What is a payment gateway and how to choose one?
For online shoppers – paying seems like a simple matter that only takes a second. However, a successful payment requires many components to work like a charm to make this magic happen. So what exactly is a payment gateway and how to choose one for your e-shop?
What is a payment gateway?
A payment gateway is a link connecting an e-shop to a customer and enabling the client to securely pay for selected purchases and the merchant to receive that payment. In other words – it’s an online payment processing service.
If you want to sell you products or services online – creating an e-shop is just the beginning. For your website to become a shop – you need to accept payments. And that is what payment gateways enable you to do. It helps your customer to connect to their bank or enter payment card details and confirm a transfer for the selected goods.
How to choose the right payment gateway?
There are several criteria to look at before selecting the payment gateway that is best for your business. Here are some to consider:
Trust 🤝
If you are new to the online business – look around what is a popular payment gateway in your area. A popular payment gateway will already be familiar to shoppers and they will have no doubts when entrusting their information on your payment page. For example, a vast majority of e-shops in Lithuania and many in the Baltics collect payments online via Paysera – making it a very well-known and trusted payment window for customers.
Scope 🌐
Make sure that the payment gateway of your choice will enable your clients to pay in a way that is convenient for them – cards, online banking, etc. In some countries, paying in cash is still a popular option. See if your payment service provider can give you this possibility. Also, you might not even have an e-shop but sometimes sell individual products (like art pieces) to individual buyers – your payment partner may have a possibility to generate one-time payment links that you can then send to your customers.
Integration 💻
Not all new e-shops will have a group of programmers to integrate a payment gateway from scratch. That is why it is appreciated if a payment service provider has and maintains ready-made plugins for different platforms and you can choose the one you need.
Support 🗣
Before making a final decision imagine that something goes wrong and you need client support ASAP – maybe you have trouble installing a plugin, maybe you see that a payment did not go through. See if your desired payment partner will have easy to reach client support as well as tech support and whether it is available in your language.
Price 💸
Finally, consider the expenses. Free technical support is always appreciated when you are setting up your online store, and competitive prices for payment processing is a must these days.
Security 🔐
Make sure that the payment gateway provider follows the highest security standards. For example, having a PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) certificate for processing card payments, protecting and encrypting client data, properly identifying clients, etc.
Tip ☝️
If you have any doubts – always speak with the sales representatives – it is in their best interest for you to be happy about the product and they will let you know about any upcoming changes, plans, and hacks that will improve your and your clients’ experience.
A versatile option – Paysera Payment Gateway
Paysera is a payment company operating in the financial market for more than 16 years. Apart from providing clients with various financial services such as IBAN accounts and Visa cards, it is also the most popular payment gateway for e-shops in Lithuania and a known brand in other Baltic states and Europe. In 2020 Paysera became an official payment operator of Shopify, one of the leading e-commerce platforms internationally.
Paysera is the go-to payment gateway for many online merchants since it has over 20 ready-made plugins that make it easy and quick to complete the integration and start accepting payments in e-shops created on platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify, Ecwid, OpenCart, PrestaShop, and Paysera Tickets etc. Not to mention the possibility of API integration.
Apart that, Paysera offers free support in several different languages, a wide scope of methods to accept online payments including offering clients to pay via cards, online banking, other payment systems like Trustly and accepting payments without an e-shop.
Contact the Paysera Payment Gateway sales team.