Considering the Payment Gateway Switch? Do it Smoothly!

Naturally, payment gateways chosen several years ago cannot be enough to cover your growing business needs now. Even if it seemed to be a perfect fit at first, ones that are not updated will not be that effective anymore. What about making a shift?

Business needs are changing while scaling up. So when a payment provider doesn’t change its technology over the years and lacks the features you need, perhaps it’s time to find another solution. Look for a payment gateway that will give you not only conversion-boosting features and user experience loved by customers, but also effective security and fraud detection tools.

If you think that switching payment gateways is complicated and affects the payment process on your site, you’ll be surprised that it’s easier than you imagined. The thing is to choose the right payment solution that lets you integrate directly via APIs so that you can customize the entire payment process and have full control over every step of it.

What to consider when switching a payment platform

Before you apply for another payment platform, ensure that it accepts your business model and the country of your business incorporation. Search for one with underlying technology that will let you integrate without hassle based on your setup, programming language, and use cases. Full flexibility at every stage of the integration process is all you need.

Don’t focus on the number of features, as you usually won’t need many of them. Estimate what’s more viable and what will bring you higher revenue in the long run.

Keep an eye on the fees

You can choose from payment platforms that offer a transactional fee for every payment, ones based on monthly fees, and others that have both transactional and monthly fees. Decide which of the solutions will be more viable. Keep in mind that it can cost you much more to pay a higher amount of money every month or year than sharing a percentage of each transaction.

What if a payment platform that you want to work with offers higher fees? Do the math, as it still may be a better choice for your business and can bring more benefits. Advanced technology costs money, so even if you pay the price, you’ll get better value. And what do you think is more important — the price or added value?

Plan ahead

To avoid interruptions in payment processing, test your payments before going live. Ideally you’ll have a test version of your website. Plus, look for a payment gateway that provides a free sandbox mode, so that you can verify whether a new setup will fit your online business.

If you choose a reliable payment platform, the switching process will be smooth, keeping every single transaction in place. Rely on payment experts’ knowledge and experience so that you can avoid headaches.

Answer customers’ needs

Analyze how users behave on your website, ask them for feedback, and design it with users’ needs in mind. Pay the most attention to what the buying process looks like. This will help you find out why people abandon their carts. Perhaps it’s because they can’t find a preferred payment method. Or they don’t understand error messages or feel confused at the end of the buying process.

Find the payment gateway that lets you customize your payment site how you want. If the payment form matches your website’s look and feel, it will look professional and make people more confident to complete the purchase. Remember that redirecting people to external services adds a step to the process, which equals a drop in conversion.

The golden rule is that the better payment experience you provide, the more customers you’ll attract to your website. Bearing this in mind, look for a payment platform that delivers super responsive support that is ready to resolve your customers’ issues as soon as they occur. Time is of the essence, so choose carefully.

Think about keeping both

Do you still have doubts about switching payment providers? Consider having both solutions on your site and analyzing business performance for several months. It will tell you whether it’s better to process payments through a different solution or stay with a platform that you currently use.

Processing payments through various solutions at a time can bring great results to your dating business, as it can give you the possibility to broaden payment methods or supported currencies. If you decide to implement more than one payment gateway, compare the conversion rate, abandonment rate, and user experience.

It can also help you handle overflow during peaks, for instance when your main gateway is underperforming. What’s more, multiple payment platforms can give you the flexibility to create more complex use cases. However, remember that working with several payment providers comes with signing multiple contracts, managing various accounts, contacting different sales reps, or diluting your margin.

Make the final decision

If your current payment platform doesn’t deliver, you don’t have to stick to it. There are many players on the market that can offer you much better payment solutions with a bigger set of features, higher conversion, and all those things you need to improve your business performance.

Before you make a leap to another payment gateway do the math and consider whether it can impact your customers and bottom line. If you make the right decision, you will see tremendous benefits.