Top Payment Gateways for your E-Commerce Website
The work of developers can turn out to be quite challenging for normal projects itself. Add to it, an E-Commerce project, the number of project variables spiral out of way. Talking about E-Commerce, one of the most important components of E-Commerce websites are payment gateways. The mere presence of payment gateways and their design and implementation directly affects the end sales of the clients.
In this blogpost, as experienced Magento and OpenCart developers, we show you some of the options with regard to Payment Gateways.
We are sure that you are already familiar with some of the existing payment gateways such as – Stripe, PayPal, Amazon Pay, Authorize.net and so on. In your task to hire an OpenCart or Magento developer or any other website developer, you need to be aware of the fact that the choice of payment gateways changes with the website builder solutions.
The leading E-Commerce platforms are WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento and OpenCart. Let us go through them one by one.
WooCommerce
You must already know that WooCommerce requires WordPress to run on and therefore there are a large number of third party payment gateways to choose from.
Among them, we would recommend PayPal because – firstly, it is PayPal and if you are starting out new in the online business then PayPal would be apt as it brings about trust in your customers. Secondly, an E-Commerce site is clunky as it is and so adding a third party payment gateway through a plugin, this could negatively impact loading times. No customer wants that!
PayPal also has low processing fees, fraud protection and available to transact in a number of currencies.
Shopify
Shopify, a hosted website builder, is impressive and popular as well. While it is extremely easy to use, it is perfect for those clients who want to just start a store ONLY excluding other features like blog, social media feeds etc;
Like WooCommerce, Shopify is also equipped with an inbuilt payment gateway called Shopify which is actually powered by a leading platform called Stripe.
If you really want to use an alternative, please think again. This is because, in using an alternative, Shopify charges you for the third party payment gateway in addition to the processing fees. Apart from that, Stripe offers you fraud protections, quicker funds transfer and partnerships.
Magento
Magento is the third most popular E-Commerce site builder followed by OpenCart. Due to its close association with Adobe and other interactive platforms, it can be said that Magento focuses on complete business website variables like design, CRM, marketing and so on.
Magento development services is most suitable for big clients who want to develop large E-Commerce websites. Coming to payment gateways, Magento provides support for three different payment gateways namely – PayPal, Braintree and Authorise.net.
While Braintree is more apt for clients targeting customers in North America alone, both PayPal and Authorise.net are good options. However, Authorise.net has a slight edge over PayPal when it comes to huge quantity of sales. And it is much more simplified than PayPal.
Having gone through the list, we must let you know that our developers at HireIndianProgrammers offer both OpenCart development services and Magento development services.
Have any further doubts? Contact us here.
Things you need to know before selecting an E-Commerce Platform
The E-Commerce sector has been on the upswing in the recent years and there are no indications for this to change. Having said that, if you are someone who is looking to make a foray into the crowded online business space, then there are some things that you must need sorting out before choosing an appropriate E-Commerce platform. This will ensure that you get a strong head-start and grow without any hiccups while saving costs.
In this blogpost, we will discuss some key factors that you need to consider, following which you will be able to make an informed decision in choosing from tons of options.
Host
The first and foremost thing you need to do is to be clear on the product and the market – i.e what product you are selling and whom you are selling to. For example, if you are selling just digital products, there is no worry of shipping, rather you can concentrate on e-mail marketing.
On this basis, you have to decide whether you want a self-hosted platform or hosted platform. Going the self-host way gives you more control but also you need to be sure if it has a high uptime rate. On the other hand, going the hosted platform way will take care of your every need.
Support System
This is something that you must not take lightly. Given that you are conducting business online, there are some things that might go out of your hand like – for instance – software and server crash. In these moments, it would greatly help if you have a strong customer care service from your side. So, look for platforms that provide customer service, how they provide, what they provide and so on. OpenCart provides free community or dedicated commercial support!
Pricing
The next factor you need to consider is the pricing. Every platform out there has a monthly fee. It goes without saying that the pricing will vary with the kind of host you opt for. In fact, it will be useful to make a list of features and categorise it as Must have (critical), Should Have (Important but not necessary), Could Have (Desirable but not necessary), Won’t Have (Least critical). Especially, if you’re starting out, don’t hesitate and end up compromising on essential features just for a platform at a cheaper price.
For example, the checkout area in any e-commerce website is a crucial area and most customers will look for payment options like PayPal. It would augur well for you to give preference to those platforms that offer this support. If your site doesn’t have the usual payment options, then the customer will likely move on to a different site. Lost sale, period!
Plugins
Make the most from your chosen E-Commerce platform that provides a variety of useful plugins that your business actually needs. For example, there are plugins in platforms like Shopify for specific aspects like Shipping, Accounting, tool to reward your customers to increase their loyalty and so on.
