For eCommerce businesses, choosing the right payment gateway to help you accept payments is critical. What are the top four things you should look for in a payment gateway?
If you're branching out into eCommerce, your top considerations should include building a customer-friendly website, integrating a shopping cart, and efficient shipping services. A payment gateway is another must have, as it's the service that lets you get paid.
So, what are the top four things you should look for in a payment gateway to support your business’s success? You'll want to be sure the payment gateway you select:
- Is quick to deploy and easy for you and your customers to use
- Offers intelligent features to help you grow
- Provides security tools to help you keep customer data safe and prevent fraudulent transactions
- Can connect easily to other systems and services, such as payment processors, shopping carts, and shipping systems
Let's look at how you can make sure your gateway measures up.
1. Quick to deploy, easy to use
A payment gateway that's quick to deploy can help you get to market faster. Simple integration that lets you accept payment by credit and debit cards, eChecks, and digital wallets gives your customers plenty of choice about how they pay. If you also make sales in person, a payment gateway that supports contactless payments and offers mobile Point of Sale (mPOS) means you can see and manage all your payment transactions in one place.
As well as making it simple for customers to pay, you'll want to be sure your payment gateway makes it easier to manage your business. A gateway platform that gives quick, intuitive, and easy access to review transactions and perform other administrative tasks can boost your efficiency.
2. Intelligent features to help boost growth
Some payment gateways are so focused on simplicity, lacking the more advanced features that can help you grow. Even if you start out small, you'll want to know your payment gateway offers additional functionality to support your business as it expands, such as:
- The ability to simply create and send invoices
- Secure storage of customers' payment data to streamline checkout for returning customers
- Easy ways to set up and manage subscriptions and other types of recurring payments
- Automatic updates to stored payment data to avoid interruptions and lost sales
You'll also want capabilities built into the back end that can help you work more efficiently and give you more time to focus on your business. Smart searching and filtering options to help you quickly find what you want, dashboards that help you prioritize your work, data that drive actionable insights, and AI-powered help and task automation can all help you get more done every day.
3. Connections to the payment ecosystem
A payment gateway that connects easily with other systems and services gives you more choice and options for expanding your business. Gateways that connect seamlessly to shopping carts, shipping systems, acquiring banks, and payment processors can help you deliver a frictionless end-to-end experience across integrated solutions.
And if you sell through multiple channels, such as online and in person, a payment gateway that helps you stay connected to your customers across all those channels can offer big benefits, helping you strengthen customer loyalty.
4. Security tools to protect your customers and your business
If your business handles, processes, and stores sensitive cardholder information, you must maintain a secure environment that complies with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). Working with a payment gateway that tokenizes cardholder information can give your customers peace of mind that their data is protected and can reduce your PCI DSS compliance scope.
As well as securing sensitive data, which helps you accept good transactions, your gateway should also offer fraud protection to stop bad transactions. Fraud is growing and fraudsters are finding new ways to attack businesses. Look for a payment gateway that integrates robust fraud detection and prevention to help protect your business against inventory loss and chargebacks while maximizing legitimate transactions.
Ready to learn more?
The reimagined Authorize.net can meet all these payment gateway needs and more. It combines 30 years of experience with the latest AI technology—all backed by the security and reliability of Visa.
