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Cost
As with any merchant account service, fees are associated with using the gateway -- fees that are separate from those billed by your merchant account provider. Luckily, gateway provider's fees are a fairly standard, which makes comparison easy. These are the most significant:
Setup fees: These fees are charged when you first establish your gateway (before it's built), and are generally non-refundable. These costs may vary from hundreds of dollars to absolutely nothing.
Monthly fees As with most merchant account services, gateway providers charge a monthly fee for their service. This fee is usually independent of monthly processing volume.
Transaction fees: Most providers charge for every transaction they process, regardless of whether the transaction has been approved or declined.
Additional Features: Generally, gateways charge for any additional features you might decide to use. Charges may include set-up fees, monthly fees, and transaction fees that are separate from the standard charges above.
Reliability
Every online merchant knows that if they can't process a transaction when their customer's ready to buy, the sale is lost. Why would customers wait around for a problem to be resolved when they can go to a competitor's site and make their purchases right now? The gateway must be up and running 24-7.
In short, a gateway connects the website to the e-commerce clearing agent or merchant service provider. The gateway facilitates online payments by connecting a secure order form with a specific merchant account at a processing bank. The gateway takes the submitted data and presents it to the processing bank. When the gateway receives a response from the bank, it presents that return data to the site of origin for appropriate handling.
So, the gateway itself doesn't provide e-commerce features such as shopping carts, Web hosting, or merchant accounts.
Criteria for Comparison
- Available Features
- Cost
- Reliability
The greatest concern for an e-commerce transaction is security. Not only is sensitive information kept on file, but your customers' personal and business information passes through the gateway every day. This information is of considerable value to hackers, so it must be protected. So, security is the provider's number one priority.
Centech's gateway providers are fully compliant with the security initiatives put forward by the major credit card providers, including the Visa Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP), MasterCard Site Data Protection (SDP), and Discover Information Security and Compliance (DISC).
Features
Most online merchants don't realize that their gateway may offer many more features than the ability to accept credit cards through an online form. The truth is that most gateway providers offer value-added features that either make the merchant's life easier, or help to increase your revenue streams. Here are some of the more common features.
Virtual Terminal
Process customer credit card payments on the spot, using a virtual terminal! A virtual terminal is a Web form that's accessible to the merchant, and allows you to enter credit card payments manually. It can also be used to issue returns and void previous transactions.
Fraud Prevention
Fraud prevention tools are probably the most important, yet under-utilized, feature offered by the major gateways. Merchants whose stores have been online for over six months will have been introduced to "chargebacks," and will probably have first-hand experience of their negative effects. One of the main causes of chargebacks for online transactions is fraud. Utilizing the fraud prevention tools offered by your gateway provider means less time is spent dealing with chargebacks, and more time making sales and promoting business. These fraud prevention tools include: Address Verification (AVS), which compares the customer's delivery address with the address that the card-issuing bank has on file, and CVV2, the three-digit security number that appears on the back of VISA, MasterCard, and Discover Card credit cards (a four-digit number on the front of American Express cards).
Recurring Billing
Merchants who charge their customers on a periodic basis will find the recurring billing feature offered by many gateways a big time-saver. Using recurring billing, merchants can simply provide the gateway with billing information, and tell how often to charge the customer -- the gateway takes care of the rest. This feature is great for subscription and membership-based businesses.
eCheck Processing
Although credit cards are, by far, the most popular way to pay online, other payment options shouldn't be ignored. After all, the goal is to make it as easy as possible for customers to part with their money. Electronic checks (eChecks) are an increasingly popular payment method that allows customers simply to enter their banking information, rather than physically send a check by mail.