There are so many decisions web designers have to make which is why it’s sometimes tricky to keep all the elements of a website balanced. However, when you’re designing an e-commerce site, it gets more complicated.
This infographic by Subscriptionly.net shows that people have high expetations when it comes to e-commerce sites. If designed correctly there could be a lot of money in store for the owner.
Therefore, it is important to have a strong and reliable payment gateway. In this article we will talk about the best options you have in terms of the platform used to design the website. This means that the best payment gateway to use depends on the e-commerce platform.
Let’s take a look at the 3 most popular web design platforms:
- WooCommerce
- Shopify
- Magento
WooCommerce
WooCommerce needs WordPress to function so it’s not a standalone solution. Because of this, there are a lot of payment processors available to choose from.
WooCommerce is an e-commerce integration from WordPress also comes with a number of payment options upon setup which also includes PayPal.
PayPal is a reliable payment gateway but it does not actually allow users to pay on the website itself. Instead it takes clients or customers to PayPal to make the payment. This itself is not a bad thing because Paypal is a reputable company and using them increases the trust and authority of your business.
Secondly, you can give your servers a break when it comes to processing. E-commerce sites typically consume big amounts of the customer’s bandwidth and adding another payment gateway through WooCommerce could slow down the loading time of your website further.
Using PayPal is advantageous because processing fees are low, you can accept credit cards and is fortified with fraud protection. Best of all it accept payments from other countries using different currency.
Shopify
Many users love Shopify because the hosted store builder is easy to use and lets you create impressive websites quickly. If all you need is a store and don’t need extra features like social media, blogs or email automation, Shopify is a good choice.
Adding payment option for Shopify is going to cost you. When first installed, you will immediately notice that Shopify comes with the Shopify Payment gateway even though it’s labelled as “Shopify”. This gateway is actually powered by Stripe.
Stripe is like the “only” choice if you use Shopify. Aside from paying processing fees from the gateway of your choice, you will pay additional fees if you use a payment gateway other than Stripe.
Stripe itself is not a bad choice. Using Stripe means:
- Lower processing fees
- Fraud protection
- Automatic payment integration
- Faster deposit of funds in your account
- Stripe partnership backing the platform
With this in mind there’s no reason not to use Stripe as a payment gateway for your Shopify store unless it’s not supported in the client’s country.
Magento
Magento is the 3rd most popular e-commerce platform. It’s part of the Adobe Commerce and Experience Clouds, so it’s more than just a platform. It’s also an e-commerce business solution with features like business management, CRM analytics, marketing and more.
This is a great solution for people that want a big e-commerce store especially if they want to provide a premium shopping experience. Magento gives users 3 payment gateways to choose from:
- PayPal
- Braintree
- Authorize.Net
Braintree does not have a global reach so you will be limited to customers in North America. Paypal is recognizable around the world and has reasonable processing fees but it’s not built for big ecommerce stores.
According to data provided by Fundera, Authorize. Net is a good choice for e-commerce stores that generate sales over $500,000.
The business must be based in U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, or Europe but customers can pay for goods from all over the world. They also process different types of payment such as credit cards, digital payments like Apple Pay, e-checks, and more.
Authorize.Net also gives you more control over payment processing and security compared to other options.
There is a good reason why these payment gateways were handpicked by specific platforms. Aside from having good integration, performance and features using them will make payment easier and speed up your work flow.
