Source: Campaign Monitor
Today’s customers expect convenience and easy-to-use services and platforms. It’s vital that you streamline the checkout and fulfillment process so that it doesn’t impede a customer from completing a purchase.
Does it really matter?
Payment gateways ensure the fast and reliable processing of all transactions between you and your customers. If a customer doesn’t have access to a shopping cart that directly integrates with a payment gateway, it’ll create frustration and lead to a loss of revenues.
What now?
Converting leads into customers requires a lot of hard work and ingenuity. If they abandon purchases during the final stages, you may want to refer to this blog post on how to improve your abandoned cart recovery processes and tactics.