E-commerce businesses must offer their customers multiple ways to make payments online

Providing customers with a choice on how to pay is more convenient for them and gives them more reason to purchase something and complete an order.

If you only have one way to accept a payment that might be convenient for you but inconvenient for the customer, you are missing out on business!

1. Debit and Credit Cards

Accepting debit and credit card payments is the most common means of accepting payments online, regardless of the nature of your eCommerce business.

To start accepting such payments, you will first need to create a merchant account.

This type of bank account enables credit card processing which allows you to accept payments online.

When a customer places an order from your e-Commerce business online, their funds are temporarily held in a merchant account until all the necessary monetary checks have been completed.

Once the transaction is verified, the money is sent to your business bank account.

Like any other business bank account, you would have to link your merchant account to your website.

2. Direct Debits

While setting up a direct debit is an option to accept payments online, there are much better methods tailored to e-Commerce businesses.

Setting up a direct debit can be a slow process as it requires the customer to authorize the e-Commerce business to take out funds directly from their account.

Due to this process, it may be better for your business to opt for a payment gateway or any other means of accepting payments online.

3. Payment Gateways

Payment gateways are online payment service that is linked to an e-Commerce platform.

Payment gateways are used to make and receive payments online and are particularly used by online businesses.

Payment gateways securely validate customer credit or debit card details, ensuring that the required funds are available to complete the payment.

Once the customer successfully provides their credit card details, this information is passed onto a merchant account which then conducts further verifications and, once approved, finally sends the funds to your business bank account.

Stripe
Another popular payment gateway is Stripe due to its customizable nature.

With Stripe, you can completely tailor the payment gateway according to your website's needs, unlike other payment gateways with a structured checkout template or send customers to another website to complete their order and make a payment.

Stripe also offers subscription management and other features to process recurring payments.



PayPal
PayPal has developed a reputation for being one of the most trusted and recognized payment processing companies.

It is absolutely free to join, and once you've created an account, you have access to all the features needed to integrate PayPal payments onto your website.

Using PayPal is also convenient for your customers as they are used a secure payment method.

Nigerian Payment Gateways

1. Flutterwave 2. Paystack

4. Mobile Wallet Payments

Mobile wallets are becoming increasingly popular amongst customers as a means of completing online payments.

These apps include Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay.

However, if you are looking to trade in China, you should be opting for AliPay and WeChat.

A mobile wallet is a virtual wallet that stores all payment and card information on a mobile device.

Mobile wallets make it extremely convenient for customers to make online payments, so your e-Commerce business should integrate this solution.

5. Recurring Billing Software

Recurring billing software is used by many subscription-based businesses to help in managing their recurring invoices and payments.

Online businesses that offer subscriptions include monthly gift boxes or streaming services.

Through such software, your customers can automatically pay once each payment is due.

This is convenient not only for them but also for you since you no longer have to send constant reminders to your customers and can automatically send invoices and notices as needed.

This can also be set up through the payment gateways listed above

Once you have considered all the different ways you can accept payments on your website, you should be able to decide which one to choose, depending on the nature of your business and your target customer audience.

Crypto payments can help too

1 a3Pay (www.a3pay.co)

2. Block.io

3. Coinpayments