Virtual payments have become a requirement for businesses today. Consumers have rapidly adopted touch-free payment methods, including digital cards and real-time payments. This acceleration makes it essential for businesses to offer a wide range of virtual payment functionality.
Major players include payment platforms like PayPal and digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, though note that apps like Venmo and Zelle are primarily designed for P2P transfers and are generally not recommended for formal B2C transactions.
As a business owner, it’s essential to choose a single, integrated platform to manage all these virtual payment functionalities seamlessly. Here are 5 easy ways to process virtual payments, all available through the Stax platform.
Add an online shopping cart
An online shopping cart, or ecommerce shopping cart, allows customers to shop directly from a website via a desktop, tablet, or mobile device. Online shopping cart systems typically include a full range of ecommerce capabilities, including payment processing and product management.
Adding a quick online checkout link to your services has been made easier with the creation of the Stax hosted checkout page/payment link tool. Simply select your catalog items, click create, and your checkout link is ready to process online orders for your customers. No coding or configuration is needed to build your shopping cart.
Offer text-to-pay as an instant payment option
Text-to-pay is the process of accepting payment through mobile text messages. As an innovative payment processing tool, SMS payments (short message service payments) improves overall payment accuracy and efficiency.
With the text-to-pay feature, you can send an invoice to your customer via SMS text, making it extremely convenient to be paid. By sending an invoice over text, your customer is more likely to respond right away (versus email). If they store credit card information on their phone, they can easily pay you with just a few taps.
The contactless payment solution is a great fit for any industry or business that uses recurring billing. It can also be used to collect one-time payments by businesses with individual payment requests.
Use a virtual terminal for electronic payment requests
Virtual terminals are built into your integrated payment platform and can accept a variety of payment types, typically including credit/debit cards, and often integrate the ability to accept ACH bank payments. The added benefit is the increased flexibility in accepting payments over the phone, online, and in person. And you can do so without ever having to use a physical card.
Built for online invoicing and recurring billing, virtual terminals for payment card processing help you accept digital payments instantly with ease. The virtual terminals for payment card processing are fit for those businesses that primarily operate over the phone, handle online invoicing, or have recurring monthly memberships. This includes restaurants, food delivery services, freelancers, health and fitness services, and professional services.
Add touch-free mobile payment solutions
Also known as tap-to-pay, touch-free mobile payments are now in the adoption process by all major payment processors, such as Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. Users of these cards set up their payment card information on their mobile device once. From there, they can use the tap-to-pay method for any subsequent purchases of their choice.
You can also add a contactless terminal that accepts various types of payment types, including credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, which use NFC (near field communication) technology.
Manage virtual payments requests with email invoicing
Email invoicing is the exchange of the invoice document with an embedded payment link, allowing customers to click and pay instantly. This avoids the manual intensity and human error prone to traditional paper invoicing, which often results in increased costs and payment processing lifecycles for your business.
Email invoicing, or electronic invoicing, is an easy and safe way for businesses to send out online payment requests. With a simple click, your customers can open the invoice via email, input their preferred payment information, and pay you instantly. Virtual payments are important to modern business success. Without them, you are unable to accept payment methods that are becoming an industry standard.
Final words
With Stax, your business gains access to the flat (interchange) rate with zero percentage markup on card-not-present transactions, coupled with access to the full toolkit, including the Stax virtual terminal, text-to-pay, and our one-click shopping cart.
Reach out to Stax for a consultation today.
