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Profit optimizationThe 4 Best WooCommerce Payment Gateways to Maximize ProfitDid you know that there are over 70 payment gateways available for WooCommerce businesses? With so much to choose from, it's hard to know which payment gateway is best for your WooCommerce store.
Choosing a payment gateway is as important as choosing between WooCommerce vs. Shopify. It is essential to select the right payment gateway from the get-go to avoid future complications from changing at a later stage.
In this article, we'll cover factors to consider when choosing a WooCommerce payment gateway to maximize profit and the four best WooCommerce payment processors for your e-commerce store.
How to Choose the Best WooCommerce Payment Gateway to Maximize Profit
First, let’s discuss why a payment gateway is important and how it affects profits.
A payment gateway could maximize profits or lead to losses. If customers don’t find their preferred payment methods, they’ll sometimes not pay at all, leading to an increased abandoned cart rate. However, if customers go through a seamless WooCommerce payment processing system at checkout, they’ll pay for the products and could even buy more.
Here are some of the things you should consider when choosing a payment gateway:
The Location of Your Business and Customers
Like any other business, there are both advantages and disadvantages of e-commerce. An advantage is that you get to reach more customers globally. If you have foreign customers, you should consider if the payment gateway is available to them. Other gateways require the merchants to be in specific countries.
Your Business Type
If your business is subscription-based, you'll require a WooCommerce payment gateway integration system that accepts subscriptions or automatic payments.
Having a payment gateway that handles in-house payments is best If you have both physical and online-based businesses.
The Cost of the Payment Gateway
Apart from transactional costs that every payment gateway provider requires, some require additional WooCommerce fees like setup costs, subscription fees, and sign-up fees.
Compare the 4 Best Payment Gateways for WooCommerce
PayPal
Having a market share of 50%, PayPal is the most popular and trusted payment gateway known to customers. Especially for new e-commerce businesses that are not known, adding a popular gateway makes customers feel secure to buy products.
Pricing
PayPal is free for buyers, while merchants pay 2.9% plus 30 cents for every transaction and an extra 1.5% fee for international payments.
Some of the Key features of PayPal include:
Support in over 200 countries and for 26 currencies.Support for commonly used credit and debit cards.An in-built fraud prevention and risk management system.No monthly charges, gateway fees, or subscriptions.
Some of PayPal's cons include:
Restricting the plugin to those who have a PayPal business account.Not handling payments on your site, but instead redirecting customers to the PayPal checkout page.Not working for recurring WooCommerce subscription-based businesses.
Stripe
Supporting over 135 currencies in over 26 countries, Stripe has gained popularity in e-commerce businesses. It's best for international businesses and those that are both online and in-house.
Stripe is one of the WooCommerce custom payment gateways that provides options to customize your checkout, making your business unique. This is just one of the many differences between Stripe vs. PayPal.
Pricing
Similar to PayPal, Stripe has no setup or monthly costs and charges flat rates of 2.9% fee plus 30 cents per transaction and an additional 1% fee for international payments. Also, an additional 1% for currency conversion.
Some of the key features of Stripe include:
Easy handling of recurring payments that are great for subscription businesses.Processing refunds automatically.Accepting payments directly to your WooCommerce store both on the web and on mobile.Supporting digital payments like Google Pay, Apple Pay, Microsoft Pay, and Alipay.Free integration for your WooCommerce store with no setup or monthly costs.
Stripe has very few cons, with the only significant one requiring some software development expertise to use the open API and tools.
WooCommerce Payments
WooCommerce Payments is a great plugin that accepts payments online. It offers a deeper integrated payment system for your store and a better checkout experience.
To use it, you’ll need a WordPress account and the JetPack plugin installed.
Pricing
Similar to Paypal and Stripe, WooCommerce Payments is free, having no setup costs and monthly fees. It only charges the standard transactional fees of 2.9% and 30 cents per transaction with an additional 1% fee for non-US issued cards.
Some of the key features of WooCommerce Payments include:
Viewing all your payments and cash flows while also managing revenue on your store’s dashboard without logging into other sites.Accepting payments in over 135 currencies and common credit cards, debit cards, and digital payments.A streamlined checkout where customers don't leave the WooCommerce store.Managing refunds easily.
Some of WooCommerce Payments' cons include:
Limiting use to certain countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and a few others.Having to install the JetPack plugin to your WooCommerce store before being able to use it.
Authorize.net
Authorize.net is one of the best WooCommerce payment plugins. It has great features, especially for startups, such as advanced fraud protection tools that protect both customers and your business.
