Automating Online Payments for Ecommerce Transactions

A Home Business Article Contributed by Shruti Sharma

Ecommerce Enhances Business Opportunity

Ecommerce has come as a breakthrough for all businesses small and large alike. To small business specially, ecommerce has added large volumes of sales. The Shop.org division of the National Retail Federation has evaluated an increase of 51% in Internet sales. Ecommerce has been found to contribute up to 5.4% of total retail sales.

This breakthrough has resulted in industry-wide profitability for ecommerce merchants with margins of 15 percent as compared to a previous margin of negative 15 percent.

This success of ecommerce has resulted from the many benefits of the ecommerce channel. This sales channel for one has reduced marketing budgets by 50 percent. Low staffing costs needed in sales is also a benefit of ecommerce solutions. The faster communications channel enables better customer service and creates opportunities for new sales channels. The shortening of distances in the virtual business world has led to increase in the opportunities of business alliances and partnerships.

A major accounting factor for ecommerce success is the enabling of credit card billing and banking support for electronics funds transfer. This utilization of technology has advanced the system of payment collection and equipped the business for a farther presence.

E-Commerce Payment Basics

In this eventuality the biggest concern of surging ahead with an e-commerce solution is the payment method for sales. Enabling several ways for the customer to pay on your e-commerce storefront is no doubt an add-on to business credibility. Leading ecommerce storefronts accept payments through PayPal, credit cards, online checks or gift certificates.

A study by the Quality Research Associates has shown that conversion rate of visitors to customers has risen from 20 percent to 72 percent for sites offering multiple payment options, whereas it was 60 percent to single payment option storefronts.

On a similar note, offering payment options in site visitors' local currency is also thought to increase conversion rates.

Ecommerce Payment Options

Paypal is a convenient channel where payment can be sent or received by anybody with an email. PayPal is easily connected to your existing credit card account. With the latest improvements in the PayPal mechanisms e-commerce can be more easily integrated into businesses. The web-services application program interfaces will enable developers and merchants to retrieve transaction related information. The APIs can be used to search transactions by customer name or payment date and reversing a transaction for refunds.

Proforma is another credit card processing product. This enables the ecommerce business to take orders via mail, email, fax or phone and process the credit card payment in a customer-not-present situation. This product does not require a merchant account and there are no setup fees or monthly charges.

EWay is another option but it requires an e-commerce merchant account, for the time being this facility is suited to empower Australian businesses.

Ifulfill is an ecommerce payment option which charges a 9 percent of the transaction cost as fees. This is a good option for businesses to handle orders via email.

Clickbank is a unique ecommerce proposition where businesses can register with products to sell. Affiliates can then sign up to sell any of the products available on the Clickbank database.

Therefore with the right ecommerce payment-gateway in place its time to places with