If you’re a data nerd, you won’t be disappointed with today’s options for processing payments. Dashboards give online store owners insights into customer data in new and exciting ways. Do you have an idea for a product you’d like to sell or a side-hustle you know would take off? Then you should definitely keep reading for some eCommerce tips and information on processing payments.

Payment Gateway vs Payment Service Provider

When most people think of PayPal, they may not consider how many steps go into a successful online transaction. Many verifications need to take place before money changes hands, and that’s a good thing for everyone. Those who run an online store want to be certain all transactions are secure and encrypted, and that’s where payment gateways come in.

A payment gateway is a service that handles the authorization of payments for online merchants. This is typically done through a third-party company, who specializes in these types of transactions.

In this article, we’ll mostly discuss payment service providers (PSP). PSPs utilize payment gateways, but often add a layer of useful services for the merchant site owner. Services can include fraud protection, credit card processing, label printing, data analytics, invoicing and more.

Stripe, PayPal, and Authorize.net are but a few of the dozens of PSPs to chose from. You’ll really want to dig in and see what fits your company’s business model best. Forms of payment range from credit/debit cards to bank transfers and even Bitcoin.

It goes without saying that when it comes to your company’s reputation, it’s critical that you minimize your exposure to financial liability when processing payments. There’s probably nothing that will enrage a customer more quickly than the loss, or perceived loss, of money. If, for some reason, there are problems in a transaction (and lots of things can go wrong), you can turn to your trusty dashboard and root out the problem. Personally, I believe having that level of control and peace of mind is worth the service fee alone.

How are Payments Accepted Through a Payment Gateway?

This is a general overview, but when a customer is ready to place an order, their data is encrypted and sent. Data is usually sent directly to the PSP, altogether bypassing the merchant’s site. Once the customer’s order data is received, an authorization process is carried out with the relevant credit card company or bank. After the financial institution has authorized the purchase to the payment gateway provider, your online store portal will receive an update letting you know that the payment has been authorized.

The merchant (you in this case), will then complete any remaining requirements including preparation of goods for shipment or delivery of the product if it’s a digital item. After all of this has taken place, your PSP will confirm that the required steps have been verified. You can then mark the transaction for completion. Behind the scenes, final steps are taken to exchange funds, and the whole process is usually completed within three days. Rinse and repeat.

How Much Are Service Fees?

The rates are competitive, but service providers will often charge a percentage and a set transaction fee. At the time of publishing this, Stripe, for example, charges 2.9% plus $0.30 per successful transaction. PayPal’s fee is similar. International rates will vary and may increase considerably in cost.

Do You Have a WordPress site?

There’s a reason why WordPress sites account for 33% of the internet. WordPress has a loyal following, to say the least. It’s easy, powerful, and highly customizable. WordPress plugins are famous because they’re easy to install and they’re usually kept up-to-date by their developers. Updating your plugins is as easy as pressing a button, and can be scheduled for automatic updates. And, if you don’t want to handle updates yourself, you can always turn to our maintenance and support team at Maintainn. Want to get your online store off the ground fast with the payment service provider that’s perfect for you? We think WordPress is the way to go.

Is Your Product Digital or Physical?

Digital Products

Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) is a great way to manage your sales. Whether you’re a writer, musician or videographer, Easy Digital Downloads has you covered. Almost any digital file type or format can be sold through EDD, but generally speaking, if you can upload it to WordPress’ Media Library, you can sell it through this plugin. If WordPress restricts your file type, there are third-party hosting options available via Amazon S3 and Dropbox. Here’s a list of file types that WordPress supports. As you can see, the options are almost limitless.

Physical Products

If you’re offering physical products at your eCommerce, then you may want to consider WooCommerce. “Woo” is the go-to WordPress plugin for physical sales. It integrates with many major players in the payment service provider space and can be quickly configured to your needs. Highly customizable, it will be there for you as you scale up your company and rake in the big bucks.

Let’s Do This Together

Have big eCommerce plans but think you’re going to need some expert help? As you may know, at WebDevStudios, we’re huge fans of WordPress and eCommerce. Our clients love them, too. WebDevStudios provides end-to-end WordPress opportunities from strategy and planning to website design and development, as well as full data migration, extensive API integrations, scalability, performance, and long-term guidance and maintenance.  Contact us and let’s discuss your eCommerce project and which payment processing solution is best for your business.

