The world of online commerce is just getting better and one area that has particularly improved is that of payment options; we now have more payment options that ever before in the history of e-commerce.
As an ecommerce entrepreneur your stakes are just getting better; and to be truly successful in this promising field you must offer your customers flexibility in terms of how they pay for their purchases online and that's in your website of course.
A study recently published by Cybersource Corp. shows that online stores providing three additional payment options besides credit card reported a higher sales conversion rates as opposed to those that offer a single online payment option besides credit cards.
This simply means that the more payment options you offer, the higher your sales and the more money you make.
Below are a number of online payment options you can offer in your website.
Credit card processing
This is of course the staple of online payment. Credit cards are still a popular way of paying for goods and services online. To be able to use this payment option on your ecommerce website to accept Amex, MasterCard & Discover, you'll have to get an online merchant account.
You can register for an online merchant account with your local bank. Be informed that to be able to process payment from all major credit cards in your site, you'll have to register online merchant accounts with two separate banks. Reason: majority of banks only deal with some of the credit cards involved.
Alternatively, you can register an online merchant account through a third party merchant account provider like Moneris, Beanstream, InternetSecure or PSiGate.
The benefits of registering for an online merchant account with third party merchant account providers is that you'll not be required to make any security deposits (as require by banks), the set-up is fast and they're flexible enough to be bundled with ecommerce service packages which can include internet gateway required for credit card processing "this is the equivalent of POS terminal" plus a shopping cart.
The only disadvantage is cost. Their discount fees are particularly high than if you set-up your online merchant account via your local bank.
Wherever you get your Internet merchant account, you will have to also purchase an Internet gateway service. The gateway verifies information, transfers requests and authorizes credit cards in real time. All four of the companies I've mentioned above offer these credit card processing services as well, but there are many others that do too - including PayPal and Moneybookers.
PayPal
PayPal is now also an all-in-one online payment solution. Their Website Payments Standard program lets you accept Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express credit card payments as well as bank transfers and offer PayPal as well - with no monthly fees, setup or cancellation fees. PayPal charges you a fee of 1.9 to 2.9 percent of transaction plus 30 cents per order, depending on your company's sales volume.
PayPal also offers an upgraded version of Website Payments Standard called Website Payments Pro, where customers check out right on your site rather than on PayPal's (currently available only in the U.S.)
Moneybookers
Like PayPal, Moneybookers is also an all-in-one online payment solutions provider. With a little additional of API code provided by them to your website, you can instantly process credit card payments from all the major cards (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express) straight from your website. Moneybookers account can also be linked directly to your local bank account via the SWIFT network.
