Once your online business starts to grow, you have to consider expanding the payment options that you accept. At first, you might only be accepting cash transfers, but you can begin looking at giving your customers more options as soon as your business progresses. After all, the more options you offer them, the better it will be for your business. Why is that? It’s because you are giving them more options to pay for their purchases in a manner that is comfortable with them. If they want to use credit cards or mobile wallets, so be it. If debit cards are more convenient for them, then give them that option.

What payment method do you use in your online business now? Do you allow cash on delivery, mobile wallets, or money transfers? By now, you should have already set up a merchant account to receive credit card and debit card payments. If you haven’t set up payment methods for your online store, think again of what you’re missing out on.

Bank-to-bank Transfers

The easiest way to receive money is via bank-to-bank transfers. The money is directly transferred to your bank account. You can check it in real-time. And once the money comes in, you can easily process the customers’ orders and ship them to the address provided. The best thing about bank-to-bank transfers is the birth of online bank transfers. Since you can now transfer cash with a few taps of your fingers, this has become the go-to payment method for online shops that are just starting and have yet to set up merchant accounts.

Virtual Terminals

These are web-based computer programs linked to your accounts. They allow transactions between you and the customers. This means that your business can accept payments from credit cards and debit cards even without the card being present. All you have to do is manually enter the customer’s billing information, card number, expiry date, and security code. Since everything is encrypted, the information is stored securely, and hackers will have a hard time cracking through the system.

These terminals can turn your computer into a credit card terminal. Businesses use these terminals to take orders via phone or do remote billing. Customers are not always comfortable providing credit card information to people, but you’ll maximize the use of virtual terminals if you earn their trust.

Payment Gateways

Practically everyone might have used a payment gateway in the past decade. This is when you add items to your cart and check them out using your credit card. To finalize the transaction, customers enter their credit card or debit card details on the website. The site will then send that information to the gateway via encryption. The gateway will forward it to the credit card processor, which will tap the customer’s credit card company to verify the information. Everything happens in seconds, so you don’t really feel the maze that the encrypted information passed through for the approval of the transaction.

Credit Card Processing

Can an eCommerce site survive without accepting credit card payments? Credit cards remain the most popular way online consumers pay for their purchases. Imagine telling your customers that you don’t accept credit card payments? The first thing you need to do is set up a merchant account through the bank that accepts credit cards. To accept all major credit cards, you might need to set up merchant accounts with all the banks that process these different cards.

Online Payment Systems

The most popular of these systems is PayPal. Not only does it allow the transfer of funds from the mobile wallet, but customers can also link their debit and credit cards to their PayPal accounts to use for payments and other financial transactions. Businesses don’t need to open a merchant account if they are going to use PayPal to process credit and debit card payments. Although the company does not have monthly fees, it charges a higher processing fee than other payment options.

When choosing which payment methods to accept for your eCommerce store, keep the customer’s convenience in mind. It should be front and center of whatever decision you try to make for your online store. More than anything else, what you want is to attract customers to your store. For you to be able to do that, you need to provide the most expansive and convenient ways for them to pay for their purchases. If you make the process of paying complicated, you’ll end up with more problems than solutions.