After settling on the Magento platform for setting up an online store, some of the significant questions that an owner is likely to face are: Which theme to choose? Which functionalities to employ? One of the significant questions also includes: which payment gateway to choose? A payment gateway acts as a point-of-sale terminal for online customers and, therefore is the most significant part of any online store. Fortunately or unfortunately, there are several of these available, making it a highly confusing affair to choose one. Interestingly, to be able to find the right payment gateway, you must answer several important questions which are as follows:
How Soon Do You Want To Begin Accepting Payments?
There are several solutions that require setting up of merchant accounts. Now, as the process of setting a merchant account calls for a time period of 3-4 weeks, such solutions are not an ideal choice when you want to begin accepting payoffs right away. On the other hand, solutions such as Stripe and Paypal start accepting payoffs right away after activation. While there are several advantages of accepting payments in a merchant account, if you want to start accepting payments fast, choosing a solution such as Stripe will be an ideal choice.
Which Currencies Should Your Solution Support?
To find an answer to this question, you must ask where are your target customers from? If they are from India, a solution must support transactions in the Indian currency (ie the Rupee). If your target users are from India and Nepal, a solution must support transactions in the Indian and Nepalese Rupee both. You can also consider future plans of expansion when answering this question. That is, in the future, if you have plans to expand your customer base in other countries, make sure you choose a solution that supports currencies of those countries as well.
Which Modes Of Payment Should It Support?
There are several ways by which you can accept payments. Net banking, credit card, and debit card are some of the prominent ways. Furthermore, there are several kinds of credit and debit cards such as VISA, MasterCard, and etc. which are popularly used for making online payments. Choose a solution that supports those modes of payments that are most popular among your target customers.
What Is Your Budget?
There could be several categories of charges a solution may demand. Most notably, these charges include the cost of setting up the gateway, the percentage of cash extracted from a single transaction, and the admin costs. Be sure to check these charges of every solution that you are considering for use. Compare the total with your budget and shortlist further.
Is The Solution Compatible With Your Magento Platform?
A payment gateway integration service provider cannot integrate just any solution in your Magento store. The solution must exist as a Magento module and must be compatible with the platform version that you are using.
Which Solution Offers The Most Quality Support?
There can be instances when your payment gateway stops functioning or your Magento theme Developer faces trouble configuring it. At such times, technical support from the payment provider is of utmost importance. So, look for a solution that offers quick and quality support whenever you want.
Like everything in the world, the right payment gateway is the one which best matches your needs and budget. Therefore, your budget and ecommerce needs such as the countries that you are targeting for sales, the urgency with which you wish to begin accepting payments, and the e-commerce platform (in our case, Magento) that you are using can help you shortlist the most appropriate solution for your online store.