What are the pitfalls to avoid while choosing a new payment processor?
As an online merchant, being able to have funds flow freely from your merchant account to your pocket is something that makes you feel amazing!
To make sure that free-flowing ability remains the case not only for today, but for the foreseeable future, we’re going to discuss the list of pitfalls you need to avoid facing when choosing a new payment provider, or when you are considering changing from your existing payment provider.
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Rule number one – Look for simple integration
Sometimes integration with a payment provider isn’t the simplest process. It can take hundreds of hours to implement, and cost multiple thousands of euros. It is no wonder most of today’s business owners take a dislike to the word integration, mainly due to the ongoing need to make amendments to their portal.
But what if we were to say it is possible to shrink the number of hours required for the process to one hour? What if you could make the API integration process so simple, that you could manage it yourself with ease?
If your website was built on an e-commerce platform like Magento, you’ll be glad to know you can easily add a payment plugin feature, and enjoy receiving payments right away, without delays.
Rule number two – Choose your pricing model wisely
Here’s a quick statement for e-commerce newbies: online merchants pay a fee to their payment provider, in order to receive funds.
There are two ways they can decide to do this, the first is to agree on a fixed price for any transaction, in other words, a fixed pricing model. The second option is to pay transaction fees based on the type of the card used for each transaction.
Merchant fees also depend upon the type of terminal a payment is being charged with, and the location the payment has been processed from.
As an online merchant, the safest option is to choose an IC++ rate, as this ensures complete transparency in fees.
With an IC++ rate, the payment provider will charge the merchant for every card transaction, using a rate based upon 3 areas.
Those parts include the interchange percentage fee, the card scheme fee, and the processing fee (a fixed percentage added by the payment provider). Always make sure you are in the know about all of these fees before making a decision.
Rule number three – Do your due diligence
Make a due deal on your provider.
You’ll find out whether a payment provider is right for your business with these three simple steps:
1) Make sure the company is regulated. So for the UK – Are they licenced by FCA?
If not, you will not get your money back.
2) Make sure it is a principal member of Visa/Mastercard, this usually also means the payment provider will be double regulated by the most used payment systems
3) Make sure the company has its own technical payment processing. Thereby your payments won’t stop coming to your account, and no third parties will be liable for delays in fixing any bugs that subsequently occur.
If you need a credible payment processing company, choose someone with integration options for OpenCart, Magento, Prestashop, Woocommerce. You really want to benefit from having access to user-friendly API, at IC++ rates.
By taking all the necessary steps to ensure you get a payment provider with seamless integration, you’ll save time and stress on managing payments, and have happier customers moving forward.
