How to choose your payment service provider (PSP) for your e-commerce or marketplace?

Regardless of your activity, whether you are the administrator or publisher of a platform, an e-commerce site or a marketplace, the choice of your partner in the management of your payments and your transactions is a key point which will have a real importance on your commercial success.

 

Between the integration possibilities, the available payment methods, the additional functionalities and the resulting development times and costs, it is important to choose a service provider who will be able to meet your challenges and your needs, all by reducing your workload as much as possible.

Study the services offered and their suitability for your business

 

First of all, you need to work on a list of payment services that are essential to satisfy your customers. It is essential to have the ability to provide them with the best payment methods and different services based on their purchasing behavior.

 

If your average baskets are several thousand euros, the bank card alone will surely not be enough. On the contrary, if it is a few dozen euros, then a bank transfer or payment in several installments will not be essential for processing your users' payments.

 

Generally speaking, it is important to opt for a partner who has the most popular payment methods in order to be sure to meet consumer expectations, namely at least payment by credit card, by bank transfer, even although it is also extremely relevant to be able to offer payment facilities (payment in 3 installments, 4 installments or 10 installments by bank card, for example, or even deferred payment), payment by user balance, or even by direct debit.

 

But beyond simply the means of payment, it is the payment terms that are also very important! We are talking about payment in several installments or deferred, but payments can also take other forms:

• Recurring payment, by credit card or direct debit, for the payment of a subscription,
• Immediate or direct payment, with full payment from the seller immediately,
• Payment with segregation of funds, also called escrow of funds, which consists of blocking funds in a secure account while the transaction is carried out.
• The guarantee, or security deposit, with the deposit of a sum in a secure account until the transaction is finalized,
• The deposit, with the payment in advance of part of the total amount of the transaction.

Being able to simply benefit from all these payment methods allows you to explore new economic models and generate new profits.

 

Indeed, today you can be an e-retailer who wants to turn into a marketplace, or even a marketplace that wants to offer new services that require specific payment terms.

 

Don't forget that your platform will evolve, and will inevitably create new needs to which you will want to respond simply and quickly, while reducing implementation costs.

 

Analyze the technical documentation to get a clear idea of the complexity, cost and integration times

 

No matter how comprehensive the service offered by a payment provider, if the integration of the latter proves to be complicated, long and laborious, this will cause significant delays and implementation costs.

 

Also make sure that the service provider you choose has the capacity to adapt to your environment (a CMS like Woocommerce, Wordpress or Prestashop for example, a no-code development platform like Bubble, or even a proprietary environment with in-house development).

 

If this is not the case, there is no point in continuing the study!

 

Finally, take the time to evaluate the granularity of the services offered by the payment provider. Indeed, you will potentially not be able to deploy all the services at once, so it is important to carefully analyze the structure of the service in order to be able to divide your developments into batches of functionalities and services.

 

Good integration is, above all, simple, fast and economical integration, capable of meeting your needs today and in the future. The flexibility provided by your service provider's services should allow you to approach your development with confidence, and should never be a hindrance to your expansion.

 
Pay attention to the customization options available to you

 

A personalized and seamless experience is the key to a thriving business.

Your users and customers must feel comfortable in a simple and clear environment, where your brand image is authoritative.

 

It is important to be able to personalize your labels in order to avoid any confusion during a withdrawal, for example, as are all the sender names of communications that may be sent to users.

 

The payment page must also be fully customizable so as not to confuse a user who is about to pay. And this is even more important on the French market: France is the country in Europe with the highest shopping cart abandonment rate, which reaches 93 %!

 

So take the time to study the personalization options offered in order to be sure that you are able to offer your users a simple and clear payment experience, in an environment that generates trust.

 

We have also written an article which shares 6 tips for optimizing the conversion rate of a payment page which we invite you to read.

 

In all cases, the user experience provided by your PSP is a key success factor, and should particularly attract your attention.

