Building e-commerce functionality into client sites has traditionally been difficult and often frustrating for Web developers. But, says Innovation Boutique MD Francois Brill, Paygate’s range of developer support tools has made the process much easier — and client sales are doubling or tripling as a result.
“Paygate recently supported and advised us in the process of building a new online shop for the South African wing of international cosmetics distributor Isabella Garcia,” says Brill. “Combined with appropriate SEO, our redevelopment of the site has resulted in a 174% increase in page views since February 2014, with a more than 300% increase in the number of products sold per month. That tells us that users are feeling much more secure and comfortable with buying online.”
Brill says that for Isabella Garcia, as for most small businesses, Innovation Boutique recommended an offsite payment gateway: “This means that when customers click the “pay” button on a checkout page, the transaction is completed in a secure popup window from a payment service provider like PayGate. This is easy to implement, and customers often feel more secure seeing the name of a gateway they recognise.”
Enabling on-site integrated payments is only for large, established online retailers with substantial budgets, adds Brill. “The security requirements are much more stringent, you need to do much more development work and there is more risk.”
Brill says PayGate’s free shopping cart plugins and strong developer support made the development process much easier. “Wordpress is now the standard development platform, and open source online retailing platforms like WooCommerce mean you don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of rands to get into e-commerce development.”
Things are now easier for businesses as well as for developers, adds Brill: “The first hurdle for small businesses wanting to sell online has always been getting a merchant account from their bank so they can accept credit card payments, and finding an affordable payment gateway. PayGate’s new Payment Collection Service (PCS) solves the problems as well as making it more pleasant for developers.
Brill also advises developers to sign clients up for monthly maintenance plans: “It’s no longer good enough to make a website and then leave it alone for a year. Just like a car needs petrol and oil and regular services, so a website needs regular software updates, security upgrades, backups and other maintenance. As a critical business tool, the website really deserves ongoing investment.”