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5 Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions about Payment Gateways

Tag: online payments

5 Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions about Payment Gateways
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

5 Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions about Payment Gateways

If you are a business with an online presence, you surely know how payment gateways can make it easy for you to receive payments from customers based anywhere in the world. This is a merchant service that acts as a virtual equivalent of a Point of Sale in a physical store. In simple words, without a payment gateway, your business wouldn’t run at all as this service allows the payment processing of debit and credit cards in the online world!

Luckily, with a payment gateway like PayTabs which is easy to integrate with your website or mobile app, you can expect fast and secure payments without any glitch. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have questions about payment gateways. So, here are 5 most asked questions with their answers:

1) How does a payment gateway function?

When your customer purchases a product online, a payment gateway like PayTabs contacts your store’s acquiring bank. This bank is the one that will receive payments. The acquiring bank in turn contacts the bank which has issued the customer’s credit card or debit card. If there is enough money on the customer’s card to pay for the purchased item, the issuing bank will allow the transaction. The payment gateway will then be able to gather the money from the issuing bank of the customer, and all of this will happen in seconds!

2) How much does a payment gateway charge?

The kind of fees you have to pay will vary from one payment gateway to another. This will usually cover your setup fees, monthly fees and qualified rate that is charged per transaction. Support and reporting fees might also be included. So, go with a reliable and affordable gateway like PayTabs and avoid hidden charges.

3) What is a merchant account and why do I need it?

If you wish to receive payments from customer’s debit or credit card for every purchase made, you definitely need a merchant account. It is a specialized bank account that carries the fund you receive from customers for a specific time period, before sending it to your traditional account. You need it because without a merchant account, you cannot process payments. A merchant account will work with the payment gateway to facilitate easy transactions, so that the gateway deposits all payments into this account.

4) How to choose a payment gateway?

Though there are many payment gateways available these days, not all can be trusted equally. But with PayTabs, you will get all that your business needs with ease. This gateway is highly secure, and lets you accept payments in 168 currencies. Plus, merchants can use it even if they don’t have websites. PayTabs also provide regular financial reports and lets you maintain all customers and transactions from a single dashboard. This can help immensely when it comes to keeping a tab on the progress of your business.

5) Is the payment gateway secure enough?

A payment gateway must be very secure since it stores and transfers a lot of customer details and online frauds and identity thefts are very common these days. So, choosing a gateway that complies with PCI DSS requirements is ideal. It should feature advanced tools like intrusion detection, firewalls, and secure credit card data storage to avoid the risk of frauds. PCI DSS is also known as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, and it ensures that all businesses store, process and accept card information in a very secure manner. So, choose a gateway like PayTabs, and rest assured that you have minimized the risk of frauds almost completely.

Now that you know what a payment gateway is essentially all about, choose the right one and make your business a huge success!

6 years ago
Selling to international customers? How to cross borders with PayTabs
Mohab Customer Experience 0

Selling to international customers? How to cross borders with PayTabs

With the advent of internet and eCommerce, selling in your backyard is equated with selling in another country. The medium of sale is the same – your website. But then comes the actual legwork of ensuring your product reaches its customer and the money reaches your bank account. There are a lot of minor but significant factors at play here. Marketing, packaging, currency conversion, shipping, taxes, local duties and more make a small business wonder if they are really capable of taking on the complex world of export trade.

Depending on what you are selling, you’ll need partners in each of these spheres who can support you when you start (when the business may not be much but you’ll need the same degree of professional support) and continue supporting you when your business expands and you need high-tech support points.

If you are thinking of taking your products to international shores, here are a few things to keep in mind before you cross borders

  1. Identify markets for your products

Though you may already have a rough idea of where to start, it is always good to back business decisions with data. Where possible, find out about competitors selling in the market and what their on-ground sales have been like. This allows you to make a fair projection of what your sales can be. Now you’ll be able to prioritise markets where you need to enter first based on the expected sales volume.

A successful initial entry matters a lot. It gives you the confidence to push forward and also helps convincing future clients that you sell quality products that are accepted in multiple countries.

For example, the food import laws in several countries are quite stringent. You’ll not only need FDA clearances but also ensure your packaging has all the relevant information that is mandatory for the particular country. During your application, you may even have to specifically mention countries where the particular item has been refused entry.

  1. Identify a local distribution partner / retailer

Many start-ups may not have the means to set up a local office unless the conditions are proven viable. For initial market entry, it is best to go with a local distribution partner. These channel partners should be experienced personnel who can give you a taste of what your future sales can look like. They can also be your resource who can provide intelligence on how to tweak things and make it work.

