Fuel Oil News May 2023 | Page 40

BY MARCI GAGNON

Checkout pages are critical to your business ’ website . There are two choices .

When it comes to designing your website , it ' s crucial that you make your checkout page as convenient , simple and easy to navigate as possible for your customers . After all , the checkout page is where your customers ultimately decide to place an order or pay an invoice . When designing the payment experience , there are two types of checkout pages to choose from — on-site or hosted .

An on-site payments page is one that is located directly on your web site . To put it another way , you are the host , and your customers never leave your website when making a payment . Consider it a “ self-hosted ” payments page . While a self-hosted payment page may offer additional design control , it also puts most of the onus for security directly on your business and significantly increases the scope of your PCI compliance requirements .

The other option is called a hosted payments page . A hosted payments page is a checkout page located on a third-party website . When a customer clicks on your site to make a payment , he or she is directed away from your website to a new site . In general , this new hosted checkout page is provided by your merchant payments provider or gateway .

With a hosted checkout page , all the information required to complete a sale is stored on the server of the provider rather than being stored on your web hosting provider ' s server . This includes the customer information needed to make a payment happen , the actual processing of the payment itself , and finally the generation of payment confirmations and receipts .

Once your customer completes the payment process , he or she is redirected back to your website . But in all the time your customer is at the hosted checkout page , he or she might not even realize that they are at another web page . In addition , if you utilize a hosted payment page that allows for customization you may be able to add your logo , business colors and sometimes your own design templates all with the added security of not storing or passing any sensitive customer data . This means that should your business be the victim of a hacking or fraud ; you will not have to reimburse any customers affected . That obligation belongs to the hosted checkout page provider . With the cost of a hosted checkout page being just a small transaction fee , it is not a lot to pay for a whole lot of peace of mind for both you and your customers .

We all know how crucial it is for businesses to provide a safe and secure website for customers to make online payments . For the majority of Energy Marketers , the combination of enhanced PCI-compliance , decrease in liability , easy set-up , and customization , a hosted payments page is probably the right addition to your website .

Marci Gagnon is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances for Qualpay and has been in the payments industry for over 15 years with a concentration on recurring billing and the Energy space . Qualpay provides processing solutions to fuel delivery and service businesses with tools designed to provide real-time reconciliation and cost reduction . For additional information contact Marci Gagnon at marci @ qualpay . com or visit https :// www . qualpay . com / industry / utility-and-energy . l FON

Marci Gagnon is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances for Qualpay and has been in the payments industry for over 15 years with a concentration on recurring billing and the Energy space . Qualpay provides processing solutions to fuel delivery and service businesses with tools designed to provide real-time reconciliation and cost reduction . For additional information contact Marci Gagnon at marci @ qualpay . com or visit https :// www . qualpay . com / industry / utility-and-energy

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