A payment gateway is where your online customers after they finalize an order but before confirming it. It’s a secure and encrypted connection where they can type their payment details and address without worrying about someone hacking their connection and grabbing all these juicy details. It’s also the last moment when you have to impress your customer because if they don’t like what they see for some reason they could still back out and look somewhere else for the products they want.
Avoid These Serious Pitfalls
- Customers who encounter an untrustworthy looking website or payment gateway may choose to abort and never return no matter how professional and well-reviewed your products are. Make sure you use a respectable domain name, be professional with the ads you place and the ones you let on your site, and if your company or your website has earned any security or quality certificates, display them proudly.
- Don’t demand that customers register with your site to buy something. User registration may be a good fit for ongoing services and major companies like Amazon, but only your merchant services partner needs personal information to process a purchase. Customers can resent sites that require registration, especially if they only plan on buying one product.
- A complicated website design can lose you sales. It’s hard to buy something if you don’t make it easy to reach a product page, add it to their cart, and then go through the checkout process.
- Limited payment options are another way to lose sales. If your customer has one preferred way to pay and you don’t offer it, they may decide to check out your competition instead.
Be Trustworthy In Appearance And Action
High-profile websites and databases keep getting hacked, and the average internet user knows there are a lot of websites that look legitimate but will steal your information the moment you type it in. Things like bad spelling, bad formatting, an obvious template job, and a lack of security seals can all drive suspicious customers away. This is true even if you have a physical location and your customers visit you in person all the time: your website design needs to be as professional as your store.
Optimize Your Payment Gateway
Consider using a third-party payment gateway, especially if the third party is a well-known, trustworthy name.
- Clearly display all your payment options.
- Use security logos and seals you’ve earned and absolutely never try to make some up yourself.
- Describe what will happen before it happens. This is especially important with a third-party gateway.
- Use common sense when deciding what information to require. Zip codes and card security codes can reduce fraud, and you can flag transactions with suspicious details like a user with an IP address outside your usual customer base.
Choose A Trustworthy Merchant Services Partner in Las Vegas
At Global 1 Wholesale Merchant Services, Inc. we do our best to keep things professional and transparent, and we offer many different payment options so more customers can find a method that works for them. Between that and a good payment gateway, you should have nothing to worry about.