Pricing
Authorize.net charges monthly fees of $25 in addition to the 2.9% + 30 cents base rate per transaction.
Some of the key features of Authorize.net include:
Accepting all major credit and debit card payments as well as PayPal.Handling refunds, subscriptions, preorders, allowing customers to try products before having to pay.Allowing customers to save payment details for faster checkouts next time.Providing reminders to users with automated payments for future transactions.
Some of Authorize.net's cons include:
Availability only to merchants in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and Europe.Monthly subscription fees of $25.
Should You Change From Your Existing Payment Gateway?
It is worth it to change to a different gateway if your current gateway isn't providing beneficial features for your business. You may face some issues while changing gateways, but it will be worth it in the end.
If you want to offer your customers more payment methods, adding more gateways is better. We recommend having at least 2 WooCommerce payment gateways to better serve your customers.
Conclusion
Having a payment gateway is the last step to closing a sale. It’s the point where your customers put in credit card information and release funds. If you choose the wrong payment gateway, customers will leave your site and buy from other stores.
PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net, and WooCommerce are the top 4 best payment gateways for e-commerce businesses.
Profit optimizationPower Up Your eCommerce Plan With This Black Friday Marketing StrategyFor marketers and brands, 9 PM on Black Friday can feel like the final few minutes of the moon landing. It’s the time at which sales typically reach their apex and your team finally discovers whether their hard work and strategy paid off. When it does go to plan, eCommerce stores can expect to make around 30% of their annual revenue over the November holiday season. But if it doesn’t: Houston, we have a problem!
Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) get tougher to navigate every year. Shoppers are overwhelmed with options and paralyzed with decisions, plus wise to the tricks and nudges marketers are using to get them to spend more. That means brands must start each BFCM campaign earlier, be more creative, and hang in there longer after checkout is complete.
The prize? It’s a once-a-year opportunity to clear excess inventory in time for Christmas, acquire new customers, and fill the funnel for the future.
Where Can Brands Go Wrong With BFCM?
Inevitably, as a consumer, you are going to see this in November — brands you haven’t heard from in weeks or months will start peppering your inbox with their BFCM automated flows (although your spam folder is probably the more likely destination.) Is there something new? Sadly not. For the most part, the products are from the current inventory list, but with — wait for it — a 20% discount! Don’t be that brand.
Black Friday weekend is the busiest time of year for stores and marketers. It’s noisy and intrusive, but customers indulge us because there are deals to be seized. Without proper planning, however, eCommerce stores find themselves discounting items that could have gone for full price, going out of stock due to an unexpected demand or spending heavily to convert customers who are never heard from again.
Some brands even skip the whole experience altogether — particularly if you’re a luxury retailer, BFCM discounts may not be a good fit for your long-term strategy. You could even emulate REI, the outdoor-gear retailer that chooses to give employees Black Friday off to #optoutside instead - which is very much on brand for them.
But if you’re in, go all in. Here’s how...
Adjust Advertising Plans To Fill the Funnel
Prep well ahead if you want to feast over Thanksgiving. That means seeding the funnel from a distance, building interest and excitement, educating leads, and getting customers used to seeing you in their inbox and on their social media feeds. As customers engage, segment them by interest, behavior, and demographics so that you’re delivering a relevant message at each touch point of the customer journey.
That might sound like the conventional funnel, but this one comes with an expiration date. Because once Thanksgiving is over, it’s time to unleash the BFCM discounts and special offers. At this point, your list should be warmed up and your customers aware of your products and brand values — ready to convert. Rather than trying to pitch a discount to new prospects — never a good idea — you can invite them to storm the checkout with a fully loaded shopping cart.
Bear in mind that generating leads through paid social advertising means competing in an even more crowded marketplace around the holiday season. The average CTR for Facebook ads during the year is 0.89% across all sectors. Although conversion rates can increase by up to 36% over Black Friday weekend, it’s harder to grab a slice of the pie.
Plus with the iOS App Tracking Transparency changes, it’s more expensive than ever!
Try These Strategies
Bring in the influencers to build buzz around your brand in a more authentic way that speaks directly to their audience.Offer early-bird specials and VIP sneak peeks to break out of the same cycle everyone else is using.
Launch Time — Discounts Done Right
Discounts are most effective when they’re delivered as an unexpected reward. But everybody expects a BFCM deal, so surprises have to be more sophisticated.
