Ecommerce
Table of Contents
Businesses lose billions of dollars to cart abandonments because they fail to provide customers with preferred payment methods. On average, 48% of them have lost up to 10% of their international revenue because customers didn't find their payment option, according to a BlueSnap survey. By integrating the right payment gateway into your website, you can enhance the checkout process, cut down on abandoned orders, and raise your revenue.
In this article, we cover the most vital steps for adding payments to your site. Whether you're a small business owner or a developer, this guide will explain how to handle online payments effectively.
The choice of the payment gateway is a critical decision. With the Digital Payments market projected to reach US$16.59 tn by 2028, electronic commerce is becoming a primary way we discover and buy products.
Integrating a payment gateway into your site lets you enable online transactions for your customers smoothly and securely. After all, it is not just an option that your customers may use or not, but a tool that directly impacts your business operations.
So, how do you choose one?
In our earlier post, we’ve made a detailed roundup of top payment gateway providers. The list accounts for 10 common names — Stripe, PayPal, Square, Authorize.Net, Adyen, and Braintree — all of which have earned credit from thousands of businesses.
The choice among them often goes to the primary factors:
Let’s consider each factor in detail.
When choosing your payment gateway integration, it’s important that you assess the following critical factors.
Consider your customer regions and preferred payment methods. This approach lets you better address your diverse customer preferences during the checkout process. As such, in the US, the top digital wallets are Paypal (36%), Apple Pay (20%) and Venmo (16%).
If you sell globally, integrate a gateway that supports various payment methods, including credit/debit cards and digital wallets.
While not common for e-commerce, you might also consider alternative payment options, such as cryptocurrencies. These methods are gaining popularity among non-profit organizations, gaming, healthcare, and telemedicine app development for anonymous online consultations.
Other features to consider:
Payment gateway security is regulated by PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard). It’s a set of security standards that outlines norms for a secure payment environment and how companies accept, process, store, or transmit payment data.
The newcomers, however, might not achieve full PCI-DSS compliance. If you consider integrating lesser established payment gateways, double-check their documentation or request information on their security measures.
Calculate all the fees associated with payment gateways before their integration. The provider will typically charge you a one-time setup fee and a monthly fee, and then a small fee for each transaction processed. Be aware of any additional charges, such as refunds, chargeback, and cross-border transaction fees.
The type of payment gateway integration impacts your customer checkout experience. It can determine how seamlessly customers can make their purchases and their overall satisfaction with the payment process.
On the business side, it may influence the transaction speed at which your orders will be processed, the security measures you must take on your site, the checkout flow, and interface design.
So, the type of payment gateway integration is an important decision. Let’s explore the major ones used in e-commerce.
By type, payment gateways can be hosted, integrated, direct post integration, mobile, and combined. Here, we explore the first three types as the most common ones used in ecommerce.
Hosted payment gateways send customers to a new page for completing transactions. The data and the transaction are stored at the service provider, so hosted payment integration doesn’t require PCI-DSS compliance.
With integrated payments, you process all the payment data at your site. The customer stays on the same page to complete the order. This method typically requires more development efforts compared to hosted payment gateway integration. Strict security and PCI-DSS compliance are not an option but a must-have requirement.
The Direct Post integration type lets you combine the principles of hosted and integrated methods. The customer stays at your site when completing the payment, yet the data is posted directly to the payment gateway for processing. It provides the flexibility of customizing the checkout experience yet reduces the overhead with PCI-DSS compliance.
A standalone consideration when choosing among the types is the ease of payment gateway integration.
While many payment gateway providers let you quickly embed their products into your site via APIs and SDKs, there are scenarios when payment gateway integration becomes a complex process and requires deep technical expertise. Let’s examine them in detail.
Adding payments to your e-commerce website can be a 1-2 day matter or a week's effort. It all depends on your infrastructure and technical background. Depending on the complexity, you can DIY or partner with an e-commerce software development provider.
Here's an overview of tasks involved at different complexity levels.
If you have a small, not loaded website and need basic payment gateway integration, you have the power to handle it yourself. The basic knowledge of HTML/CSS and server-side programming (Node.js, Python, PHP) is usually enough to integrate the payment gateway using provided APIs and create basic form and tokenling.
Best for:
If you need to customize the payment process on your website or add more features and options, such as confirmation emails and detailed error handling, custom payment integration is the go-to choice.
The scope of configurations may include:
Below, we describe the payment gateway integration process in detail so you can clearly understand what to do at each step.
The first step in integrating a payment gateway into your website is to choose an optimal provider. By optimal, we mean the one that matches your business needs. Consider the factors we described above as:
Once you've chosen the provider, you must sign up at their website to create your merchant account. The merchant account sends customer payments to your company’s bank account. These accounts are FDIC-insured and offer fraud protection. Additionally, you have control over payment transactions between your website and the merchant account.
The signup process is easy and straightforward, yet be ready to fill in your business and personal information.
For Stripe and Paypal registration, the list of data is pretty much the same. Just make sure not to miss the "Business Account" option at the Paypal sign-up.
All payment gateway providers require you to verify your email address. Some, like Stipe, require more detailed business information and an additional verification step: uploading a government-issued ID.
After verifying and setting up your account, you need to obtain your API credentials to add payment to your website. These are the unique public and secret keys required to verify your website's interaction with the payment gateway provider.
Depending on the provider, you either need to generate your API credentials yourself or copy-paste the provided ones. You will find them on your Developer's dashboard or Developer's workspace.
The integration, depending on the chosen types of payment gateway, will involve creating a custom payment form and embedding HTML code on the frontend and backend.
Check detailed integration guides on the official provider's websites:
If you have any questions or trouble configuring your integration, you can contact support or research their FAQ and forums.
Testing your payment gateway integration before going live is the set one should consider. Depending on the complexity of your integration, you may run different test scenarios and types.
For simple integration and small sites, manual testing is usually enough. For high-load websites, you may opt for automated testing to ensure website stable performance at peak hours.
General rules to follow:
Once you've checked the proper setup of the payment gateway, you may go live. Make sure to change your sandbox/test API credentials for live/production credentials and update environment variables or configuration files as necessary.
Performing a test live transaction is also useful to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Monitoring your payment processing is crucial as it lets you spot and fix potential issues and vulnerabilities. This oversight helps ensure smooth transaction flows, maintain security standards, and minimize risks of fraud or technical glitches.
You can monitor your payment processing using automated tools and ecommerce integrations that track transaction volumes, detect anomalies, and generate real-time alerts for suspicious activities.
The cost of integrating a payment gateway consists of initial setup fees and ongoing monthly charges for each transaction. These fees can vary significantly depending on the payment gateway provider and your business's specific requirements.
Here are some common fees that may help you calculate the cost of your payment gateway integration:
Consider below an overview of costs associated with different payment gateway providers.
Integrating a payment gateway into your website is a pivotal step towards enhanced customer checkout. Follow our guide to select the right gateway and ensure its seamless integration. In case you need consultancy or custom integration, get in touch with NEKLO. We provide end-to-end payment gateway integration services that will streamline your business efficiency.
US-based and operating globally, NEKLO spearheads digital transformation initiatives for businesses worldwide. We deliver software solutions complying with your market and legislation.
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