Too often, merchants get caught up in the debate of which is more important: Payment processor or payment gateway. But it’s really a trick question.
The answer is they are both vital to your business' success.
There’s a symphony of steps that take place after a customer swipes, dips, or taps their credit card for a transaction. Data has to be transmitted from the point of sale (POS) to the customer’s issuing bank and then back to the merchant’s account. And it all happens in a matter of seconds.
The players in that symphony include merchants, customers, card issuer bank companies, acquiring banks, payment processors and payment gateways.
Most of the heavy lifting is performed by the last two.
Let’s start with definitions:
A payment gateway securely manages the consumer’s transaction data for processing, authorizes the payment, and encrypts the information.
A payment processor transmits the transaction details and transfers the funds.
While payment gateways are often agnostic, payment processors tend to be payment type-specific, meaning there are payment processors for credit card transactions and digital wallets online and for various devices in stores.
The two entities work together to safely process transactions in this way:
Of course, none of this is free. Merchants incur fees-per-card transactions that include an interchange rate charged by the credit card company. All payment processors generally charge transaction fees that are either a flat rate or an interchange rate.
Now back to the question of payment processor or payment gateway. Can a merchant just use payment processors?
Technically, yes, but it requires far more work than today’s merchants can afford to manage.
Every merchant has to work with at least one payment processor to do business. But today’s consumer expects multiple payment options, so you either have to juggle the contracts, integrations, payloads, and reporting files for all of the payment processors or rely on a payment gateway to manage everything.
That’s why it makes sense to use a payment platform that combines both.
The benefits of using a comprehensive platform are plenty:
In today’s fast-paced online environment, integrations are the last thing your company should have to tackle. This is especially the case with the most common payment processors and shopping carts. Your developers have better things to do than build custom integrations when Payroc has an API for that.
Using a payment platform, you can create frictionless customer experiences with APIs for the most popular payment processors and shopping carts such as Shopify, WooCommerce, OpenCart and Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento). It gets even easier when your payment platform is processor-agnostic. That’s when you get the most flexibility and adaptability as payment technologies evolve.
Another benefit is the ability to provide omnichannel payments.
Now that the pandemic has passed, merchants are returning to in-store sales in addition to online. Your payment gateway should be able to handle both and offer omnichannel payments that include card-present and card-not-present payments.
Specifically, the payment platform you choose should be able to manage:
Omnichannel payments, all managed in one gateway, makes it possible to have reporting across the spectrum of your business.
When your payment platform transmits all payment processor data through a single channel, the result is a single source of truth for all transactions. That means you can pull comprehensive reports across your entire business without having to customize and translate raw data files from disparate systems.
Not only does this allow for more efficient operations, but it also allows merchants to measure marketing and sales tactics across payment types. For example, the impact of a coupon offer on credit card versus digital wallet transactions.
By compiling data, merchants also have a better chance of detecting fraud attempts. Keep in mind that criminals use multichannel tactics. Comprehensive reporting makes returns and refunds easier, and it can more quickly highlight coupon abuse, return fraud, and other types of policy abuse.
At Payroc, we offer both payment processing and a payment gateway as part of a payment platform.
Our payment processing delivers prominent features:
Our payment gateway adheres to the PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) for safely processed, transmitted, and stored data. It helps you easily process credit cards online safely and seamlessly with virtual terminal and payment gateway solutions.
With Payroc’s fully integrated platform, you take control by designing customized payments and creating a checkout experience that keeps customers happy and coming back.
Additional features include:
To find out more about Payroc’s comprehensive payment platform, contact us today.