A payment gateway is an e-commerce payment processing service that authorizes payments for transactions made on the internet. If you go in to any shop in the high street and pay for an item with your credit or debit card, The shop will most likely swipe your card or ask you to put it in a point of sale terminal and enter your pin, this then sends the details of the transaction to the bank or to a company that checks with the bank if the funds are available in your account. Payment gateways protect credit cards details by encrypting sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information passes securely between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and payment processor.

You dont need a payment gateway to recieve orders if you are not going to recieve payment for the orders online. However if you do wish to fully automate the ordering process and recieve payments via your website then you will need an account with a Payment Gateway.

There are many many Payment gateways to choose from on the internet. We have put together a short list of a few of them to the right, but there are many more available to choose from.

They each have their own pricing structure. Some charge to set up the account, as well as a monthly fee and then a percentage or charge for each transaction, others like Paypal or Google Checkout dont charge to set uo the account, they simply charge a small percentage of the transaction. Depending on the levels of sales you anticipate and the sort of prices you will be charging, the right payment gateway for you may not be the same as the right one for somneone else. Feel free to contact us if you need further advice on this.