You want to grow your customer base on your e-commerce website? Of course, you can advertise your e-commerce on others. However, did you know that one of the most efficient ways to increase your customer base is to open as many gates as possible through which money can flow in? It's all about meeting your customers' needs, which means letting them pay with the payment method they want to pay with!
As an e-commerce owner, you want to ensure that the process from filling a shopping cart to checking it out fully satisfies your customers. More importantly, you want to avoid customers abandoning their cart simply because you didn't offer a suitable payment method.
Here we present four payment service providers (Payment Service Solutions): PayPal, Stripe, Mollie and Square. Each of the four will certainly help you satisfy every single one of your customers (so that you can actually call them buyers).
Almost all of us have used PayPal or at least toyed with the idea of using it. With more than 270 million active subscribers and more than 100 accepted currencies in their payment network, PayPal offers one of the most widely used and reliable digital payment services online. PayPal impresses with a seamless user interface and a variety of payment options for buyers. That's good for you as a seller. Even softsourced customers use PayPal to increase their revenue - people are reluctant to voluntarily give up a larger number of customers. Moreover, PayPal keeps bank account information of other participants locked, even those who receive a payment from you.
A normal PayPal transaction on your e-commerce website goes like this:
1) Your customer continues to the shopping cart.
2) Your customer decides to pay with PayPal;
3) Your customer completes the order. Depending on the PayPal product you choose to offer in your e-commerce, the user experience (UX) varies.
To ensure that your buyers go through a smooth order checkout, PayPal by Braintree or PayPal Payments Pro are recommended. Here, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) allow you to set up a smooth order checkout. Be aware that PayPal Payments Standard does not come with the "Pay as Guest" option.
As a seller, you will receive your money in your PayPal account within minutes. Life made easy. If you request a payout to your bank account, you will be paid a few days after payment processing. The payout is free of charge.
PayPal processes transactions through its own payment gateway. To learn more about payment gateways, please read the Payment Environment Article. As a payment service provider, PayPal retains a portion of the amount that the buyer transfers to your PayPal merchant account, a commission so to speak. The following table applies to all national transactions that take place in the same currency:
| Transaction volume in € | variable commission in % | Fixed service fee in € |
|---|---|---|
|
< 2000 |
2.49 |
0.35 |
|
2,000 – 5,000 |
2.19 |
0.35 |
|
5,000 – 25,000 |
1.99 |
0.35 |
|
25,000 – 100,000 |
1.79 |
0.35 |
|
> 100000 |
1.49 |
0.35 |
At PayPal.com learn more about international transaction fees for different currencies.
PayPal for Shopify
PayPal holds the pole position on the payment service providers available on Shopify. In few simple steps you can connect PayPal to your Shopify account. Once that is done, you will receive set payments via PayPal's payment gateway.
PayPal for WooCommerce
Of course, WooCommerce offers PayPal as a payment service provider to provide a smooth checkout experience for all buyers. You can find more information at woocommerce.com.
PayPal for Headless Solutions
This largely depends on the backend solution you use. Most offer an out of the box integration that allows you to set up PayPal. If this is not the case, with a bit of work, you can use the PayPal API via the Developer portal create, integrate and use. This is something softsourced has done in the past and could do for you.
Stripe is an intermediary between your e-commerce website and your bank. It's a payment service provider that allows money to be sent and received online between you and your customers. Stripe's payment solution has a nice level of flexibility, allowing developers to make it malleable enough to work out an optimal, customized setup. As such, it's seeing a growing adoption rate in businesses with their own IT departments.
Stripe has earned a reputation for supporting ambitious businesses, no matter their size. Both small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large companies such as Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest rely on Stripe's payment solution.
With Stripe, your customers stay on your website during order checkout and are not redirected to a dedicated virtual checkout terminal. This creates an uninterrupted, linear payment flow.
