How to accept online payments on your website?

Due to the covid 19 pandemic, online shopping has changed forever. These days, most of the people prefer to shop online. Online payments are growing 104 percent per year. Therefore, most of the people prefer to pay online and if their preferred payment methods are not available, they just leave that online store. Therefore, your eCommerce store must accept online payments.

You also need to make sure that people trust your online store, otherwise they won’t enter their credit card/PayPal details. There are different types of online payments preferred by online consumers. As a merchant, you have to keep everything in mind so that customers don’t abandon their cart and leave your website.

What does the online payment include?

Online payments are basically the payments made over the internet to the merchant’s bank account or any other wallet. There are many options when it comes to paying online such as Paypal, Apple Pay, Google pay, Net banking and many more.

To understand online payments, you must be thoroughly familiar with these concepts:

Payment gateway

It is basically the software application that enables and proceeds with payments to the merchant’s website. Payment gateways accept or reject the payment method used by you by sending the information to the server. This helps you to continue with the payment or decline the greeting. In case your payment has been rejected by the payment gateway, check your payment method and do it again.

payment processor

Basically, it sends information to the card server to check for any type of fraud and to check whether the customer’s account has the required balance in their account or not. Once verified, the payment is proceeded or rejected. In case it is declined, check your balance or change the card and continue.

business account

It is basically a bank account created for business purposes that accepts online payments from the customer. To accept payments, merchants previously had to apply for a merchant account, but now they can also do so using payment aggregators, which is third-party software.

How does an online payment really work?

The customer reviews the items and chooses one, then adds it to the cart and goes to the checkout page.

On the payment page, you choose a payment method, let’s say it’s a card, so you enter the card details.

The transaction information is then passed to the payment gateway which passes it on to the payment processor.

The payment processor transfers it to the card server to check for any type of fraud and to verify the availability of the required amount in the client’s bank account.

The card network then sends information to the bank’s server requesting it to release funds from the bank account.

This information is then transferred along with the funds and the payment is successful.

Types of online payment methods

The online payment network is expanding enormously. To get high approval rates, you need to make sure you offer almost all types of payment methods and be flexible enough to offer local banks as well. Here is a list of the most used payment methods:

Card payments

Most customers today pay with their credit card or credit card. Statistics say that more than 60% of people prefer to pay with cards. When a customer uses a card to pay, the merchant must pay the transaction fees. He must have noticed this when buying something when the merchant asks him to pay an additional percentage when he pays with the card.

electronic checks

Although credit cards are more convenient to pay online, they charge huge transaction fees. To prevent this, electronic checks were introduced. Electronic check payments are similar to cash payments. After the client’s approval, the money is sent to the merchant’s server. There are no applicable interchange fees, or even if there are, they are usually very low.

online wallets

Mobile wallets are electronic wallets that store customer credentials and help them pay in a fraction of a second. Every time they have to pay, they don’t need to search for their bank details or card number. They can simply use their mobile wallet to pay for the transaction. Mobile wallets are widely preferred and favored due to the convenience they bring with them.

email invoices

Once you have made a purchase, you will receive an email with a link. You can make the payment with just a couple of clicks. It’s just as convenient as mobile wallets and saves time too.

Disadvantages of accepting payments online

When a merchant accepts payments online, the cost of fraud increases. There are many apps on the market that show the message of a successful transaction, but the transaction has not even started. This leads the trader to face heavy losses at times.

Technical problems are the most common problems when it comes to online payments. This may result in cart abandonment or loss of sale. The customer may get frustrated and will not return.

There are huge service fees applicable to online payments for merchants. This decreases merchants’ profit margins, leaving them with lower than actual profits.

Advantages of accepting payments online

Accepting payments online allows you to reach a broader, global audience than is possible with checks or offline payments. This increases the profit and reach of your online business.

When you accept payment online, you improve the customer experience as online payments are seamless. Especially after the pandemic, people have completely switched to online payment modes, so they prefer to pay online instead of paying in cash.

Conclusion

After the pandemic, digitization has become one of the most important things. People now prefer to pay online rather than offline or in cash. Usually, a merchant that accepts online payments is preferred these days. So it is better to start accepting online payments to avoid cart abandonment.