  1. Understand generic laws and tax laws in each country related to products shipped from your country

Even if your product is sold in a particular international market, there may be specific laws applied to products that are shipped from your country. This may include but not limit to taxes, duties and other general laws on quality and quantity.

  1. Identify a shipping partner

Shipping is a biggie. First, you need to get the packaging right which is acceptable to the country you are shipping to. Second, you need someone who has a reputation for timely delivery. Third, you need to work with someone who can initially deliver small quantities and then grow with you to deliver bigger shipments when your market expands. Lastly, shipping costs can eat into your profits, so you’ll need to calculate the shipping partner who provides all of the above at good rates.

  1. Identify a payment partner

After all the groundwork, you’ll need to guide your hard earned money to reach your bank account. For this you’ll first have to ensure that the payment service provider works with multiple countries and currencies, intuitively adds in the most popular wallets in the country, provides easy APIs and makes transfer easy and allows invoicing even if you are on the go. A tall wish list but entirely possible. Sign up for a free demo account here.

There are many things about international sales and export trade that one can learn only from experience. Success isn’t final and failure isn’t fatal if you have an experienced partner to support your journey.

6 years ago
The psychology of eCommerce Checkouts: how to get your customers to reach the Thank You page
Mohab Customer Experience 0

The psychology of eCommerce Checkouts: how to get your customers to reach the Thank You page

It’s a long journey that your customer takes from discovery to purchase while moving through your sales funnel. During this process there is many a slip between the cup and the lip. Sometimes high potential customers fall through the cracks and leave eCommerce companies wondering where they’ve gone wrong.

You can either make an educated guess on understanding your customers psychology. Or you could analyze patterns in behavioural data to understand and view things from your user’s perspective. In either case, we’ve seen companies keep a close eye on every step of the funnel, scrutinizing their customer’s every move. Here are some tips on the psychology of online checkout that’ll help your customer reach the ‘Thank you’ page successfully.

Discovery

In the online world, being found is equivalent of ‘existing’. If your customers can’t find you, then you don’t exist for them. The sales life cycle starts at this early stage where you take a series of steps to optimize your entire website and especially product pages to ensure customers can find you online.

Category Page design

The category page is an important step for your customer who is deep in the decision-making process on whether or not to make a purchase from you. This is the page that presents them with an array of choices and should be easy to navigate and understand at a glance. It is a page that will either push them to choose a product and keep moving in the direction you want them to… or it will make them bounce right off. The category page must display the most essential information about the product which is the way it looks (image), the name and the price along with discounts if any.
Along with this, there should be easy filters for price, colours, brands and features on the left that allows users to sort and select.

The Product Page

Here’s where the devil lies because here’s where the details truly matter. Most customers will make a purchase decision within 90s of seeing a product. That is a whole one and a half minutes that you have to impress and floor them. In internet time that quite a lot, so you need to make it count.

a) Offer different product views:
People would love to get a ‘feel’ of the product as much as possible before they buy. Is that scarf red or deep orange? What would it feel like to carry that leather purse? Most people try to find answers to these questions by zooming in and trying to get as close to the product as possible from different angles. Some eCommerce websites have seen a 58% increase in sales by simply adding different views of the product.

b) Add as much details as possible in the description:
The very fact that someone has clicked into a product is that they want to know more. Here’s where flowery creative language can be used to convince that there is truly no product like the one they are holding. From colours to sizes, manufacturer details to delivery time, history to usage, provide detailed description on how the product works and how it is a must have.

c) Add a video:
Video is one of the most powerful tools to include in your product detail page. It can be a how-to video, an ad or just a fun video around the product. Any of these are likely to increase engagement from the user. Surveys show that 50% consumers are more confident about their purchase decision after watching a video and they are more likely to return to the website too.

Checkout page design

Checkout pages are notorious for having the highest drop out rates in the sales funnel. These are pages where customers tend to discover hidden charges, feel bored to give out detailed information or may even suddenly face trust issues if they feel the process isn’t as secure as they want. Here’s what you can do

a) No hidden charges
Ensure that your product detail page has all the price info including taxes, shipping and any additional charges (like gift wrapping, express delivery) etc. This will leave no unpleasant surprises during checkout

b) Clearly mention delivery locations
If your product has delivery location restrictions, allow customers to check this in the product detail page before they proceed to checkout.

c) Keep the process simple
Checkout isn’t the place for you to collect your customer’s biodata. Keep the info simple, leading and quick so that people can move through the process quickly.

d) Offer fully secure payment options: Check out the best payment options that your customers want. If many prefer Cash on Delivery (CoD) over cards, you’ll probably have to go the extra mile to ensure they get to pay you the way they want.

e) A great thank you page
Once your customer has brought a product, make the Thank you page engaging with the right information on the product, billing, expected date of delivery and what else they can buy from your site.

