If you're going to be selling anything online, accepting credit cards is an absolute must.
In recent years credit cards have become more popular online as households have turned to the Internet to pay their bills, do their banking and retail shopping.
Credit cards allow you to 'strike while the iron is hot' by giving visitors a quick and easy way to purchase your products and services.
Internet shoppers are an impatient and impulsive bunch, they want instant gratification.
Once you've got a customer interested in your products and services, obviously you don't want anything to get in the way of them making a purchase.
Unfortunately, many websites act as their own worst enemy by forcing their customers to:
Think of the hassle a customer has to go through to make a payment via cheque from your website.
They need to:
1. Process their order as usual
2. Write a cheque
3. Post the cheque
4. Wait for the cheque to be cashed
5. Wait longer to receive their goods
Imagine your website payment process like a thermometer. The higher the 'hassle factor' reading, the lower the chance of making the sale.
The bottom line is, if you can't quickly and conveniently process payments online - expect to lose a huge chunk of your sales.
1. Familiar and Convenient
Other digital payment systems have come and gone, but credit cards remain the most preferred payment source for online shoppers.
2. Improves Cash-flow
Accepting credit cards is also great for cash-flow.
By accepting credit card payments, you get your money straight away.
That also means avoiding late payments and the infamous 'cheque's in the mail' excuse.
3. Greater Flexibility
Accepting credit card payments on your website allows you to process orders 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
This is crucial as a large percentage of online purchases are made outside traditional operating hours.
4. Greater Efficiency
In business, your time is arguably your most valuable asset.
Manually processing credit cards and queuing at the bank to deposit cheques can be big time wasters (and therefore money wasters).
A good automated payment system allows you to save money in administrative costs and frees you from tedious manual chores.
There are two types of credit card processing methods; real time and manual.
a) Real Time Transactions
A 'real time' transaction is one which is processed immediately.
Here's how it works:
When a customer makes a purchase, your website communicates with the banking networks via a payment gateway. The bank verifies the status of the card and if successful, approves the transaction.
The entire process is done electronically and takes just seconds to complete.
b) Manual Transactions
Unlike a 'real time' transaction which is processed immediately, a manual transaction is processed offline after an order has been received.
For example, a merchant may receive an order via telephone, mail order or email and process the transaction with an EFTPOS terminal.
Accepting Real Time Credit Card Transactions
To accept real time credit card transactions, you have two options:
1. Get your own Internet merchant account from a bank and signup with a payment gateway service.
2. Use a third party payment processor service like PayPal.
Here's an explanation of each service:
1. Merchant Account
A merchant account is an account created by a bank or financial institution to receive credit card payments and deposit them into your regular bank account.
Merchant accounts can be used by businesses that are processing transactions:
A merchant account does not process any transaction information; it only holds the funds that have been successfully processed by a payment gateway.
An 'Internet Merchant Account' is a merchant account designed specifically to process online transactions.
IMPORTANT NOTE: An Internet merchant account is distinct and separate to any merchant account that you may already have with a bank (i.e. retail EFTPOS machine).
All major Australian banks provide merchant accounts for Bankcard, VISA and MasterCard. To accept American Express and Diners Club payments you will need to apply with each provider individually.
TIP: If you are going to apply for a merchant account in Australia, we recommend St George Bank.
The problem with most banks is they view small businesses as risky ventures and therefore asks for reams of information before they will approve your account.
We believe St George offers the most competitive eCommerce solution for small businesses.
Keep in mind that your Internet merchant account is completely separate from your day-to-day business banking account. This means you don't need to switch banks to apply for a St George merchant account.
Simply nominate your business bank account (i.e. ANZ, CBA, Westpac, etc) and St George will automatically transfer your settled funds at the end of each day into your regular bank account.
2. Payment Gateway
Obtaining your merchant account is half the process.
From here, you'll need to sign-up with a payment gateway provider to allow you to process transactions online.
A payment gateway acts as the 'bridge' between your website and your merchant account.
The job of a payment gateway is to:
A Payment gateway verifies transaction data such as:
3. Third Party Payment Processors
Third party processing services are basically a payment gateway and merchant account rolled into one.
The difference is a payment processor does not require an Internet merchant account and can settle funds into a regular bank account.
Popular Payment Processors include:
In addition to processing transactions, payment processors can also offer services such as fraud screening to verify the authenticity of a transaction.
The only drawback with using a third party payment provider (with the exception of PayPal) is that it can take a lot longer to receive your money.
WorldPay holds payments for four weeks before depositing the settled funds into your account. 2checkout deposits funds into your account on the 1st and 16th of each calendar month.
In contrast, with Paypal or your own merchant account, you will usually receive your funds within 24-48 hours.
Obviously, this can help if your cash-flow is tight.
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