How First-Time Entrepreneurs Can Integrate To A Low-Cost Payment Gateway

Choosing the right payment gateway is like choosing a life partner where one should have distinctive characteristics that you find important but in the end, it all comes down to the fact how special they make you feel and what your experience is telling you.

Like in every relationship, the partnership with a payment gateway might take awhile to get things in place. What worries most entrepreneurs are that the cost of a smoothly-running payment gateway can be a bit costly.

Nowadays, everything is online and accessible including credit cards, debit cards, internet banking, e-wallets and many other payment methods to ensure a safe and convenient way of making more and more customers eager to shop from the web. 

Now, payment gateway is no more an option but an important component to make your operation easier day by day.

What is a payment gateway?

A payment gateway is a service that connects an online store to a bank or payment processor by validating the transaction credentials through web or mobile to make payment.

A possibility of the best e-commerce businesses to fail in providing a seamless UX from cart to checkout may exist. They may miss out on providing the popular payment methods to choose from. This forms one of the major reasons why customers cancel a purchase.

According to a study by Barilliance, they found that the average cart abandonment rate for 2016 was 77.24%. Furthermore, this number rose slightly in 2017 to 78.65% which totaled over 3/4 of shoppers choose to leave the site without completing the purchase.

If you are a first-time entrepreneur and finding a payment gateway that is within your budget, consider these three things before you make a choice:

1. Do a survey

In making a survey for the best choice of payment gateway with a low-rate given, you have to compare:

a) How secure is the payment gateway?

Security is obviously a key concern when payment is processed. You should make sure you use a provider which is certified Level 1 compliant with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS).

You should also consider the fraud protection and screening tools offered. Most payment gateways offer a number of tools to help you protected against fraud, such as filters to define who or where you receive the payments from. These tools are particularly important if you want to accept payments from people whom you don't have an existing relationship with.

b) What types of payment are accepted by the payment gateway?

Payment gateways typically accept VISA, MasterCard and American Express. If you’re collecting international payments you may want to check if the payment gateway supports domestic payments from local banks or credit card issuer. Additionally, a new kind of payment methods which is Razer Cash will enable your customers to buy online and pay offline at convenience stores.

c) What levels of support are provided by the payment gateway?

Customers’ experience is one of those undervalued areas which can really hurt your business reputation when your business starts to get a third party involved, which in this case is the payment gateway.

As much as your payment gateway might cost, you should look for a payment gateway which offers a great support when you need it and how they put you first. A good place to start is by contacting them to see how the initial experience goes as well as doing a research online into other customers’ experiences.

2. Take up a startup plan

Cost is obviously a concern for any new business. Before committing to any payment gateways, make sure you are aware of their fee structures.

The most important thing to think about is how the fees are equal to what your package is put together. If you only take a relatively low volume of online payment options, then you should already expect a minimum cost and the exclusion of several fees such as maintenance fee.

Most of the payment gateways have a startup plan that is cheaper and suitable for a kickstart. But, you have to expect that it will not fully consist of the services provided by the payment gateway.

Different payment gateways will have different plans and fees. You can try to search for any comparison table that is helpful for you to make your final choice.

3. Look out for promotions

When we talk about promotion or discounted prices, everyone will call off the alert. So do you, seeking up the best promotion given by the payment gateways are the important thing to do to get the best rate in town.

If you are based in Malaysia, you can always check out the shopping cart providers where they usually put up a comparison table inclusive the major payment gateways used by established e-commerce and discounted prices offered in their campaign.

To discover how Razer Merchant Services can help you expand your payment options and increase sales, schedule a free appointment with our team today.