The post Take My Money! eCommerce Tips for Processing Payments appeared first on WebDevStudios.

Product Types

In general, there are three types of products people sell online: tangible products, digital products, and memberships/subscriptions. Each product type has its own set of hurdles. In this post, I’m going to look at these three product types and point out some of the questions you should be asking yourself before you set out on your quest to utilize WordPress plugins for your eCommerce business. I won’t be covering the generic business decisions you’ll need to make—like your return policy—but instead will focus on the questions that will determine how your online store will work.

Let’s dive right in!

Tangible Products

If you were looking to start a business selling tangible products, such as shoes, housewares, art supplies, etc., in a brick-and-mortar store, you’d have to deal with leasing a space, getting proper licensing, buying showcases, staffing, security, and a myriad of other details. While you don’t have to deal with this same set of issues when selling online, there’s still plenty to consider. For example:

• What credit card processor will you use?
• Do you need to charge tax? For all sales or just in some states?
• Do you ship all over the world, or just to your country or state?
• What shipping methods do you offer?
• What are your shipping rates?

These questions are the tip of the iceberg. And, each time you answer one of these questions, it leads to another set of questions. It can be frustrating. Nobody ever said starting a business would be easy. If they did, they were probably trying to sell you something.

So, what WordPress plugin should you use to sell tangible products online? We recommend WooCommerce.

WooCommerce is an extremely powerful eCommerce platform. And, with roughly 300 add-on plugins available, it’s also quite flexible. Finding the exact set of add-on plugins you’ll need will mainly have to do with your specific shop requirements, but there’s little doubt that it can be handled by WooCommerce. Just be prepared to spend some time getting everything set up exactly the way you want. Or, hire somebody (like us) to help.

Digital Products

With digital products, the number of questions you have to answer declines quite a bit. Don’t get too excited. There are still plenty of mysteries to solve, but not having to deal with shipping physical products will make this process feel simple by comparison.

For digital products, you may want to sell individual items like an image or a PDF. Or, you may want to sell plugins like we do at Pluginize. No matter the type of digital product you are looking to sell, our plugin recommendation doesn’t change. For digital product sales, you need to check out Easy Digital Downloads (EDD). Powerful right out of the box, and with over 100 add-ons available, EDD is also super flexible and should be able to handle just about any scenario you can throw at it.

As a side note, if you plan to sell WordPress plugins, EDD’s Software Licensing add-on makes it easy for your buyers to update their plugins directly from the WordPress dashboard each time you release an update. WooCommerce has a similar option available that is far more complicated.

Memberships/Subscriptions

For memberships and subscriptions, it isn’t so much about what you are selling to your customers that’s important. What your customers need access to once they’ve signed up is where things can get complicated.

At it’s absolute easiest, I’ve seen WordPress used to sell memberships for groups that meet offline. The membership software was solely used as a simple way to collect monthly dues from members with no requirements for extra access to anything on the website other than the ability to manage their membership. Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg of what can be done.

Membership plugins can also make it easy to provide access to private content on your website. For some, this may be as easy as having one membership level where all private content is available to all members. But others may need something more complex with multiple membership levels, prices, and access to different content based on those levels.

For both simple and complex scenarios, my recommendation is Restrict Content Pro (RCP). With RCP, you can easily create automatic recurring memberships and provide your members access to just the right content.

One side note about creating memberships and giving users access to specific content, you may find yourself wanting to customize the menu items users see once they’re logged in. I found this plugin and this tutorial to be extremely helpful for customizing the menus for specific users and user levels.

These aren’t the only options

No matter how great these recommended plugins are, they are definitely not your only options. MemberPress is another fantastic plugin for handling memberships and subscriptions, and that’s just one example. You may need to test a couple out to see which suits you best, especially if you have unique requirements and need something hyper-specific. You may even want to reach out to the authors of the plugins to see if their plugin will suffice.

Selling products can be a daunting task. However, with the recommendations I’ve provided above, your eCommerce shop could be up and running in no time. Happy selling!

The post The Most Trusted WordPress Plugins for eCommerce appeared first on WebDevStudios.