Let’s now look at how to add payment processing functionality to your eCommerce website.

1. Ask Your Website Host About Payment Gateway Compatibility

Your web host might:

•    You can only use certain payment gateway brands for security or compatibility reasons.
  Provide in-house gateway services to eliminate the middleman
• You can recommend one or more brands but not necessarily one of their partners

Before you sign on the dotted lines, it is crucial to ask your host any questions.

2. Choose a Payment Gateway

Once you have an idea of what your web host allows, you can choose a payment gateway for your eCommerce website. While you are browsing, remember another player: your website’s shopping cart software.

Your web developer may use third-party software while building your site. This will allow them to create a shopping cart system.

• Tracks what your customers want to buy
• Applies discounts
• Your client can see the visuals during the checkout process

Remember that your gateway choice must also be compatible with your shopping cart software. Your web developer can help to choose a compatible gateway.

More blogs to check out

• Echeck Payment Processing: Complete Guide
• Credit Card Processing Guide For High-risk Merchants
• Advantages Of A Merchant Account For Home Devices And Electronics Business
• Hospitality Merchant Services | Everything You Need To Know

3. Sign Up for Merchant Services and Link Them to the Gateway

A merchant services provider is essential if you want to accept credit cards and debit cards as payment. Ask them questions about the following:

• The fee structure of merchant services providers – Merchant service providers usually charge three types of fees.
• Interchange fees (which are paid to the credit card company).
• Payment processor fees (which are paid to the merchant service provider)
• Assessment fees (which are also paid to credit card companies, but are based on monthly sales and not per-transaction percentages).
• You can also inquire about their additional services, such as loyalty program administration, point-of-sale (POS) system rentals, and statement services.
• How to save money on merchant services – Good providers will provide rate reviews for their members, negotiate their rates to credit card companies, and assist businesses in incorporating processing fees into their item prices.

Once you have chosen a provider to work with, give them the information that they will need to connect to your payment gateway.

4. Build Your eCommerce Store

It is not always an easy task to build an eCommerce store. This is why there are many articles about it. This is why we recommend that you hire a web developer to help with this process:

• If you aren’t a master coder or tech whiz, it can be less expensive than hiring someone to do it for you.
• You can have a professional help you create a secure website that clients will trust.
• They know how to connect all the pieces: web hosting, shopping cart software, and payment gateways.

5. Accept Payment Methods to the Store

We recommend that you trust your web developer to add payment methods to your website, just like in the previous step.

• A single payment gateway can handle all types of cards you wish to accept. This means that one gateway will work with Visa, Mastercard, and Discover as well as American Express.
• A coding expert can make your website look great with the gateway you choose.
• Your site and payment infrastructure should be secure from a cybersecurity perspective.

6. Testing

To ensure that the payment gateway works, it should provide a way to test everything from beginning to end. Ensure that the following steps are completed during the testing phase:

• Accept all payment methods (e.g. Visa, MasterCard, American Express)
• Sales or discounts (make sure that the price changes to reflect the “deal”)
• Communication between your merchant services provider and the gateway
• If you use an external gateway, allow for acceptable page load times between your website and it.

You should also test the process every time you make changes to your web host, gateway, shopping cart software, or merchant services provider.

Last Words

Although adding payment processing to your site is relatively easy, each step of the process is complex. This is why we recommend consulting experts as often and as much as possible.

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