Why an external Payment Page is the best solution for Ecommerce Payments

If you are looking to set up an online store, figuring out how you’ll get paid is a very important matter. Most businesses usually choose between hosted and native payment gateways. What separates the two is that if you choose a hosted payment gateway, then your customers will be redirected to the payment page hosted by the payment service provider you have chosen. Non-hosted (native) payment gateways, on the other hand, allow the customer to pay without redirecting him to a different page.

While some people claim that redirecting your customers to an external ecommerce payment gateway reduces conversion, this couldn’t be further from the truth! Redirecting your customers doesn’t reduce conversions, unless you choose a substandard online payment gateway. So the important thing is to make a smart choice.

Debunking the myth that redirecting a customer to a payment gateway reduces conversion

We’ve been providing merchants with online payment solutions for years and not once has a merchant claimed that Smart Checkout (Our own hosted payments page) caused their conversion rates to drop. On the contrary, the customers of our merchant clients that use Smart Checkout proceed to pay on an average rate of 87.6% across Europe (that number is even higher in certain countries, like the UK, where it sits at 91.1%). That number climbs even higher, to 97.2% when talking about customers that have saved their card on Smart Checkout.

Why Smart Checkout is the most efficient way to accept payments online

These impressive conversion rates didn’t happen by accident, they are a direct result of the numerous online payment options and unique features Smart Checkout offers, as it:

• Offers multiple payment methods, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay and PayPal, as well as local card schemes, local digital wallets, and alternative payment methods such as Trustly.
• Supports saved cards, across merchants & countries, without the need for the customer to create an account; this means that customers may use their saved cards from past purchases, even from other merchants; we currently have a pool of over 1 million saved cards that can be used from customers across all merchants using Smart Checkout
• Dynamically shows payment methods most likely to convert, taking into consideration the device and location of the customer, as well as the customer’s past behavior and preferences across merchants & countries
• Performs card decline recovery to improve conversion (by 1–2% on average across Europe)

How ‘outsourcing’ ecommerce payment processing helps you save time and money

If you choose the right hosted payment gateway provider, you will never have to worry about your payments page, as the provider will make enhancements on an ongoing basis in order to:

• offer new features that further enhance customer experience and increase conversion rates
• provide additional online payment options as they are introduced and grow in popularity
• remain compliant with ever-changing regulatory requirements

If you decide to build your own payment page, you will have to spend significant time on trying to remain compliant with regulations, adding new payment methods and performing regular updates. On the other hand, Smart Checkout does all the above and even more and it requires no coding from you. We take care of everything, and all enhancements are immediately & automatically rolled out to all merchants

Offer all the online payment methods & conversion-increasing features you need with minimal effort

Another major drawback you will face if you choose to build your own online payment gateway is the countless hours you will have to spend on integrating with several APIs offered by different payment providers, to offer enough ecommerce payment methods, and even more effort to offer functionality and features that ensure high conversion rates. Keep in mind that 55% of consumers in Europe pay with a payment method other than card, so there are numerous payment options you will need to add to your payment page to remain competitive. Meanwhile, integrating with Smart Checkout is fast and easy and comes with:

• All features & all payment methods available out-of-the-box
• Full PCI & SCA/3DS support
• Single integration for all payment methods

Redirecting to the right payment gateway increases your revenue

That is the conclusion we have reached, as it should be obvious by now that redirecting to an external payment gateway doesn’t reduce your conversion rates. In fact, the numbers we have suggest that using Smart Checkout just increases your revenue since it:

• Increases conversion (It is continually increasing)
• Reduces operational costs (No more effort required to accept payments online)

Learn more about Smart Checkout and start accepting online payments!