E-commerce Payment Service Providers – 5 Things to Consider

If you’re a small business owner looking to set up your own e-commerce site, choosing your payment services provider is a critical decision.

The five points outlined below will give you an insight into the kinds of things you’ll need to consider when making your choice.

• Transaction charges

One of the key things to consider is the transaction charge % being charged by various payment service providers. How much of your money are you prepared to hand over in order to have a reliable online payment method for your customers?

• How quickly will you get your money?

The length of time you have to wait until you receive your funds from your payment service provider will vary. It’s important to weigh this up alongside the transaction charges so you can make sure your cash flow doesn’t suffer.

• Security

It may seem like a good idea to choose a payment services provider with the lowest transaction charge but could this be at the expense of security?

Your customers will be looking for a payment services provider they know and trust when they buy from your online store. Displaying the logo of your provider and having an up-to-date security certificate will help build consumer confidence.

• Give your customers options

While many of your customers will be happy to enter their debit or credit card details when they buy from your website, others may object. It’s a good idea to give people an option when it comes to checking out. For example, you might want to add PayPal as a secondary payment option so those with an account don’t have to enter their card details.

• Usability

The final factor on our shortlist is usability. How quick and reliable is your chosen payment services provider? If there are usability issues for your customers then it could lead to orders being lost.

People want to be able to buy quickly online and receive instant payment confirmation, so bear this in mind when looking at payment service providers.

If you liked this post you may also want to read my small business e-commerce tips

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 16th, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under E-commerce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.