The trend of online shopping is fast on the rise in India. As the days pass, customers depend more on online website for their wardrobe shopping needs and other services as well. It is only a matter of time before the web of online delivery spreads all over the country.
However, payment gateways in India have been very slow in catching up with e-commerce businesses. Their quantity currently does not match their quality.
Why PayPal is not an Option for Indian Online Merchants?
It would be easy for Indian Online Merchants if they could use the likes of PayPal but to use a PayPal powered payment gateway they would also need to stick the dollar currency, and the added costs of conversion which would not be beneficial for their business in the long run.
Inadequacies of Indian Payment Gateways:
Currently, some of the known Indian payment gateways are CCAvenue, PayZippy, DirecPay, EBS, ICICI Payseal, PayU and many more.
Compared to other big players in the market, Indian Payment Gateways have a long way to go. Failure of transactions is one of the big reasons that most online customers get turned off from. However, currently Indian Payment Gateways fair poorly in this area.
Another major area of concern among many online customers is these Gateways’ reluctance to take responsibility for payments that have not been patched through.
These are some major flaws that need to be worked as soon as possible. Currently, many potential customers choose not to go for online shopping because of their suspicion over the nature of online payments.
Things to Consider when Choosing a Payment Gateway
To understand how to choose a payment gateway you need first to understand why you need one. For online merchants, security is a big issue. They may not be dealing with hard cash, but online transfer of cash is just as risky.
You need to create a system in which all the payment details of your clients stay safe. Building a personal transaction security solution is more way more expensive than setting up your business. This is where Payment Gateways come.
Payment Gateways are mean to redirect online customers to a secure location where they can feed in card details for online transactions.
In order to pick the right payment gateways you need to:
1. Look for gateways with the widest coverage
In this case the more the merrier should be your mantra. You need to look for gateways that have tie ups with the most banks and have the facility to provide all forms of transactions. Currently in India, CCAvenue comes with the promise of the widest coverage, but EBS is not far behind.
2. Look for Gateways that fit your budget
Here’s a simple formula that you need to remember when shopping for payment gateways, there is an inverse relation between the setup fee and transactional charges. Small or startup businesses that are trying out different payment gateways will fare better if they invest in gateways with low setup fee.
Big companies can go for higher setup fees as it will benefit them in the long run because of lower transactional charges.
However, keeping the budget as a priority would be a fool’s mistake. Go for an option that gives you your money’s worth. Choosing a bad payment gateway just because it costs less, ends up turning away potential customers and causing you more loss than you can imagine.
Given below are some payment gateways that you can check out for your website:
- CCAvenue
CCAvenue is one of the first payment gateways built for India. It is the biggest in terms of everything. It has the widest bank coverage as well as the highest number of customers. However, in terms of efficiency it is nowhere close to PayPal.
It has gained widespread popularity in India, simply because it was the first payment gateway to arrive in India. Its popularity has made it reticent to change, and this is what their biggest drawback is.
As they currently cater to over 85% of the online business industry, which has made them the king of all payment gateways in India. As such, they pay little to no attention to their customer service. Such negligence can cost them clients in the long run.
Economy Plan | |
Setup Fee | 0 |
Credit Card | 5% |
Debit Card | 1.25% for all plans |
Netbanking(25+ banks) | 4% |
EMIs | 3.5% for 3 months and 5.5% for 6 months |
Annual Maintenance | Rs. 1200/- |
Other Payment plans | http://www.ccavenue.com/pricing.jsp |
- EBS
EBS is currently the closest challenger to CCAvenue. They may not have as wide a coverage as CCAvenue; however, they are currently making many strides in their services.
They have a very attentive and willing to help customer care service that has a good record for customer satisfaction.
They offer all the services that CCAvenue does, minus a few banks at much more competitive prices.
And unlike CCAvenue they are willing to listen to complaints and fix them for you.
They are even willing to create customized plans for small companies. Currently, they cater to well known clients like Healthkart, Indiangiftsportal, travelyaari and many small and mid level e-commerce business.
Regular Plan | |
Setup Fee | Rs. 12000/- |
Credit Card | 5% |
Debit Card | 5% |
Netbanking (25+ banks) | 5% |
EMIs | 5% |
Cash Cards | 5% |
Annual Maintenance | Rs 3600/- |
- DirecPay
Launched by TimesofMoney, DirecPay is another up and coming payment gateway in India. With big clients like McDonalds, DirecPay pretty much comes with the promise of a good payment gateway service. Their plans are designed in a simple and straightforward fashion. Big clients who are on the lookout for affordable plans would especially like their premium, which has one of the lowest transactional rates among Indian Payment Gateways.
Basic Plan | |
Setup Fee | Rs. 7500/- |
Credit Card | 4.5% |
Debit Card | 1.25% |
Netbanking (25+ banks) | 4% |
EMIs | 3% for 3 months and 5.5% for 6 months |
Cash Cards | 4% |
Annual Maintenance | Rs. 2400/- |
- PayZippy
Flipkart is India’s biggest Ecommerce success story. They are currently following on Amazon’s footsteps. Just like Amazon they have created their payment gateway solution PayZippy that they have also released for other Ecommerce startups.
The good thing about PayZippy is the fact that they do not charge any setup for their plans. Merchants using PayZippy simply have to the pay the transaction fee that is mentioned in their plans as well as some annual maintenance charges, and they are good to go.
Their current client list includes online sellers like Babyoye, Lenskart, Bluestone and maykemytrip.com.
Plan(0-5 lakhs sales) | |
Setup Fee | 0 |
Credit Card | 3.5% |
Debit Card | 1.25% |
Netbanking (25+ banks) | 3.5% |
EMIs | To be launched |
Cash Cards | To be launched |
Annual Maintenance | 0 |
- Paysignet
Just like PayZippy, Paysignet also comes with a pretty simple, earn and pay plan. With a setup cost of Rs. 3000, the rest of the payment procedure depends on the transaction costs. And these transaction charges lower as the monthly sales of the website increase.
This is a pretty straightforward plan and a good one for startup companies as they won’t have the cash to setup for a premium account with well-known payment gateways like CCAvenue and EBS.
Plan | |
Setup Fee | 3000 |
Credit Card | 5% |
Debit Card | 4% |
Netbanking (25+ banks) | 2.75% |
EMIs | No details found |
Cash Cards | No details found |
Annual Maintenance | No maintenance fee |
So drop this phase of indecision and pick out the payment gateway that will be the most effective within your budget range.