If you’re looking to start in ecommerce then you need to decide how you will take online payments. PayPal is a good choice because it’s popular and trusted these days. However you may also want to give your customers the ability to pay by credit / debit card. Giving your customers a choice of payment options helps you secure orders which you may otherwise lose to competitors.
Having worked on a variety of ecommerce sites recently I’ve decided to partner up with Worldpay who offer a great service to their merchants. All you need to do is sign up for an online account and then let us do the rest.
Worldpay is a good choice because it is very easy to set up with Woocommerce and the technical support is good.
What does your website need to be approved by Worldpay?
Before allowing payments, Worldpay like to review your website to ensure it meets their standards. Here’s what they look for:
Company details
You should display your company name, registration number (if it’s Ltd.), VAT reg number if you have one, and contact details somewhere on the site. The most common place to put these is in your website footer.
Delivery / Shipping policy
Whenever you’re selling online you need to make it obvious to your customers what your delivery charges are. Offering free delivery, or a standard flat rate can really make the decision to buy from you a whole lot easier. Worldpay just want to see a page where this is outlined before they approve your site.
Refund / Returns policy
As well as possibly having to adhere to Consumer Contracts Regulations, you need to make sure you explain your returns or refund policy to your customers. Confidence is so important when buying online, and if a customer doesn’t feel confident in your website or brand then you’re going to lose sales. You need to make them feel that if anything does go wrong, you’ll still offer them top notch customer service.
Card payment logos
Worldpay can provide these but basically you need to display the logos such as VISA, Mastercard, PayPal on your website or somewhere in your shop. I usually put these in the footer.
Do a test purchase
If your site is built by StudioRav then you’ll have no problem in this department. Worldpay will just make a test purchase and ensure all the features such as the cart and checkout functionality work as they should.
What happens next?
Once the site is approved by Worldpay I usually ask my clients to make a few test purchases (in Sandbox mode – which is like a test mode) and once they are happy the account can be set to live. A few minor tweaks and then we’re good to go.
If you are interested in setting up credit card payments then follow this link and someone from Worldpay will walk you through it all.