Optimising online payment methods for your business

Paying online for goods and services – whether it’s for business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) purposes – is now mainstream. The COVID-19 pandemic also provided a boost in numbers as customers could not, or chose not to, venture out to make face-to-face cash payments.

A survey carried out in 2020 co-organised by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) revealed a rise in online shopping between six and 10 percent across most product categories around the globe¹, a trend that looks set to continue as the digital world grows.  

Common e-payment methods

In today’s digital age, you’ll probably need the facility for e-payment at some point to take your business forward. So what is e-payment? Known as electronic payment in full, e-payment is simply any financial transaction that is transmitted electronically – just about everything other than cash, cheques and barter.

Some of the common e-payment methods include:  

• Credit/debit cards: this is the most prevalent online payment method. Credit cards pay the seller in full, allowing the customer the option of paying the bill in instalments to the credit card company, or the cheaper option of settling the entire debt each month. Each credit card holder has a personal credit limit. Debit card payments deduct the full amount straight from the customer’s bank account when the payment is made.
• Bank (or wire) transfers: these are mostly used between B2B users. The customer’s bank sends the invoiced amount directly to the supplier’s bank account. Bank transfers are less popular these days but still a critical component of eCommerce.
• Direct debits: these can be set up at your bank to pay bills, such as monthly payments or instalments.
• Mobile commerce, also known as m-commerce: this is becoming increasingly popular and refers to any online financial transactions made on a mobile device, such as a handphone or tablet. It can be used for buying, selling and banking online as well as paying household bills.
• Digital wallet: one aspect of m-commerce, it stores all your financial details, including those on bank cards, store loyalty cards and much more. It allows you to pay for almost everything online; from the usual bills, retail or business purchases, and even to your family and friends.
• Payment service providers: payment service providers like PayPal offer an all-in-one payment solution that includes most of the above-mentioned payment methods to address your e-payment needs.²

Benefits of online payments over cash

In a nutshell, online payment methods for business offer greater security, convenience and flexibility.  

• Security: Increasingly sophisticated encryption and other safety checks offer your customers greater peace of mind. PayPal complies with the stringent Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards for online payment security, which includes HTTPS and TLS encryption protection. These connections, which wrap an encrypted layer around the basic HTTP protocol – the means by which data is sent from your web browser to a website – ensure that hackers cannot read the information. This is therefore vital for securing online activities such as shopping and banking.
• In addition, PayPal monitors every transaction in real time, and accounts are analysed to prevent fraudulent activity and payments. PayPal also follows up every purchase and sale with an email. And if PayPal suspects something is not right, PayPal will contact you to check. In certain circumstances, PayPal can also provide buyers with a reimbursement if goods fail to arrive. Similarly, if sellers receive an unauthorised payment or a claim that an item wasn’t received, they may be eligible keep the full amount.*³
• Convenience: Whether your business offers cups of coffee or high-value bulk purchases, it’s easy for your customers to make a quick and safe transaction online. Furthermore, the more types of online payment methods you offer, the more customers you attract to your website. With PayPal, your customers get to choose from a comprehensive selection of payments options.
• Flexibility: PayPal is in 200 markets and supports over 100 currencies to make business easy wherever you are. So if you’re thinking of engaging clients on a worldwide scale, performing online payments through a global payment service provider like PayPal makes currency conversions a breeze.

The advantages of online payments, therefore, benefit both parties equally. In 2020, more than two billion people bought goods or services online, with e-retail sales reaching more than US$4.2 trillion internationally. And m-commerce is playing a large part in this too. In 2021, nearly 70 percent of all retail website visits worldwide were made on smartphones.⁴

 

Winning it with PayPal’s ecommerce payment solution

When you sign up to PayPal, you get access to potential customers across the globe. Millions of businesses already choose the PayPal Commerce Platform to power their business at home and abroad. So whether this is a brand new business for you or you want to take the next step to expand an already thriving enterprise, the PayPal Commerce Platform offers a one-stop solution to serve you and your customers throughout the world. With a network of more than 400 million PayPal customers in more than 200 markets, you have the chance to access new markets, find new channels to promote your business and meet the PayPal ‘family’ of customers, who can link to you from wherever they are and can choose to pay you however they want.⁵

And it couldn’t be simpler to do business with them. Here’s how it works. Your customers visit your website and choose what they want to buy. They log into their PayPal account. They confirm their purchase – and that’s it!

When you sign up a Business account with PayPal, PayPal will help you manage your enterprise with buyer and seller protection, together with our reporting tools that help you keep track of your growing commercial transactions*. PayPal offers security fraud protection and dispute resolution to settle buyer-and-seller disputes through a single dashboard and much more. Visit PayPal’s Commerce Platform on the PayPal website for the myriad ways that PayPal can help you to develop your business.

*Terms and Conditions apply.