As a seller, you can expect that the amount you earn on a given day will land in your bank account seven business days later. The payout is free of charge. Both sellers and buyers benefit from the numerous payment options.
| Payment options | Availability | Restrictions per country |
|---|---|---|
|
Alipay |
|
– |
|
Apple Pay |
|
– |
|
Bancomat |
|
for electronic payments in Belgium |
|
Credit cards |
|
– |
|
EPS |
|
for electronic payments in Austria |
|
Giropay |
|
for electronic payments in Belgium |
|
Google Pay |
|
– |
|
iDEAL |
|
for electronic payments in the Netherlands |
|
Klarna |
|
in beta |
|
Multibanco |
|
for electronic payments in Portugal |
|
SEPA Direct Debit |
|
– |
|
P24 |
|
for electronic payments in Poland |
|
WeChat Pay |
|
– |
In addition to a variety of payment methods and high security standards, companies we consult, especially startups, appreciate Stripe's transparent, straightforward fee structure.
Stripe for Shopify
In your Shopify dashboard, go to "Settings", click "Payment Providers", "Select Third Party Provider", search for "Stripe" and select it from the dropdown list. Set up your account in a few steps and activate it. Done. You can now accept credit card payments.
Stripe for WooCommerce
Of course, there is a plugin that your customers can use to pay you once it is integrated. You can find detailed instructions for installation, setup and configuration at stripe.com.
Stripe for Headless Solutions
If instant integration is not available for the (backend) solution you are using, proceed with the Stripe API. Here experts, if necessary from appleute, are ready for you.
Mollie is another payment service provider that e-commerce website owners should definitely know about. I personally like Mollie a lot, appleute has successfully set up countless e-commerce platforms with Mollie. With around 150 employees and more than 60000 customers worldwide, the Dutch company is a heavyweight. Simple and highly secure API integrations create a solution that can be customized by developers, and used by less tech-savvy people.
Mollie is always up to date with the most popular payment methods, a great customer buying experience and - if you ask our customers - a great recurring payments feature.
Mollie charges a fixed fee and a variable commission, which are comparable to those of its competitors (PayPal, Stripe, etc.) and depend on the payment option you choose. You can find a detailed overview at mollie.com.
Mollie for Shopify
Connect to your Shopify dashboard, go to "Settings", click "Payment providers", "Select third-party provider", search for "Mollie" and select it from the drop-down list. Enter your Mollie account ID and API key to accept credit cards and other payment methods.
Mollie for WooCommerce
WooCommerce is another e-commerce platform supported by Mollie. Just install the appropriate plugin according to the documentation. Then you can accept and receive payments from your customers.
Mollie for Headless Solutions
It will most likely come down to an API-based solution. Read more here. Good developers, like the ones you will find here, will solve this in no time.
Square is one of the most interesting projects in the payments landscape. With the American payment processor, merchants can receive payments in the simplest possible way, for example, via shareable payment links that take your customers to a dedicated checkout page. Square not only offers developers a reasonable amount of flexibility and an easy-to-integrate API. In addition, Square supports one-time and recurring payments. It also offers its own Point of Sale (PoS) for offline stores, restaurants and other merchants. In addition, Square offers a free, intuitive site builder for e-commerce websites, whether for food delivery apps or other retail businesses.
Square charges 2.9% + €0.30 per online store sale, regardless of the type or size of your business.
Square for Shopify
Rums. Shopify does not integrate with Square.
Lucky There is Zapierthat can pair Shopify and Square. And of course there's appleute if you need a quick, clean setup.
Square for WooCommerce
WooCommerce and Square maintain a partnership, Square is integrated with WooCommerce. For documentation on the integration I recommend the here as starting point.
Square for Headless Solutions
API, API, API. If you are at a loss yourself, please feel very free to contact my wonderful team.
PayPal, Stripe, Mollie, Square. All four are different, yet reliable and established players in the payments landscape. appleute has successfully set up countless e-commerce websites for and with our clients, successfully integrating payment solutions (shopify, woocommerce, headless) in each case.
Contact our team - we will be happy to help you!
AppLeute GmbH is an AI transformation company for B2B service SMEs in the DACH region whose operational processes have overtaken their existing tools. We support you in reliably mapping complex processes with the right software and AI
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