11 Things to Consider when Accepting Payments on Your Website

Accepting payments on your website involve your customers paying you through a technology. To achieve a hitch free transactions on your website and ensure security of data, there are certain things you need to consider.

In this article we will review the things you need to consider when accepting payments on your website. You will definitely need these tips if you want smooth transactions between your customers and the technology you are using.

If you have a small online business and would want to set up an online payment in your website, you first decide whether to handle it in-house or you outsource your payment.

For all-in-one solution that makes it possible and easy for you to accept credit cards and other methods of electronic payment in your website, PayPal and ProPal is certified and recommended.

How Website Accept Payments 

Some websites uses technology that enable customers to pay-in to your account by giving his or her information on the site and every transaction made is being authorized by your payment processing compay which transfer each payment to your account. This isn’t free. Therefore, every services made is being followed by some processing fee per transaction

There are few things to consider when accepting payment on your website.

1. Secure your Website Date with SSL

In any online payment, security is paramount. Typically, you’ll want to have a secure sockets layer (SSL) certificate for your website in order to provide a secure connection and encrypt credit card information.

This is to ensure that your potential customers account is secure from the hands of hackers.

To set up your payments in-house, you must carefully secure your site by setting up a secure server and also a secure socket layer (SSL) technology which enables encryption of data.

Once you’ve gotten your SSL registration, this gives you a upper-hand to register your site with a digital authentication service. These helps you validates that the site your customer’s information is correct. These gives your customers assurance and confident in your site and that their information is encrypted.

2. Choose Secure payment Processing Companies 

Here are popular payment processing platforms you can use.

PayPal: This is a well-known service that allows you to set up a premier or business account with an email address to securely, easily and quickly send and receive payments online. PayPal uses advanced proprietary fraud-prevention systems to create a safe, global real time payment solution.

It also builds on existing financial infrastructure of bank account and credit cards. PayPal perks include accepting checks through smartphones camera and card swiper which allows customer to purchase without leaving your site.

Skrill: This is formerly known as Moneybookers. It has some intriguing features which include free setup, low fees and the ability to send text message from your account.

These services id great for international merchants since you’re allowed to transfer your account balance onto a prepaid debit card instantly.

WePay: This is incredibly simple. It’s a payment processor that allows internet merchants to accept credits cards and bank account payments online. You can instantly accept payment with a snap of your finger. The nightmare here is that these works only for U.S citizens.

Ach payments: Ach payment is one of the most top payments system around the globe. These is because of the several features which include being able to make global payments, a well-recognised payment gateway, mobile payment processor, merchant account, credit cards process and can be used as a payroll system

Stripe: These is strictly used by developers, to help integrate a payment system into their projects through stripes robust API. It also prevents the need for a merchant account and to build your own payment forms that can avoid PCI requirements

3. Provide a Number of Payment Methods

These may not be available because many websites provides just one payment method but ill suggest you take a look at you’re your target audience to see and know which payment methods they use. Then you’ll be able to capture how many people visits your website

4. Deliver an outstanding and catchy design

For you to attract audience to you, you must keep everything as consistent as possible. These means your colors, fonts and design must use the same color for easy recognition of the brand of your business.

In order to flag your brand awareness, you need to keep your design consistent across all channels, especially your checkout page

5. Allow Payments without Requiring an Account

Forcing people to sign up for an account isn’t really cool for first-time customers which is a major conversion killer.

A study discovers that the main reasons why customers hate creating account is that they expect to be flooded with promotional emails and adds more fields for people to fill out and prolongs the payment process .

Many customers don’t understand that creating account enables them to buy a product when brick and mortar stores don’t require an account to buy from them

6. Avoid Unnecessary Redirection 

Don’t redirect your customers to a checkout page. Why send them away from your website, from what you’ve worked so hard?

Using a service like PayPal redirects people from your website to a check page especially when you don’t have control over the design of your check page and customers end up feeling as if they investing money to your business other than the one they are buying from.

7. Make Errors Easy to Fix

No one is above mistakes. Therefore, some checkout pages display an error message at the top of the page but people don’t realize except they scroll up to find what went wrong.

The best thing to do is to identify that the error appear in the field in which it occurred. Another easy way is to make people save the information they submit.

8. Keep Distractions to a Minimum

Under no circumstance should you conduct any advertisement. These will distract your customers from completing their payment which is your main objective for them to make the final payment.

Your checkout page is the ends of the sales cycle, the final step, therefore try all possible means not to distract them from the checkout process.

9. Have Clear Calls to Action

Don’t leaving people in suspense, endeavor to keep them up- to- date and make it crystal clear that they can continue to checkout or continue shopping.

The trick is to make your message specific and not being ambiguous, don’t leave them guessing what to do next.

10. Have Alternative Payment Option

It’s a bad idea to have only one payment option. To get the best from you business, give your customers different options to pay you.

Apart from accepting payment through credit or debit card, you can also accept payments via bitcoin, mobile phones, scan codes, direct bank transfer etc.

11. Provide Support to Your Customers 

Accepting payment on your website is just one thing, but you have to provide after-sales support to your customers. By so doing, buyers can easily contact you if they have any issues concerning their purchase.

You can provide an easy-fill-in form, support ticket and other customer feedback tool to achieve this.

Conclusion…

Adherence to these tips makes it easier for people to pay and to decrease shopping cart abandonment.  It won’t only avoid lost but will increase sales and also create an enjoyable experience that people will definitely come back for your service

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