3 Reasons Why a Hosted Payments Page Can Benefit Your Business
January 17, 2020
Whether you are a small, one-location retailer or a growing business-to-business (B2B) service provider, your business needs to be able to accept online payments. A hosted payments page is the best solution to attract more customers, stay ahead of the competition and grow revenue.
Electronic payments show no signs of slowing down. Online retail sales surged during the recent holidays, increasing 19% compared to 2018, according to Mastercard. Not surprisingly, consumers continue to use cards as the preferred method of payment. Cash purchases declined to 26% of all retail transactions in 2018 compared to 30% the prior year, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Debit cards were the number one method (28% of payments), followed by credit cards (23% of transactions, a 2% increase from 2017).
A hosted payment page can easily be set up by a merchant services company. The page is located outside your business’s website, but the design is coordinated to match the look of your site. Customers arrive at the page after they click a “buy now” button where they are redirected to a secure page to enter payment information to complete their purchase. It is a seamless process that is so simple that any business – CBD merchants, B2B companies or child care providers – can be taking online payments in a matter of days.
Here are three key benefits of having a hosted payments page:
1. Accelerates access to cash
A hosted payment page can speed up customer payments, reduce outstanding accounts receivable and provide a merchant with quicker access to cash to reinvest in the business. That is especially important for B2B companies, most of which still receive payment by check. Another benefit is that recurring payments can also be set up to make it easy for customers to pay their bills. The page also can be configured to accept different forms of payment, like ACH, to provide customers more options.
2. Reduces clerical-data entry errors
The days of merchants taking orders and entering payments the old-fashioned way – commonly referred to as MOTO, or mail-order/telephone order – are quickly going away because the process is extremely inefficient. Online payments reduce data-entry errors clerks make when keying in customer purchases that can delay purchases (and access to cash). Common mistakes, such as mixing up numbers on a zip code or incorrectly entering email addresses, are minimized with a hosted payments page because error messages appear on critical fields.
3. Improves security
With a self-hosted payment solution, the merchant takes on the burden – and the costs – of federal and state compliance to protect sensitive customer data. With a hosted payment page, customer data protection is outsourced to the credit card processor. Merchants still must be PCI compliant (meeting the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards), but having a hosted payment page means you are not liable for fraudulent activity. Another important factor: Customers may not follow through on a purchase if they think your checkout page is not secure.
A website is secure when the URL begins with “https” instead of “http.”
It takes hard work and dedication to manage and grow a business. Providing customers with a simple payment solution should be the least of your concerns. A customized, hosted payment page allows you to focus more time and energy finding (and keeping) customers and providing them excellent service so you can build your company.
