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A Case Study on Gateway and Cart Integration

Recently a long time friend of mine ran into a major problem with her shopping cart and gateway.

It didn’t strictly have anything to do with our end of processing payments, but she called just to keep me posted with the progress.

Turns out her gateway had an issue, and they were correcting the problem on the back end. A tense hour later and everything was fine… or so she thought.

See, she called me back the next day. No orders had been processed through the website since the back office worked on the gateway.

Ouch!

She called authorize.net and her shopping cart people, and they weren’t much help. So I walked her through some of the selections, check boxes, transaction keys and login stuff.

And it turns out that a certain little box didn’t get checked off to generate a new transaction key. Once she did that I went to their site and entered an order to check it out, and…

** problem solved! **

She said to me…

“Mike, I called my shopping cart people and the authorize.net people, and no one fixed my problem. I spend 10 minutes on the phone with you and it’s solved. How can I thank you?”

And I said, “can I quote you on that?”
(Needless to say, she was happy to do so).

Shopping Cart Integration

Believe it or not there is more to having a merchant account than the percentage rate someone quotes you.  For starters, you need to consider…

1. if their platform (gateway) integrates with your shopping cart solution (don’t assume they all do, because many sales reps can ONLY represent one company, and thus ONE gateway
2. if their gateway allows for recurring billing, and if so, if there’s an extra “hidden” monthly charge
3. who the “go to person” is when you encounter a problem
4. if your shopping cart and gateway require a valid SSL certificate
5. what sort of security switches and settings your cart allows for

Ongoing service IS important.

So be sure to use someone who will be there for you and your business when you need it!

Too often, I’ve run into business owners who bought overpriced software solutions, only to realize that they are not free to choose any merchant account provider they desire.

Many software providers also offer merchant accounts.  On the face of it, this may not seem like a problem.  Until you see their rates and fees.

One merchant I spoke to was paying over 4% on some transactions.  Ouch!

So, the bottom line is this…

If you’re new to all this, it pays to speak to someone who is objective, and can evaluate your business goals and the kind of shopping cart best suited to your needs.

And by objective, I mean someone who isn’t just trying to sell you some overpriced or over-hyped shopping cart.

Second, once your cart is chosen, make sure the person you’re talking with can actually integrate with it, as well as providing you a range of services (like auto rebilling, virtual terminal support, etc.)

Merchant Account Set Up

If you need help with shopping cart set up, there are a couple of ways you can get started.

You can request a merchant account quote.  Simply fill out the short form and we will contact the appropriate merchant account providers for you.

You can download a free report of the Merchant Account Guide.  Just follow the link to download your copy today.

Finally, you can follow the link to scan a list of internet merchant account providers in your area that can help you set up your system.

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To Get Paid When YOU Want

To make an obvious point, the news is filled with the latest reports of an economy in trouble and financial crisis. As business owners, we feel the pinch like everyone else.

But all this bad news does not mean that you can’t get new clients or customers for your business.

It does mean that you have to be a bit creative with how you plan on getting paid.

Payment Processing & Marketing

So how does accepting payment for services link to marketing?

Well, for starters make it easy for your potential customers to use your products and/or services.

Let me share a recent example with you:

One of my customer billing clients in the professional services sector called because they were tired of invoicing for services and chasing checks. Who wants to keep hearing “it’s in the mail.”

The solution was really a two part plan.  Start accepting credit cards by using a “virtual terminal” or gateway.

And then, offer payment plans to break up larger payments into smaller ones.

The idea?

Reduce price as an objection by being flexible… and by making the cost appear smaller.

In the above example, the cost for using my client’s service was $1200.  Using my suggestion, he offered 1 pay, 3 pay and 6 pay options.

So why offer payment plans?

1. Removes price as a potential objection
2. Levels out your cash flows
3. Generates more profit for your business

Now, to do payment plans properly, don’t simply divide your cost for service by 3 or 6 (in this example).  It’s perfectly OK to charge more for being flexible.

To expand on our real life example, the 1 pay option is the lowest possible payment choice.

For 3 pay, you could make 3 even payments of $425.  This would come to a total fee of $1275.

For a 6 pay option, you could offer 6 payments of $275.  That would come out to $1650 total.

The rule of thumb?

The longer the payment option, the more you should make from extending this option. Think of it as adding a risk premium to the overall cost.

And trust me on this, very few (if anybody) will actually bust out a calculator to figure out how much they pay you over the long-haul by selecting the payment plan.

It just doesn’t happen.

Not to mention, by accepting credit cards you don’t waste time sending invoices and waiting for checks to arrive.

Bottom line, you want to get paid for your services. And in my opinion, there’s no better way to do that than by accepting credit cards and using payment plans when needed to

• grow your business,
• level out cash flows,
• and in the end make more money from the sale

That’s one way to recession proof your business.

To learn how we might be able to help you set up payment plans or with setting up recurring billing systems follow the link and search through our directory for merchant account providers who can help you with that.

You can also request a free merchant account quote and have providers contact you directly.