Mobile Friendly and SEO Ready
Most people are now purchasing on their smartphones. So, having a mobile friendly version of your e-commerce site will be an added advantage. In addition to that, consider search engine optimisation (SEO) for your business. This means enabling your customers to write reviews and adding blogs etc;
Having a platform that offers these services will prove to be highly beneficial, in the sense, it will not only increase your page rank but will also likely create engagement and guarantees your customer’s returning to your shop to purchase. Loyalty!
Other Things to Look Out For
Security is one major concern among customers. Ensure that the platform you choose has support for HTTPS for a safe and secure payment experience. Also check whether the said platform is Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant.
We know that you hope to make it big with your E-Commerce venture. That is why it doesn’t hurt to look for a platform that will scale along with you without charging exorbitant fees.
Depending on your preferences, you can now hire a Magento developer or hire an OpenCart developer at HireIndianProgrammers. They will work round the clock to ensure that you get the best e-commerce platform that you want as determined by you.
For more queries, feel free to contact us here.
Future of Ecommerce Platforms
In the recent years, the Ecommerce revolution has transformed the Indian shopping landscape. Online shopping has sharply increased post 2010. Though the value and volume of purchase has boomed, the online shopping experience per se hasn’t changed much. In this blog post, we look at some of the things dominating in tech that are likely to influence ecommerce shopping in the upcoming years.
Before that, we must let you know that HireIndianProgrammers is a leading company in the software development business catering to various clients. We provide services in several platforms such as OpenCart to help enable to open your ecommerce startup. Have a look at some of our projects here. You can hire exclusive OpenCart developers.
Going forward, the emphasis of ecommerce will be on Customer Choice.
Cloud Computing – Departure from Monolithic systems
As the number of consumers keep growing, including multiple devices, from different locations, it is imperative for ecommerce players to incorporate seamless integration and working. This means more powerful and dynamic servers, instead of a singular server handling all the traffic. No customer likes server crashes or an unresponsive in-app experience.
Customers will now be able to shop from anywhere, anytime and from any device. Shopping carts can be merged within devices. Even the kind of searches and shopping preferences can be merged with the help of the cloud. What does this ultimately result in? A hassle free online shopping experience focused on customer convenience and greater efficiency on the part of the business.
Personalised Shopping
Unlike offline retail shopping, in ecommerce, it is possible to gather fruitful insights from so much raw data of customers. Their shopping habits, preferences, purchasing parity, willingness to pay and the range of products she wishes to buy online and the list goes on. With nascent technologies like Augmented Reality (AR), work in progress technologies like Chatbot and almost fully refined technologies like Voice Search – the underlying concept being Artificial Intelligence (AI), interesting times are ahead for the ecommerce sector as a whole.
With new technologies, there are new ways of mining data and new insights that emerge subsequently. With AR, the shopping will become more personalised, allowing shoppers to try products in the same place. Chatbot allows customers to make an informative and personalised purchase decision. Voice Search allows users to make quick purchases on the go, advocating a hands-free shopping experience.
Analytics
Analytics will play a leading role in the growth of ecommerce in the future. With more and more data available from multiple sources, new insights on different parameters such as shopping behaviour of the millennials, seasonal shopping, festive shopping, routine shopping.
Even the kind of time at which shoppers window shop for products, the search terms they use will provide much useful information for marketers and business people alike to formulate new strategies, promotions and chalk out suitable graphs and charts of shopping psychology. This can be later analysed to design new products.
One thing is for certain, ecommerce is here to stay and has huge potential to grow, given that traditional retail still leads the way.
You can now hire a OpenCart developer at HireIndianProgrammers to craft your ecommerce business site, according to your requirements. They will be working along with you 24×7 and with immense credentials and expertise under their hood, they are equipped to design the perfect ecommerce platform for you.
Have a look at our team of OpenCart developers and you will know what we mean.
Best E-commerce platform for your business
Shopify
Shopify is one of the well-known e-commerce platforms now. Shopify seems to be the little bit expensive but it offers outstanding customer support and improved user experience. The development process in this platform is fast compared to other platforms. One of the important features of Shopify platform is that this platform has blogging software.
OpenCart
Compared to other platforms OpenCart is pretty easy to develop. Hire OpenCart Developer to create a top-notch secured solution for your business. There are number of communities available to give support to the developer during the web development process. This is the best way to create a cost-effective solution.
Square Space
Square space provides beautiful and robust themes to arrange the products in a unique way. With the help of this platform, you can easily create an online store for any type of business. With the single click, you can easily add or modify the product list.