Offer an alternative. Who knew that 20% of shoppers prefer free shipping to a discount? Similarly, gift wrapping or personalization can unlock responses that price reductions can no longer reach. Save your best deals for your most loyal customers. VIPs spend three times more than your other customers, but usually make up only around 5% of your list. Encourage customers to spend more, not less. Use your discounts to lure buyers toward higher-ticket items or bigger shopping carts, instead of offering them from the outset storewide. Likewise, discount certain product categories only, not the whole store. That adds an element of exclusivity.
If you do run discounts, all your deals should be prominent on your landing page. Ideally, you want to separate them from the everyday stock with a distinctive color scheme, theme or mega-menu. Consider adding payment options such as “Buy Now, Pay Later” or one-click checkout. Nothing extinguishes the buzz of a big discount like a long, convoluted checkout process. Shopify recommends ditching the coupons and codes altogether, because they add friction and customers find them annoying. Instead, run dynamic scripts that apply discounts once a shopping cart reaches a specific target.
Don’t overlook A/B testing just because it’s Black Friday. In fact, make it a priority to test send times, discounts versus other offers, even copy lines and creative. If your e-commerce store is about to be swamped with shoppers, there’s a lot of valuable insight to be gathered for your ongoing marketing strategy.
Leverage SMS and Email To Boost Conversions
Although the trusted approach is to set up a solid funnel to grab attention on social media, nurture leads through email or content marketing, then convert with discounts when BFCM weekend arrives — it’s not always that simple.
Customers can reach your eCommerce store over the holiday season from all angles, with or without intent, for the first time or as a repeat visitor, happy to browse or ready to buy. Whatever route they’ve taken to reach your store, the frightening reality is that around 75% will leave by abandoning their cart.
Without SMS, Messenger, and email to retarget them, weeks or months of hard work (and budget) could be lost at the final hurdle. The key takeaway? Don’t overlook lifecycle marketing. SMS in particular can boast open rates as high as 98%. Exploiting SMS will also force everyone to keep mobile top of mind when crafting their strategy.
Bear in mind that around 60% to 70% of your customers are going to view your Black Friday campaign on mobile. That means your site has to be responsive, your emails dynamic, and your checkout process as frictionless as possible.
Reap the Rewards After the Season Is Over
Smart marketers know that the week after Cyber Monday is often just as popular as the two weeks leading up to Black Friday. After all, there’s no rule that says you have to shut down the sale when the clock strikes midnight. If everything has gone to plan, your store has a lot of happy customers, many of whom are first-time purchasers. Now is the time to turn them into brand loyalists and maximize their customer lifetime value.
From Conversion to Delight
Offer incentives for referrals, who typically generate 16% higher revenue than average customers and are four times more likely to refer other customers themselves. Upsell your related products based on previous purchases. If you’ve just treated a new customer to a Black Friday discount, they’re likely to have a positive opinion of your store.Continue to reward loyalty. They may have arrived as a BFCM shopper, but you can make them a VIP and grow their average order value or secure their subscription. Have a plan for returns. Around 30% of products purchased online are returned, and 80% of consumers expect their returns to be free. Now is not the time to turn a return into a positive customer experience rather than a negative outcome. A straightforward return policy and process can build trust which leads to repeat purchases.
Up for the challenge? Reach out to Hawke Media today with these points in mind and watch your eCommerce profits soar over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday week.
SOURCES
Dynamic Yield 7 Black Friday Mistakes to Avoid on Your Ecommerce Site
Shopify Black Friday Ecommerce: 15 Ideas, Tips & Strategies to 3X-10X Sales
Salecycle Black Friday 2021 Ultimate Ecommerce Strategy
Dixa Black Friday Cyber Monday 12-Point Ecommerce Checklist
Profit optimizationTop 6 Shopify Sales Funnel AppsGetting the perfect customers is quite tough. No one comes to an eCommerce store predetermined what to buy. You’d be lucky if you get such a customer once in a blue million. For the majority of your customers, you would have to create a funnel that would lead them to make the sale eventually. For most startup businesses, this is exactly the problem. Understanding and implementing the marketing funnel is the only solution to ensuring maximum conversions from your visitors. But, how do you do that? You Don’t. The Shopify funnel app does that for you. Fortunately, for Shopify customers, this mammoth task can be easily achieved through certain apps and tools. But, before that, you need to understand what the marketing funnel is.
