As per the Statista, In the financial year 2019, the total number of MSMEs in the country was more than 63 million.
As per the Startups India Data, India has the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world; expected to witness year on year growth of consistent annual growth of 12-15%. India has about 50,000 startups in India in 2018; around 8,900 – 9,300 of these are technology-led startups 1300 new tech startups were born in 2019 alone implying there are 2-3 tech startups born every day.
With these, the significance of bringing about digitalization is the payments can be understood too. For the startups to boost the revenue of their business the tech-driven payments with the most ideal option of the suitable payment gateway hold a lot of importance. More revenue means more profits and eventually increases in the value of the business.
The best option for the startups to collect the payments is the payment gateway. This is because of its multiple payment options and because it handles the total payment process. The authentication, authorization and transfer of the payments back and forth at each stage wherever required.
So what points needs to be considered for choosing the payment gateway solution for your startup business and mainly in such a way that it is ideal for your business:
Payment Gateway Type
You can select a ready-to-use kind of payment aggregator or the Bank payment gateway. Payment Aggregators are a part of payment gateways that have developed a ready to use technology that has integrated up all the different payment options in one modernly designed checkout. This can be integrated by the merchant easily with their available ready Plugins and SDKs. It has advanced technology and an up-to-date payment system. These types are very easy to use. It just needs to be registered with the basic required details and documents and you are good to go after the activation of the account.
The registration process for the merchant account of the bank payment gateways is quite lengthy and also it provides the minimum payment options.
There is one more option and that is to develop your own payment gateway, but this is a very lengthy and costly way that would not be suitable for the startups.
Basically, the best option for the startups is to go with the payment aggregators like PayKun. However, there are various options in that also and so it is important to select one carefully.
Fees and charges
A payment gateway has different types of fees such as set up fees, integration fees, maintenance fees, monthly fees, per-transaction fees (Merchant Discount Rate), etc.
Some payment gateways charge only a per-transaction fee. In accordance with doing some research, you may choose the best payment gateway which is cost-effective as well as the best in the services.
Hidden charges
Keep the track of the charges levied by the payment gateway and if they are as per the committed fees If you find any hidden charges, you may raise a question.
This can be possible after you start using the payment gateway but helps you to know if you should continue with it or choose another one.
Payment Options Availability
As per your startup business model you may require a mix and match of the payment options. Some might be very much necessary for your customers among all the trending ones. The primary benefit as well as the use of a payment gateway is specifically that you have multiple payment methods in the checkout that you provide. It can be a debit card, UPI, any specific wallet, etc. Accordingly, check if the payment gateway matches those requirements so that the customer does not go back without paying.
Business Type
You can have a total offline business or an online one or maybe both. In any kind of business, you would require a medium to receive online payments in a secure manner. It needs to be the startup suitable and at the same time providing the best services.
So if you have a website then it can be added to the website, that is, it can be integrated into the website. This is possible when you have the online medium to collect payments like a website, blog, youtube, application, etc.
With your offline (shop, store, etc) or semi-online business (Facebook, Instagram, etc) too, you can provide your customers with the online payment options for that you may choose the one that provides the payment or master links for which website or application is not required. It can be copied from the merchant dashboard, pasted and sent to the customer through Whatsapp, messenger, email, etc.
Support and Response
You should test the responsiveness of the payment gateway in any queries, concerns, issues that need to be resolved. It is very much necessary that you are not stuck at a point especially when your finances are in question. Getting stuck when your finances are in question is quite depressing, and many payment gateways lack in providing robust support services.
Contact options like email, live chat and call support should be provided and the team must resolve your issue on time.
Secured and Easy Checkout
The main fear for the customers and eventually for the merchants is that their funds and data should be safe. Choose the gateway that follows the strict security compliances like the PCI DSS compliance, Encryption standards, follows SSL, etc
A checkout with a few required details with complex processes should be chosen, so you can have a test mode checked and see if your customer will be able to complete it without abandoning that.
Choose the one easy to switch
Experience is the best teacher so if you aren’t sure about a payment gateway then you must not pay a hefty setup fee. So that you can easily switch to another.
You may try and keep even the multiple ones keeping in mind the cost-effectiveness and the features that they offer.
The reputation of the Payment Gateway
Being a startup you need the face of your business i.e. a payment gateway to be reputed and known. This helps the customers to make the payment with confidence and avoids the dropouts. So choose one with a good impression in the market for the customers to trust their money with it.
Conclusion-
Other aspects to be considered are that the payment gateway should be able to cope up if you have a high-risk business, also it should be able to provide the high rate of successful transaction rate, last but not the least, it should have a fraud and dispute management system to tackle any dispute between buyer and seller unbiasedly.
