Ecommerce: The New Way of Life

Ecommerce has become the new way of life, with more businesses incorporating it to boost exposure and sales. The evolution of online payment processing has been instrumental in this paradigm shift, as it has made it possible for businesses to accept payments over the web.


Benefits of Ecommerce

Leveraging ecommerce enables retailers to:

• Broadcast their solutions and business to global audience
• Gain new customers without investing a fortune on promotions
• Lower operating costs, which can be passed on to customers in the form of discounts
• Provide their customers with the option of comparison shopping
• Provide ample product information to prospective customers
• Instantly process customer transactions
• Take orders round-the-clock

How to Accept Payments on an Ecommerce Website

Merchants need to have an ecommerce merchant account and a payment gateway in order to process credit card payments through their online stores. Therefore, if you own a retail business, then a reliable online payment solution is a prerequisite for optimizing sales.

Ecommerce merchant account

Ecommerce merchant account is a commercial bank account that allows you to accept credit card payments. It involves a transaction fee, which is a certain percentage of transaction value. This percentage may vary depending upon the volume of purchase. Higher volume accounts have a lower transaction fee percentage.



Payment gateway

A payment gateway allows your online store to connect to your ecommerce merchant account. It is a virtual terminal, in contrast to a card-swipe terminal. Some service providers charge a small amount of transaction fee and a monthly fee for this service.

In addition to the ones mentioned above, a shopping cart software solution for your website is also an important requirement for the success of your online retail business.

Conclusion

To conclude, it is worth mentioning that setting up a website to showcase your products is merely the beginning. In order to take your business to the next level of success, you need an ecommerce merchant account coupled with a reliable payment gateway.