Understanding the Marketing Funnel
The marketing funnel is a visual representation of a customer’s journey from being aware of a brand, to visiting its website page to finally making the sale. The marketing funnel demonstrates this journey in three major steps: awareness, consideration and conversion. Here’s an easy way to understand this:
Awareness: Customer sees your ad on social media or search engine
Consideration: Customer visits your website, goes through the product and weighs it for pros and cons.
Conversion: Customer finally decides to purchase your product.
By understanding the marketing funnel, you are able to better align your marketing campaigns with its goals. A brand awareness campaign should not be focused on generating maximum ROI. On the other hand, a remarketing campaign should be focused most on conversions, exactly what Shopify funnel apps contribute to.
How Do Shopify Sales Funnel Apps Help?
Shopify’s funnel apps help you improve the overall customer journey for your visitors, present your brand in a more professional manner and create processes that lead customers to buying your product. If you are looking for a sales funnel app on Shopify then here the top 5 most sort after ones for 2021:
Ali Reviews App:
What’s better than having direct reviews from Amazon & Ali Express customers as social proof to increase your website conversions? The Ali Reviews importer app by FireApps helps with a significant boost in product sales and strengthens customer trust. It allows importing authentic product reviews and photos so enhancing your credibility.
Pros:
Automated Review Request EmailsEasy moderation of product reviewsContributes to inline SEO with rich snippets Reviews available in 15 different languages24/7 customer support
Cons:
Might not work for all themes
Shogun Landing Page Builder:
Your landing page is the page where your customers land when they click on your ads. Unlike your home page, a landing page should be more aggressive, targeted to your audience, specific to their needs and professional enough to convince them to buy your products. That’s exactly what Shogun Landing Page Builder does for you. With its professionally designed templates, drag and drop functionality, and thousands of templates, you would have a compelling landing page that would convert your visitors into customers.
Pros:
Easy to Use with Drag & Drop FeatureMultiple Page Types such as Home, Landing Pages, Services, etc.Mobile & Performance OptimizedEasily to integrate with Google AnalyticsAwesome Support Team
Cons:
No call support for plans under $149No Free Plans Available
PageFly Fast Page Builder
PageFly is another popular landing page builder with more than 60 templates and individual section templates. In case, don’t like a particular section of the template you have selected, you can simply replace it with another. It’s easy and allows you to create professionally designed landing pages within minutes.
Pros:
There is a Free Version availableEasy to use drop and drag featureProfessionally designed page designsA separate database of professionally designed sectionsMobile & performance optimizedLive chat support Easily integrates with Google ads, analytics & FacebookThe dashboard includes visual representations of sales & conversions
Cons:
Limited Functionality with Free Version such as only one-page template per page type
Honeycomb Upsell Funnels
Probably one of the smartest Shopify apps to boost your sales! Honeycomb Upsell revolves around the idea of grabbing customer attention when they are about to make the sale, since this is considered the peak of a customer’s attention span. Once a customer buys a product or is about to buy a product, this app displays offers that compels them to add more to their cart. For instance, if a customer is buying a product at a certain price, the app might display a banner showing the same product plus another product with discounted prices. In most cases, customers don't mind paying a little bit extra to get two products for almost the price of one. You make an upsell there and then!
Pros:
Superb Performance of upsell banners in terms of speed and mobile compatibilityAI integration to scan customer history to suggest relevant upsell productsUnlike most apps, Honeycomb allows offers to appear on any page including thank you page or cart pageEasy to use and set up24/7 support on all packages and free accounts
Cons:
Limited funnel views with the free package
Zipify Pages Builder
Here’s another time-tested landing page building Shopify app with drag and drop functionality to make the task easier yet effective. With Zipify, you get the option of using pre-designed landing pages, build one from scratch or customize an existing template as per your liking. There are a bunch of tools that make the process easier for you.
Pros:
User-friendly drag and drop functionality to build awesome pagesCustomizable pagesMobile and device responsiveAllows you to copy the sales funnel to create more funnels Able to track visitor’s data for remarketing purposes
Cons:
No free package. Prices start from $67.
UFE Cross Sell & Upsell Funnel
With any eCommerce website, cross-selling is an opportunity and a missed one for those who don't know about it yet. Cross-selling is the art of selling related products to customers when they select a product. UFE takes this concept to another level by allowing you to offer freebies, gifts, coupons and complimentary offers to customers. It’s a simple tool that charts your cross-selling plans and executes them without any hassle.
Pros:
A user-friendly app that even beginners can use to chart cross-selling and upselling funnelsEasy to integrate and useAllows to create upsell pages, banners, pop-ups and the likeYou can monitor your customer’s journey liveSupport in multiple languages
Cons:
Software bugs, rarely though
Why Should You Care About Your Marketing Funnel?