Post purchase communication

As a part of procedure, ensure that you send a Thank you email with the purchase details, a communication number if they have any questions.

This purchase is just the beginning. Be prepared to start the serenading process all over again.

6 years ago
Currencies Form the Core of Payments
Mohab Super Merchants 0

Currencies Form the Core of Payments

It’s a no-brainer! Everybody out there knows that to buy or sell any product or service through any medium, one would need a transacting currency. The status quo on most transactions, whether online or offline, is the fact that you would need to pay in the currency of the country where you are buying the product from, even if it is online.

But, with the advent of global e-commerce, the status quo on currencies while transacting becomes a deterrent. It is largely due to the willingness of most payments solution providers not to deal with the cumbersome regulations in place in most countries which provide a hindrance for multi-currency payments being made online.

It is not as much as a regulation problem, as it is a regulatory acceptance problem. Most regulators, as in central banks haven’t yet figured out a way to regulate payments in foreign currencies made in multiple currencies through the digital medium. Barring the most accepted currency, i.e. the US Dollar, which is largely used as a de-facto foreign exchange currency across the world, regulators are mostly wary about international payments made in other currencies, especially online.

Having said that, most developed countries and a few forward looking emerging economies have updated their regulations to allow for payments in multiple currencies. However, contrary to popular belief, there aren’t many providers in the market, who possess a seamless global payments processor.

PayTabs has always been ahead of the curve in terms of innovation and one of our key differentiating factor is the fact that we accept 160+ currencies on our platform.

To learn more about our payments platform, click here. Moreover, if you are interested, you can sign up for a free demo as well.

We encourage you to comment on this post, by providing your insights and viewpoints.

7 years ago
The State of Global Payments: Part 2
Mohab Super Merchants 0

The State of Global Payments: Part 2

In one of our earlier posts, we touched upon the upsurge in non-cash transactions across the world and how developing countries are driving the growth of online/digital payments. We looked at some hard numbers from Capgemini’s World Payments Report which justified the growth in non-cash transactions across the world.

In this piece, we will look at key trends that are key to driving global payments in 2017 and the future:

  1. Technology vis-à-vis International E-Commerce: It is indeed true that international transactions have increased in recent times but the subsequent pace of developing fast, secure, transparent and efficient solutions have not quite been there. Currently, there’s a need for more payments solution to cater to the growth in international e-commerce.

 

  1. Need for Agility and Pace: Whilst the growth in FinTech investments over the years, there is currently a tremendous hunger in the marketplace, for companies to deliver more instant gratification moments in terms of payments and flexibilities in payments solutions. Which means different types of payments solutions accepting multiple currencies.

 

  1. Enterprise Payments: As per the World Bank’s Cost of Sending Remittances report, checks are still prevalent in most organizations across the world, especially smaller organizations. As of 2015, 90% of small organizations across the world, used checks for making payments, primarily to freelancers and commission based sales force. Large banks and credit card technology companies still dominate the international payments space, which is plagued by complexities and very high fees. There’s a huge scope for new age payments solutions providers to solve some pressing international payments issue in the B2B space.

 

  1. The case of the Unbanked: According to a Citibank report in March 2016, there are still 2.8 billion unbanked and underbanked people in the world, especially in developing countries, where FinTech solutions have outpaced the penetration of legacy banking. The key to the growth of FinTech and Payments solutions has been because of the huge growth in mobile payments, aided by the tremendous penetration of mobile in developing countries.

 

  1. Banks and Technology need to be friends: Banks need to accept and recognize the fact that digital payments can do much more than automation. Digital and online payments solution providers shouldn’t view banks as their adversaries, rather recognize the value that they are adding to the global financial system, thereby cultivating opportunities for greater innovation and efficiency through collaboration.

 

  1. Transparency: There’s been a paradigm shift in the needs of the global payments market, in the context of more transparent pricing, flexibility in integrations and innovative customer service. It is an imperative for global payments solution providers to track all transactions in the entire payment process/cycle to ensure transparency.

 

Therefore, as you can probably gauge that despite growth in FinTech and digital payments, there remains a lot of opportunities/gaps in the marketplace that needs to be fulfilled/filled.

We would love to hear your viewpoints in the comments below and click here to experience a new economy payments solution that truly manages to fill existing gaps and adds tremendous value for your business.

Click here to read State of Global Payments: Part 1

7 years ago