As businesses continue to innovate and incorporate various forms of technology into their operations, there are now dozens of options by which customers can complete financial transactions with your business online. In this article, we’ll focus on 5 key methods for accepting payments in 2021.
Credit and Debit Cards
As of 2021, 80% of customers prefer to make transactions using a credit card and are, in fact, willing to spend 100% more on products and services when using one. How you go about accepting these types of payments will depend on what kind of business you operate.
If you’re a brick-and-mortar business, you’ll need a merchant account and card reader to accept credit cards. Merchant accounts allow businesses to receive payments in various ways.
If you run an ecommerce business, you’ll need a payment gateway to accept online credit and debit card transactions. This will encrypt all information submitted by customers on your payment page, ensuring that their details remain safe and confidential. You don’t want to take any chances with information security, so be sure you’re employing a payment gateway that is PCI (payment card industry) compliant.
ACH Processing
Monitored by the Automated Clearing House (ACH) Association, this payment method allows customers to disclose their bank account details and routing numbers for online payments. ACH processing is a popular method of accepting subscription or recurring payments.
It’s proven advantageous to many SMBs, as it comes with lower fees compared to those that accept credit or debit cards. It’s also far more secure than accepting monthly written checks.
Finally, ACH processing can save your business a lot of time, as payments are automatically withdrawn once you enter the customer’s information into your system. Ultimately, this will improve your cash flow and create a more predictable revenue pattern.
Stripe is a payment gateway that supports ACH payments of many kinds with a Plaid integration.
Recurring Billing Subscriptions
To make the working relationship easier between you and your customers and facilitate payments for products and services of all kinds, you can provide your customers with the option to sign up for a subscription plan. Using their debit or credit card, they can make automatic monthly payments that are convenient for them and guarantee that your business is paid on time, providing you and your customers with peace of mind.
PayPal, Stripe, and Square
If you’re using PayPal, Stripe, or Square, you won’t need to set up a merchant account. However, which method you choose will depend on the type of business you run, so be sure to research features that best suit your operations. Of the three, PayPal is among the top 3 highest-ranking eWallets online.
Contactless Payment Systems
A new trend in the U.S. is that you can now accept payments wirelessly by asking customers to wave their card or device over a POS system. Without the need to enter a PIN or even scan a card, contactless payment systems are becoming increasingly popular in places like the U.K. and Australia.
As the U.S. has been slow to adopt the trend, your business can take advantage of how Visa and Mastercard are beginning to offer contactless cards to customers. Additionally, mobile wallet methods such as Android or Apple Pay are becoming increasingly popular with mobile users.
Payment Solution
Implementing new payment methods onto your website can be complex and take up a valuable amount of time. If you’re a SMB and need to accept online payments, you can team up with us at Payment Page. With our payment page solution, you can start accepting online payments in just a few easy steps using any of the gateways or payment options mentioned above.
