There comes a time when entrepreneurs in the planning and/or creation phase of an online store will face the issue of payment. They will soon realize that the main ways customers make payments are:
– Online debit
– The credit card
– Bank slip
– Transfer via online payment companies such as PagSeguro
– The digital currency bitcoin
There is, however, something else to think about when you get to this stage. In addition to choosing the means, you need to choose the payment system for your e-commerce between, basically, these three alternatives:
1. Gateway
It is a type of system that communicates with credit card systems and checks if your customer has a balance to complete the purchase, which is blocked in the negative case or released in the positive case.
Gateways do not send your customer out of your online store, which avoids the breach of trust that occurs in other systems. However, to have this technology in your online store, you will have to pay activation fees and anti-fraud analysis, in addition to sales fees for gateways and credit card companies.
2. Intermediaries
With this system, your customer is directed to the website of an intermediary company, which will provide different means of payment and will take care of the customer's online security.
The problem is that your customer might find it strange to be redirected to another website to make the payment and thus abandon the purchase, which would constitute the dreaded shopping cart abandonment . Furthermore, the intermediary company will charge a fee for you to use its services.
3. Direct integration
Technology integrated into your virtual store that – without the need for intermediaries – checks if the customer has enough balance to make a purchase. So you only pay fees to the card companies.
However, you will be responsible for the security of customer data and will have to invest in other technologies for this, which can be very expensive. Not to mention the need to train a support team.
Furthermore, online stores built using the Vtex platform utilize the Smartcheckout® payment system , which allows consumers to make a purchase in under 15 seconds, i.e., an impulse purchase, drastically reducing shopping cart abandonment.
Finally, before choosing, read and interpret the manual and/or the payment system guidelines, analyze the rates, means of support, the tool's capacity in terms of speed and quality and put everything on the "balance sheet" to know what the best technology for you at this point in your digital business.
