Processing services: not a luxury, but a tool for earning

Intense competition in the retail sector inevitably encourages e-traders to use the full palette of modern payment solutions. Today it isn’t enough to find reliable suppliers of goods and to offer goods or services to the market. It’s essential to make the process of all mutual settlements as convenient and safe as possible, and ideally, it should be seamless and nearly imperceptible.

Only in this way can you expect to see a tangible increase in your business’s sales conversion rate. Therefore, seeking cooperation with a reliable processing company is a logical step. In short, the processing company is the link between a client’s payments card, which can be anywhere in the world, and your bank account.

In this article, Bilderlings Pay discusses the most current topical and in-demand processing solutions in this area.

Acquiring: the global scalability factor

It’s no secret that the complexity of the payment process often keeps would-be clients from completing a purchase with certain sellers. Needing to use an unfamiliar payment system with a user-unfriendly interface, needing to complete an additional registration, etc. – any of these complexities can become real obstacles. As a result, an e-trader inevitably loses potential customers.

The service of acquiring allows a client to pay – and a seller to accept – conventional bank payment cards for remote online payments. The transaction takes a little more than a second, with minimal participation of the parties. All security risks are borne by the processing company providing the service. For the client, this is a typical “seamless” payment, especially if the e-trader’s online platform is optimized not only for the home PCs, but also for mobile devices.

In turn, the seller receives much wider access to modern consumers who make purchases online actively and easily. Firstly, we are talking about the so-called “generation Y”. Studies show that buyers who are 20 to 30 years old prefer the ease of making payments online and the availability of this opportunity anywhere and anytime.

And given the fact that Internet-acquiring allows you to pay with most bank cards, including at an international level and in any convertible currency, it promotes increased scalability of your business at the global level.

Invoicing: as simple as sending an SMS

This service makes it possible to issue an e-invoice via SMS or email. The whole operation takes one to two minutes. A person can pay the invoice with the help of his bank card or via the mobile application.

This system is convenient for several reasons. First of all, many buyers do not carry cash with them nowadays. At the same time, many individual entrepreneurs do not have a POS-terminal to accept bank cards. For some sellers it isn’t economically profitable at the present moment, for others it isn’t relevant because most of their transactions take place online.

The system is flexible enough. Payment may be made both right after the transaction or with a deferral. The second option is often applied in instances of leasing or consumer loans. There is also a deferred payment option. And in cases like providing of telecommunication services or periodical subscriptions, for example, the principle of a subscription fee is often used. All of these parameters can be easily modified in the e-account settings.

Even more important: using the setup tools, you can reprogram the payment amount and periodicity – naturally, if this is specified in the client’s contract. In this case, the invoice will be issued not once a month but, for example, at the end of each quarter.

After connecting to the API (application programming interface) system, the invoicing allows you to automate regular invoice issuing if you operate with large databases. For example, with a list of regular clients – or, vice versa, debtors. In the second case there is an opportunity to activate an option for automatically charging penalties in case of late payments.

Finally, the invoicing service makes payment processes simple and intuitive. It’s as easy and familiar as sending an SMS.

“Fire-and-forget”

Regular (recurring) payments are convenient with goods or services that are purchased on a regular basis and require periodic and long-term payment – once a month, for example. For a client these could include telecommunication services, and consulting or housing and communal services. For an entrepreneur, these could be goods supplied according to a contract with a long-term partner. After all, as life teaches us, we tend to most easily forget that which is regular and habitual – and this can lead to breaking long-term contracts, a damaged image and, potentially, even punitive sanctions.

With this form of payment, the payer’s requisites are entered into the system only once, and a kind of payment task is formed. Subsequently, the indicated amounts of money will be withdrawn from the payer’s account automatically, with a certain periodicity, until he cancels the payment order. A variant is also possible where the amount to be withdrawn is not strictly fixed, and can be adjusted each time depending on the invoice issued.

“One-click payments” can also be included. This is exactly the same “pay” button that we often see on online shopping sites. In this form of payment the bank card data are also entered only once, and then stored in the database of our processing company.

In the future, only a security code is required to complete the transaction: the three digits on the back of the bank card. Incidentally, this is why Maestro cards, which do not have this security code, cannot be used for online payments.

Firstly, “one-click payments” are convenient because they help sellers to gradually form a pool of their regular customers. In addition, as the research indicates, the availability of such a payment method significantly increases sales, primarily attracting customers who are inclined to make spontaneous, emotional purchases.

Safety and a little bit of psychology

Among the processing solutions that enhance your business’s conversion it would be difficult to overlook the individual design of the payment pages offered by Bilderlings Pay. This factor, first and foremost, has a psychological importance that cannot be underestimated. A well-executed solution and convenient, intuitive interface for your payment page is an integral part of your business’s image.

So when a potential customer navigates from your main page to a payment page that is clearly inconsistent with the main one, the would-be customer unconsciously begins to sense a psychological barrier. And this barrier can prevent them from making a decision that is positive for your business.

It’s necessary to mention UX-design in this context. In brief, this means creating a payment page design that any visitor could leave with a sense of comfort and satisfaction, and with an unconscious feeling that they would like to return.

Properly thought out UX-design boosts sales, making the process of paying for purchases easier and more convenient. Our specialists in this area have extensive experience creating UX-optimized payment pages for our customers.

And finally, when choosing a processing company, pay attention to how able it will be to provide security for all of your transactions and protection of your data. In the field of card operations, this is primarily a certificate of compliance with the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council) version 3.2, which indicates the highest global security level.

All of the processing solutions described above will certainly be useful for online business. Of course, your results may vary in terms of practical implementation. This depends on many factors, including your business activities, the territory and the target audience. As they say, ”so many people, so many needs.” But Bilderlings Pay specialists will always be able to offer you the best option.