 

Make sure that the administrative tools and interfaces available allow you to manage your activity

 

Payment providers all offer dashboards or backoffices that allow you to obtain information about your payments and perform contextual actions in order to manage the financial activity of your platform.

 

The more functionalities accessible in a simple way, the more you will be able to have fine management of your business, so take the time to browse these interfaces, or request complete demonstrations of them, making sure, in advance, to draw up a list the different data you need to access, and the different actions you need to be able to perform.

 

Consider the financial impact of payment provider pricing

 

Depending on your business model and your activity, the choice of payment provider may vary. Indeed, some offer more attractive costs on certain payment methods or on certain types of payments (large amounts, microtransactions, etc.).

 

You must therefore detail, during meetings with the service providers with whom you wish to discuss, your business model and your key indicators, such as your current and/or forecast business volume, your average basket, your number of transactions, etc.

 

It is important to avoid showing unnecessary modesty or being ashamed of sharing this information: it will allow us to formulate a fair commercial proposal, while avoiding possible unpleasant discussions in the future. Your service provider is above all there to support you, and its objective must be the same as yours: to develop your sales.

 

Remember, if a payment provider doesn't have transacting customers, it doesn't make money either. It is therefore a real relationship of trust and mutual assistance that must be developed.

 

Be careful, however, not to rely solely on a commission price list or the amount of a subscription! Indeed, the various points of attention previously mentioned, such as the ease and time of integration, the services available, the options on the administration interface, or even the capacity for customization are all factors that will be necessary. take into account in your calculations.

 

Frontally, one service provider may seem more expensive than another, but if the latter allows you to avoid significant developments, has key functionalities that will serve you in the short, medium and long term, and allows you to have a level of customization advanced, then it is important to calculate the savings this will allow you to make.

 

And if the savings outweigh the costs, then even if it's more expensive on paper, you'll still come out ahead.

Make sure the security level is high

 

This may seem like a no-brainer, but safety is arguably the most important thing. In addition to the financial impact of an unsecured payment system, it is the reputation of your business that will be deeply and lastingly impacted if a problem were to occur.

 

Never forget that your users are required to share their banking information, and that they deserve an environment with maximum security.

 

PCI-DSS is an environmental standard allowing you to offer total security of banking and personal data, and your payment provider must belong to it. This way, your users will have the assurance of providing their information with complete confidence, while allowing you to avoid all the complexities and legal constraints linked to the management of this very sensitive data.

 

Your payment provider must also be able to offer you the 3D Secure authentication system when paying by credit card. This system will allow your customers to authenticate their payments, in particular through the identification and validation of the payment transaction on their banking interface.

 

It is also important to ensure that your payment partner has internal tools allowing it to effectively analyze the data collected relating to your users, and thus be able to categorize or block them if the level of risk of the latter may cause problems. These security rules are based on financial and extra-financial criteria, and can just as easily be based on the analysis of the bank card as on the telephone or e-mail operator of a user, as well as their geographical position via its IP address.

 

All of these security measures aim to minimize the risk of payment fraud, and to avoid the many problems that can arise from it, and which cause financial and reputational risks for your business.

Choose an all-in-one solution that can manage all of your transaction needs

 

Always keep in mind that a transaction is not just a payment. Payment is in fact only one step of the transaction!

 

Obvy offers an all-in-one solution for online goods and services sales platforms, whether e-commerce sites, marketplaces, software publishers, etc.

 

With Obvy, you benefit from all the most popular services and payment methods to collect and pay, in a highly secure environment.

But that's not all.

 

Obvy offers dozens of turnkey services and features (payment, delivery, security, user and transaction management platform, dispute resolution, promotional campaigns, etc.) that allow you to manage all your transactions from end to end, from on sale of a product until payment and delivery of the goods.

 

Thus, you avoid all the complexities linked to transaction management, and you rely on a global solution capable of guaranteeing you a high level of customization, compatibility with your activity, an optimal user experience, and scalability which will allow you to explore new growth levers.