Webifiable

Processing payments online is essential in any ecommerce website. After all, it’s kind of hard to sell something if you have no way to receive payment. Let’s take a look at what that can involve.

Taking credit cards directly

Obviously, you can take credit cards numbers directly. If that is the case, you will need two things. First, a secure web server so that the credit card data is encrypted. Your website’s hosting server company should know how to set that up.

Second, you will also need a payment gateway. Simply put, this is the online version of the credit card swipers. It will take the incoming credit card information and convert that into money in your bank account.

There are many options when looking at payment gateways. Your bank will probably have someone they recommend using. They will likely extol the virtues of their payment gateway, and tell you how much less expensive it is than others.

While they probably negotiated a great deal to bring you lower fees, their payment gateway is probably somewhat obscure. And somewhat obscure means higher web development costs. Instead of being able to use a standard payment gateway plugin for your ecommerce software, your web developer will probably have to write one from scratch.

Using a much more common payment gateway like Authorize.net will typically result in lower fees from your web developer. They probably already have the option in their ecommerce software, or at least have it available for relatively cheap.

The good news is that your bank probably offers Authorize.net as well. They may complain and tell you the fees are higher, but you’re making the right choice.

Use a third-party service

An alternative to taking credit card numbers directly is to use a service like PayPal, 2CheckOut or Google Checkout. If you’re not familiar with any of those, they all let you accept credit card (and e-check) payments without having to set up an official business account through your bank.

Generally, the third party services let you take all the customer information except the payment info. Then the customer is sent to their website to enter the payment information. Once that information is confirmed and they have been charged, they’re typically sent back to your site.

While these third party payment processors are sometimes viewed as less professional than taking credit card information on your actual website, they are generally much easier to set up if you’re just getting your feet wet. The fees can also be higher than the other options, but you can set up your account in less than a couple hours, and be ready to try out ecommerce without waiting too long.

So try whichever option seems right to you, and get selling online today!