An Online Retailer’s Guide to Ecommerce Payments

The eCommerce sales in the U.S. grew by 31.8% between 2020’s first and second quarter. 

Online shopping has been growing in popularity, mostly due to the convenience it offers. If you have an online store, you need to set up everything in the right way to ensure a seamless customer experience. 

Understanding more about eCommerce payment options is one of the ways that will help improve your service delivery. Online payments allow you to sell your products conveniently and faster. Yet, this seemingly straightforward process from a buyer’s end is complex for many online retailers. 

Keep reading our comprehensive guide to know more about eCommerce payment for your online store.

The Process of Online Payments

For new online retailers, the process of having an online payment option can be challenging. You should have a merchant account and payment getaway to have your online payment up and running:

Merchant Account 

As an online retailer, you’ll need a merchant account. This account is like a unique bank that captures the funds from all card sales before transferring them to a bank account. After a customer purchases an item from your site, the payment will reflect in the merchant account first.

A merchant account allows you to receive payments through diverse channels like mobile devices and commercial websites. Your business model will determine the ideal merchant account. Getting a merchant account for your eCommerce payment will require you to have a legal agreement with the issuing bank.

Ecommerce Gateway

The next process after obtaining your merchant account is to find the ideal eCommerce payment gateway. This gateway captures the customer’s credit card details, then transfers the information to the processor to allow the release of funds to your merchant account. It encrypts sensitive data for electronic and card payments to ensure that a client’s money gets to your merchant account safely. 

Now that you have your gateway and merchant account, you’re ready for eCommerce payment processing. Once a customer clicks the pay button, the payment process begins. 

Payment Processing 

The payment needs authentication to deter fraud. A payment processor gives authorization to the issuing bank to confirm the amount. If a customer has an adequate amount of money in the bank, they send the details back to the processor to decline or approve the payment.

Once everything has been verified, the issuing bank will send the cash to your bank. The acquiring bank then sends these funds to your merchant account. From your end, the jargon might feel daunting, but for the customer, the process is seamless!

You might want to consider the integrated payment software to streamline the process more. Partnering with the right provider will help with the challenges you face in your eCommerce payment setup. Besides, you’ll enjoy more revenue, competitive advantage, and customer retention.

Different Types of Payment Systems for eCommerce 

Today, the market has different online payment methods that you can consider. You can have multiple payment channels to ensure that most of your clients are considered. 

Here are the top eCommerce payment options:

Pay by Finance and Credit Pay

Credit pay makes your products have a wider audience than most other eCommerce payment options. There are fewer chances of customers changing their minds amidst a payment. As such, you’ll have fewer cases of abandoned shipping carts, which will have a significant impact on your sales.

The finance option is another way of remaining competitive amidst the growing eCommerce retailers. You can get several finance and credit providers to integrate into the checkout. PayPal Credit is one of the popular online credit providers. 

Digital Wallets

A digital wallet refers to a software-based platform that spearheads e-commerce transactions. Online purchases are completed through smartphones, computers, and tablets. Users often append their bank accounts to the digital wallets to enable online payments.  

Recent forecasts show that the use of digital wallets will account for 28% of all POS transactions by 2022. Digital wallets allow for smoother and faster transactions. With this payment option, your customers can complete payment within seconds.  

You can get these payment wallets from providers such as Google Pay, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay. Given the popularity of these options, you might want to consider more than one eCommerce payment solution. It will be easier for you to appeal to more potential customers with a range of payment solutions.

Cryptocurrency Ecommerce Payment 

The rapid growth of Bitcoin has made cryptocurrency payments an emerging trend in eCommerce. Crypto payment fees are incredibly lower than most other traditional payment processing options. Consumers who value their privacy can prefer a retailer that supports cryptocurrency payments.

Confirmation of a Bitcoin transaction takes about 20 minutes or less. Other cryptocurrencies take less time. It would help to research more about this mode of payment to ensure that you are getting an option that won’t frustrate your customers. 

Instant Pay

Despite having the emerging forms of online payments, it is crucial to consider some of the most popular traditional payments such as credit and debit cards. You should always have an option for Mastercard and Visa payment. Failure to which, you’ll end up losing many potential visitors. 

Besides, a large part of your audience might not trust an online vendor who doesn’t have these payment options. It would help if you had the card payment solutions while still incorporating some of these emerging payment solutions.

Ecommerce Payment Options Are Crucial for Online Retailers 

If you’re running an eCommerce site, you need to understand more about payments. You have several eCommerce payment solutions that you can consider for your store. While at it, ensure that you know more about eCommerce payment processing to help your customers have a seamless experience when paying for products.

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