Choosing The Best Payment Processing Options For Your Ecommerce Site

Ecommerce continues to be an alluring option for companies that wish to expand their market domestically and in other countries. Even large companies like Nordstrom’s have chosen to enter countries that they are interested in using their website alone until sales grow to the point where they can open a physical store.

When you get started looking at online shopping carts and ecommerce for your company, one of the key feature sets that you will want to take into consideration is the payment processing options that are available.

Here are some tips that can help you to get the most out of the shopping cart decision that you do make:

Shop for coverage

Your clientele, which you know well, will likely fit into a specific profile when it comes to the types of payments that they make and the cards that they use to do so. The optimum solution for most merchants has long been a direct connection to a Visa or Mastercard payment processor. With both debit and credit cards covered for your clients, it should be relatively easy for the majority of users to make purchases. Of course any solution that you use should be integrated into your website seamlessly so that you do not have to do any coding beyond selecting the processor as your preferred way of accepting payment. Vendors like 1shoppingcart.com are known for providing this type of integration in their shopping carts out of the box.

Shop for security

One of the reasons that people tend to shy away from direct card processing is that they worry about keeping credit card numbers on their site due to security concerns. In the past, this has caused some site owners to use third-party payment providers that use an indirect payment method that is more secure, but takes more steps for your customer. Fortunately, Mastercard has come out with a service called Simplify that provides both website integration and separate processing, allowing your customers to have an easy path to purchasing items on your site without any risk at all on your part when it comes to keeping their credit card numbers secure.

Shop for price

The total cost of each payment processing solution is often a function of how much convenience that it provides you with as a solution. The most expensive method is often to use a direct payment processor that sets you up as a traditional retailer and charges you a sizeable fee for the ability to make transactions each month. As an alternative, the Simplify program and its competitors do not charge any setup fee or monthly fee. Instead, they charge you a normal percentage of sales fee that is subtracted only when a sale goes through. By comparing your anticipated and historic sales volume, you should be able to quickly see which type of payment processor is right for you when it comes to price.

Payment processing is one of the most important components of your ecommerce site. By partnering with the right hosting company, you can often find a package that provides you with more convenience and a lower overall price because it is part of the hosting package that you are using.