How to Choose Your Checkout Integration

You've decided to open an online store and the next step is to choose your checkout.

There are a few different ways to integrate an online payment solution into your new eCommerce business. Choosing the checkout that's best for your business is not always easy - they look and sound different, and sometimes you'll need a little bit of everything. Ultimately, the checkout integration you choose will depend on the type of functionality you need.

To help get your business going seamlessly, we've outline three popular payment integration methods along with their key benefits and things to consider. All of these options will help you provide your customers with a secure, fast and smooth checkout experience.

If you'd like to learn more about how checkout design improves sales, read this blog.

SHOPPING CART INTEGRATION

Popular shopping carts include Magento, NitroSell and Woocommerce. Finding the shopping cart that's best for you takes a little research but ultimately, you'll need to look out for these must-haves:

• Customisable, e.g. with mobile friendly themes
• A stable hosting environment, whether via the Cloud or an online premise
• Unlimited APIs so you can enhance your user experience, e.g. add sign-up forms
• Integrations and plugins so you can easily hook your store with your payment processor, accounting software, inventory management system and logistics platforms
• SEO features such as customisable navigation links, customisable URLs, canonical URLs, metadata, image alt tags, 301 directs, social sharing buttons and a lot more

Installing an eCommerce plugin that can integrate with your chosen payment processor is an easy way to facilitate payments through your website. There are a number of custom shopping cart plugins available for businesses of every shape and size and it's a great solution if you don't have access to a developer. Installing an eCommerce platform payment plugin is the easiest method of payment integration as it'll require minimal customisation.

Pros of Shopping Cart Integration:

• No need to worry about becoming PCI compliant
• Integration is quick and easy
• You can leverage your shopping cart's customer support
• You won't need a developer or technical support

Things to consider:

• Payment plugins for shopping carts don't allow for a whole lot of customisation to your checkout experience
• As it's a plugin, you'll receive a limited set of functionalities when compared to a much more customisable checkout solution

Related reading: How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment

HOSTED PAYMENT PAGES

There are two types of hosted payment pages: embedded and off-site. The host in both instances is your payment processor.

Off-site:

The off-site hosted payment page directs your customer off your website. Once the shopper reaches your checkout page, they are directed to a separate, totally secure, checkout page. Once they've filled in their details and clicked submit, they are then seamlessly redirected back to your website.

Embedded:

This is the more customisable hosted payment page.

This payment page is embedded into your website's checkout page via an iFrame. Usually, your payment processor will create this iFrame for you and offer some customisable elements that ensures the form reflects the look and feel of your site. Your customer inputs their card and personal details into the form and the iFrame functionality securely sends them to the payment processor.

Pros of Hosted Payment Pages:

• You'll have the option to use a template or customise your iFrame form
• No need to worry about PCI compliance
• Integration via your chosen payment processor is quick and secure
• Fraud checks and security (depending on your payment processor)

Things to consider:

• While you'll be able to customise some elements of the iFrame page, it can be quite limited
• You may not be able to customise your off-site payment page, so you'll lose the look and feel of your site, but customers will be reassured the checkout is safe by trust icons and the logo of your payment processor
• You'll need a little technical knowledge

API INTEGRATION

This is the most technical of our three integration methods.

For merchants who want full control over their checkout page - from branding to functionality - opting for full API integration is the way to go. How does API integration differ from the previous two integrations? Unlike with shopping cart integrations and hosted payment pages, a full API integrations means that your entire checkout experience is hosted on your website.

Your customer will enter their credit or debit card information directly into fields on your website, and you'll design and control the user experience. No forms of iFrames.

Pros of API Integration:

• Your checkout becomes fully customisable, enabling to keep shoppers on your site as well as fully reflect your brand's identity
• Payment APIs can be integrated seamlessly to process your card payements
• You can develop a sophisticated mobile checkout flow
• Value added services like subscription billing, single-click purchase, tokenisation and refunds are all made easier through API

Things to consider:

• API integrations require a lot of technical know-how, so you will need an experienced developer and a long-term technical assistance plan
• As a payment processor is not hosting your checkout solution, you'll need to consider PCI compliance; some payment processors like Bambora, offer fully customisable solutions that enable merchants to leverage their PCI compliance

ACCEPT PAYMENTS WITH BAMBORA

Bambora offer our customers three types of payment integration: Custom Checkout, iFrame Checkout and External Checkout.

Our Custom Checkout solution is via full API integration and is fast, easy to integrate and works seamlessly across browser, mobile and tablet. We've designed Custom Checkout to scale with your business; offering real growth through many value-added features as well as localised currency and alternative payment methods.

Our iFrame Checkout option is a smart payment page that's embedded into your site - perfect for merchants who want to get up and running quickly who may not have access to technical support. We're here for you all the way.

And finally - you guessed it - our External Checkout is for merchants who want to accept payments through their shopping cart. We offer payment plugins for the following major shopping carts: Magento, NitroSell and Woocommerce.

If you're a merchant looking for a straight-forward, high conversion payment experience, get in touch with our local team and we'll advise which payment integration is best for you.

We do payments, so you can do business!