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Over the last decade or so, the eCommerce industry has seen extraordinary growth. To get ahead eCommerce businesses must consider payment options because online shopping is all about saving time. Customers want alternatives that simplify the shopping and buying process. With millions of people opting to shop online, rather than visit stores in person, it is a major opportunity for small businesses. How can you differentiate yourself? Embrace the variety of online payments!
What Is Online Payment?
In terms of your sales funnel, check-out is the most important step. The entire purpose of your business is to draw customers to your site, convert them to buy, and then process the sale. It’s the moment that a visitor to your site turns into an official customer. Making smart decisions for this step of the business is an important part of enhancing your sales opportunities. When a customer checks out of an eCommerce store, what they want is a safe, quick, and effective checkout. They also want online payment options. It’s up to you to make it as effortless as possible.
You can avoid lost revenue through cart abandonment by offering a wide variety of online payment methods. While money orders, cheques, and bank deposits may have been a common option in the past, customers today want simplicity. While many people like to have these options, they want the chance to use a credit card, a debit card, or even a payment service provider. Thanks to technology, there are plenty of options.
By offering a broad offering of online payment methods for small businesses, you can expand your customer base and boost conversions. Each online payment option comes with different charge rates and these options influence different customer bases. Offering different online payment methods will attract different demographics from different regions and net the largest audience possible. So, what online payment methods can you choose from?
Credit Cards
Credit cards are widely used across Australia, but there are different costs associated with them. The main benefit is an added layer of security to prevent fraudulent payments, but before you can accept credit card payments you need a payment gateway and merchant account. If you don’t want to deal with payment gateways, you need an SSL certification, a unique IP, and you must undergo a PCI compliance audit. That’s fine and well for large chain businesses, but for small businesses, it is a far more challenging prospect.
Debit Cards
Debit cards function much the same as credit cards do and many eCommerce sites do not differentiate between the two when a customer selects the online payment method. If your site is set up to accept credit cards, then you don’t need to make any changes to accept debit cards. While that is a major pro, the con that comes with it is that you would need to go through the complicated process of setting your site up to accept credit cards.
Direct Deposit & Direct Debit
The vast majority of Australians are online bank users. They use online banking to buy goods, to pay for services, and to pay bills as well. A direct deposit is a way for customers to transfer money from their bank account directly into the merchant’s account. All you need to do is provide your account details to customers for direct deposit. Its use online is much smaller in scale compared to other options, but it is still an online payment method you will find on small business eCommerce sites. You will commonly find this on sites where there are recurring payments, such as a cleaning service. While this is a useful way to operate, many customers are put off if that is the only online payment method available.
Cheques & Money Orders
While some merchants may still offer the option to use cheques or money orders, it is increasingly rare. To put it into perspective, cheque users are over 50, and the majority of them are over 65. Even then, cheques represent only one percent of their spending. It is a dying art.
Payment Service Provider
If you want secure online payment options, then a payment service provider may be the solution. As a small eCommerce business, you want a solution that is easy to set up and offers your customers a secure way to pay online. A payment service provider allows customers to use their debit or credit card without the merchant accessing their information. With a third party processor, there is no need for you to deal with merchant accounts, which makes them easier to set up and cheaper, as well. The payment service provider offers you a variety of services to make getting paid easier. They generally provide the payment gateway as well as the merchant account. From there, they help collect and manage all payments. The payment service provider takes the initial payment before transferring it to you.
While the setup of a payment service provider is generally the same across providers, the requirements may differ. With Square, you can sign up for a free account immediately. You can take a wide variety of payment options as well as Square gift cards.
Square fights to prevent fraud, offers secure payments, manages disputes on your behalf, and helps you avoid the complicated compliance aspect of online payment options. You get the full suite of services available to assist you as you run your eCommerce business, whether you’re just getting started or you are long-established.
You don’t need to worry about choosing the right payment gateway because it’s all handled for you. It can cost several hundred dollars to set up a payment gateway, and on top of that, there’s a monthly fee as well as a percentage of each transaction. With Square, you need only pay a percentage per transaction, and the funds reach your account within one to two business days.
Square is easy to set up and secure; so what are you waiting for? You can set up a website with Square, use a payment plug-in for your existing site, use an online payment link, or use Square integrations on a third party-built online store.
