When you are setting up an e-commerce site for the first time, the easiest option to take online payments was PayPal, you just needed to set up and account and you or the website developer just had to add the email of the account to the system and away you went. Your online shop could now take payments…WOOO!
But not everyone has a PayPal account, not everyone understands that you can pay by card on PayPal without an account and it takes the customer away from the site forcing them to login to PayPal and then complete the payment. Which if they don’t do, you lose the sale, which is all round rubbish really.
So what is the alternative, Stripe. It was established in 2011 by 2 brothers who found that taking payments online was unnecessarily complicated so they set about simplifying it. And simplify it they have! Customers are no longer taken to a separate site, the complete the payment right there on your website, it couldn’t be easier. Even the fees are lower at just 1.4% + 20p per transaction, which is half the cost of PayPal. It does require the site to have a Security certificate which in the biz is known as an SSL Certificate which you have an ongoing yearly cost but this has benefits too, Google is adding it to it’s ranking alogorithm, so if you have a secure site you might jump up a few places. It’s still early on in the analysis but every little can only help in the ongoing fight to get your site recognised!
We are not in anyway affiliated with Stripe, please let that be clear we just love the simplicity of it, finally an easy to use and set up system for taking payments online.
You can read more about the brothers journey in creating Stripe on a BBC News article. Make you wish you had thought of the idea first! If you are thinking about making your shop into an e-commerce one or have and idea to sell a product send us an email and we can chat through the options