How to Choose the Best Payment Processor for Your Store

How to Choose the Best Payment Processor for Your Store

The way you process payments through your online store can have a big effect on both customer satisfaction and your bottom line. You need to provide a simple processing system that doesn’t cause much delay for customers but also transmits data securely while keeping the costs per payment low on your end. Here are the best payment processors available for WooCommerce stores as well as the pros and cons of each.

PayPal

PayPal remains a major force in the payment gateway industry and is a very popular choice among WooCommerce store users. This service has the convenience of being available in most countries throughout the world and offers an easy checkout experience. On the storeowner side, PayPal is easy to integrate into any existing online storefront and is often trusted.

Many people choose to use PayPal when buying as it’s possible to open a dispute if they have an issue with a product or service, and companies like them as they offer seller protection too. The main issue with Paypal is the fees can be expensive for larger orders.

Square

Square has grown very popular since its introduction in 2010. While it is best known for its use in brick and mortar stores, it is also a functional online payment processor which offers a very easy to use interface. Square offers an online dashboard that allows you to break sales data down into performance by days, weeks, or months.

These analytics provide you with the ability to view your store’s performance and adjust effectively in real time. The analytics system has compatibility with both computers and mobile devices. The biggest drawback of Square is that the customer service line is largely automated, meaning that you are frequently on your own if something goes wrong.

Stripe

In the online payment processing market, Stripe is emerging as one of the biggest competitors to PayPal for industry dominance. Stripe stakes its claim based on the wide range of different services that it provides. Stripe offers many tools that can help online storeowners to customize their business.

These options include a customizable checkout process, platform-building tools, customizable reporting tools, and much more. The sheer number of features available with Stripe is intimidating, and that can also be a con for business owners who don’t feel comfortable programming things on their own. If you can handle the vast array of options, Stripe is a very good service.

Authorize.net

Authorize.net offers a highly customizable user interface that allows you to focus only on the features you absolutely need. This level of customization extends to the payment process itself, where a customizable checkout system allows you to collect as much or as little data from customers as you need.

This can be extremely helpful when setting up discounts or mailing lists later on – you don’t need to collect any information except for that which is essential, and you can make sure that any personal information you receive is securely stored. The fee structure of Authorize.net does cause some issues to certain vendors, as the processor doesn’t use volume-based fees that would allow you to cut your costs during slow seasons.

Amazon Payments

Amazon is one of the biggest names in ecommerce, and that means that Amazon Payments provides great brand recognition and reliability. If you can leverage the Amazon name for your business, it may even be able to provide a peripheral boost in sales, depending on your industry. Because the company has staked its reputation on this online payment processor, support is also very strong.

If you have any technical difficulties, you can likely get them resolved very quickly and easily. The downside to Amazon Payments is actually related to its biggest strength: the brand name can cause confusion among customers, which in turn could weaken your own brand if you tie yourself too closely to the Amazon service.

When choosing the best payment processor for your online store, consider all the above advice and then do a little bit of research to make sure that the service you choose matches your store’s needs. Always be sure that no matter what payment processor you choose you select something that has strong PCI compliance, a good reputation for security, and an interface that you can use without confusion. Be sure to also pay attention to the industry as a whole – just because one processor is the best right now doesn’t mean that something better isn’t waiting on the horizon.