If you are running an eCommerce business, understanding the way customers behave on websites is the key to maximizing your ROI. Certain elements remain constant regardless of how good your products or marketing campaigns are. This is why it becomes important to break down the process into a marketing funnel and focus on your offerings accordingly.
Once you implement a sales or marketing funnel, you’d be in a better position to implement strategies and tools for specific phases. For instance, it would be useless to offer upsells or cross-sells to a visitor when s/he hasn't even reached the checkout page yet. Only with effective marketing funnel tools, you will be able to grab your customer’s attention in accordance with the funnel phase they are in.
Profit optimizationBest Products to Sell Online in 2022 for Big Profit MarginsIn 2020, more than two billion people bought something online. So, there’s a massive market of potential customers. Though, what products are most profitable to sell?
Your product choices will depend primarily on whether you plan to sell locally or internationally, among other things. If your target audience is local, the top product to sell online will possibly not be the same as what’s trending globally. If you’re wondering what to sell online, here are some niche products for 2022 and other items to sell for profit.
Is Selling Online Profitable?
There are many high markup products to sell online. So, finding items with a high profit margin for businesses to sell is not necessarily the challenge. The trick is to see which products your target audience will like in order to personalize the customer experience. If you crack this code, you can definitely make money online.
How much money?
Well, that depends on several factors, including the type of product you sell, how good you are at marketing it, and how dedicated you are to making sales.
To gain greater insight into how much an online store is likely to make, see our performing product profit analysis for an online store guide to learn more.
Which Products Have the Highest Profit Margins?
According to Shopify, a good margin for selling online products is around 45%, and according to Insider Monkey, the software industry was the most profitable in 2021.
Alongside software, these winning products are also highly profitable:
Jewelry Beauty products Kids' toysWomen’s and men’s apparelDesigner sunglassesEco-friendly products
What Are the Low-Cost High-Profit Products?
On the other hand, products with low margins can also be lucrative products to sell. While hygiene products are inexpensive to produce, there’s almost a daily recurring demand for them, which makes them some of the best consumable products to sell.
On the one hand, offering lower-priced items can attract more buyers, help you stand out from your competition, and make your products available to a wider audience. However, there are also some disadvantages to selling low-cost items. For one, product margins are significantly less. Consequently, you’ll need to sell more products in order to make the same amount of money.
It’s not all bad, though.
To help attain the highest profit margins possible from low-cost items, tracking business expenses is a must. See our guide to optimizing online profit by tracking product expenses to learn more. It's also essential to understand the difference between gross profit and gross margin.
What E-Commerce Products Are Trending in 2022?
In 2021, some of the best things to sell online for profit include activewear, hair accessories, phone cases, and phone tripods. Some of the best consumable products to sell include pet food, quality tea, and craft drinks.
With more people focusing on their health and the environment, you can expect that reusable water bottles will be in demand in 2022. According to Grand View Research, the global reusable water bottle market size is expected to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 4% until 2028. It’s also one of the best products to sell on Shopify.
Grinders, drills, and other power tools commonly needed for home improvement projects are also good products to sell online in 2022. In fact, according to Global Market Insights, it’s expected to generate $1 trillion in sales by 2027.
Which Products Are in High Demand Right Now?
So what products are currently flying off the shelves? Taking a look at the most recent product trends, the following items are being purchased at a high rate:
Pet accessories:
Pet carriesCBD productsDog toothpasteCat treatsPet beds
Lifestyle products:
Decorative drink bottlesBags and totesGardening supplies
Health products:
SupplementsGym equipment and accessoriesTrainers and sports-specific shoes
What Online Services Are in High Demand?
If you’re not searching for just items to sell for profit, you can offer a wide range of online services. Print-on-demand, graphic design, website development, social media management, and app development are just a few of the other things to sell with a high profit margin.
How to Increase Your Profit Margin
There are many things that you can do in order to increase your profit margin while selling online. One of the simplest and most effective ways to do this is by improving your product selection. When you offer a wide variety of quality products, you make it easier for customers to find what they're looking for, and this increases the likelihood that they will make a purchase from your store.
You can also improve your profit margin by increasing your prices. While this may seem like an unpopular suggestion, it's important to remember that customers are often willing to pay more for quality products. By increasing your prices, you can ensure that you're making a healthy profit on each sale.
Finally, check out our guide on how to increase profit margins in e-commerce, where we break down how this can be achieved in more detail.