1. What is an eCommerce Payment Gateway?
An eCommerce website is only helpful with a functional payment gateway. The gateway mediates the relationship between eCommerce sites and payment platforms. A Payment gateway authenticates the credit or debit card payment for brick-and-click stores, e-commerce ventures, or traditional stores. The payment gateway secures the information of a credit card with the help of encryption. It assures that the data passed between the credit card network and the website is secured. It is comparable to any POS terminal that you might have encountered in several retail establishments.
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E-commerce payment gateway has several benefits too. These include:
- Guaranteeing consistently clear-cut transactions
- Reducing payment processing fraud
- Approving transactions between clients and businesses
- Encrypting and storing sensitive data
Apart from the benefits, you can use the gateways to perform multiple functions. First, they are perfect for authorization. Do not hesitate to use them for all capture and sale types of transactions too. Ecommerce sites require refund and void transactions too, which payment gateways help with as well.
2. How does an eCommerce Payment Gateway Work?
Your eCommerce site needs a checkout feature for the payment gateway to work. It relies on a simple process though. Most importantly, the process lasts only a few seconds. The process kicks off the moment a user makes a payment. Interestingly, the process is the same whether the payment happens on the website, third party application, or ERP.
Here is how it works:
- User submits payment
- The eCommerce site passes sensitive information to the payment gateway
- The gateway tokenizes the details before transferring them to the acquiring bank of the merchant
- Process issues a “declined” or “approved” response back to the gateway
- The gateway then pushes the answer back to the e-commerce platform
- Payment information is received
3. Choose Right Payment Gateway Provider
Payment gateways are different. They operate differently. Their features are similar. For this reason, you have to understand what you need. The market has a few options worth considering. Before proceeding, you would need to know the different types of payment gateways in the market. For the most part, these are:
- Integrated payment gateway
- Hosted payment gateway
Now that you know your options, the next step is to know how to choose the best one. Fortunately, it is not mandatory to know everything. You only have to familiarize yourself with a few crucial aspects of the gateway. The most important features to consider when selecting the suitable payment gateway for your eCommerce site include:
- The type of customer you serve
- The kind of business that you run including specifics
- Security
- Cost
- Performance and reliability
4. Various E-commerce Payment Gateway Options
As stated earlier, you can choose from a long list of viable options. Once you have determined what suits your business, the next step should be quite straightforward. Again, the industry is full of tried-and-tested options. Unless otherwise, limit yourself to these common options instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. Some of these options include:
- Razorpay
- Authorize.net
- Paytm
- PayPal
- Stripe
- Braintree Payments
- Mollie
- Square
- Apple Pay
- Amazon Pay
- Adyen
5. Cost of Payment Gateway Integration
It is costly and simple to set up an eCommerce website. The features the site needs are equally difficult to set up. Nevertheless, you can do it all with the right financial backing. When discussing integration, you must also consider the full list of attributes the platform depends on to function optimally. These are:
- Shipping Database
- Software for managing stock inventory
- Shopping cart software
- Correspondences network
In discussing the cost of integration, one has to consider a few standard methods, too. The first one is the hosted gateway. The direct post method is equally effective here. Non-hosted or integrated methods will benefit your site. Before setting off, you should familiarize yourself with PCI DSS compliance too. Each form affects the cost of integration.
6. Custom Payment Gateway
If the most common payment gateways are unappealing, consider customizing one for your eCommerce site. The customized version can work or be compatible with any option you prefer for your website. Furthermore, you can use it to offer your clients unlimited payment methods.
Creating a custom payment gateway is a possible task. First, you must remember to register as a payment gateway provider. You would need to contact one or more credit card companies to do this. You may only enjoy a little success if you get them directly. However, you have a 100% chance of success if you do so through an acquiring bank.
Afterward, you would have to follow these steps:
Contract with banks to play the role of payment processors and handle the actual process on your behalf
- API development
- PCI DSS certification
- Choose several payment methods
- Develop management tools
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7. SSL/HTTPS Secured Payment Gateway
Thus far, you have only read about payment gateways for your eCommerce website. What you must remember is payment gateways will never work if you pay little attention to the role SSL certificate/HTTPS-secured payment gateway play. It is the safest way of taking payments online. You can go with desired SSL certificate like a single domain, cheap wildcard SSL certificate, multi-domain SSL certificate, etc. SSL secures the data in transit between the server and the browser. Even, PCI DSS regulation also recommends HTTPS.
Conclusion
As shown above, you can go for either a payment gateway provider or a custom payment gateway. Whichever choice you make, you can look forward to an eCommerce site that operates brilliantly. Your clients will have little difficulty making payments safe in the assurance that they have access to top-notch protection.
