Accept Credit Card Payments Online Without An E-commerce Store

Taking card payments through your website feels like a big step. When people think of e-commerce, they imagine purpose-built online shopping carts. These run on advanced software that features shipping, stock management, automated tracking, product variations and more.

While online stores are possible and work perfectly well (in emergencies you can even set them up in afternoon) they’re not necessarily suited to everyone’s business model. That doesn’t mean that you can’t accept credit card payments on your website!

Alternatives To Traditional Online Shopping Carts

Some businesses are at the halfway point. They want to take payment via a website, but they don’t need a full-blown online store. Just because they don’t have a flashy shop does not mean their business shouldn’t take payments online. Is this you?

There are many ways for customers to pay through your website without the complexity of a shopping cart. Some methods are achieved by changing the way you invoice, others by neatly embedding third-party services into your website.

However you go, it is possible to create a seamless experience for both yourself and the customer. Here are a few solutions that might serve as an alternative to traditional e-commerce software.

Take Fixed Price Payments With GoCardless

GoCardless lets you make Direct Debit exchanges with customers through Bacs, Autogiro or SEPA. Through it you can take one-off payments, create subscriptions or issue refunds.

This is a particularly good solution for people who offer services rather than products. If you work in the trade industry and just want to get paid, this beats complex product variations and shipping.

You can use GoCardless to collect deposits before a larger job. Through the dashboard, it is possible to create fixed price buttons and embed them on your website.

For a working example of this, see the way that this removal company in York have set out their payment page. Depending on the size of the house move, they simply ask their customer to click the right button and presto – deposit paid.

Accept Class Bookings With BookWhen

BookWhen is an online booking system for events. It’s perfect for yoga instructors, lecturers, personal trainers and anybody who works with calendar-based sessions. Not only does it handle payment online, it also manages your class calendar, informing you and the customer how many slots are available on a given date.

BookWhen can be embedded seamlessly into your website. It is sleek, unobtrusive and lets customers make a full booking without leaving the page. For a working example, see the way that Yodanga Arts have organised their yoga class calendar.

Let Customers Pay Invoices With Harvest

It’s not all about taking payments from your website. You might find it equally convenient for customers to pay you online via invoicing software. If you’re a sole trader and want to revisit the way you bookkeep, I’d recommend Harvest.

Not only does it offer tidy, organised accounts, Harvest also lets customers accept estimates online and make payments straight from the invoice. More importantly, it offers one-click time tracking through the browser, and in desktop + mobile apps. This makes Harvest especially useful for freelancers and service providers.

Use A PayPal Button For Secure, Easy Payment

An article like this wouldn’t be complete without PayPal. It is one of e-commerce’s founding fathers and is still going strong today. While PayPal caters for big online stores such as eBay, you can also embed buttons straight into your website that take customers to a secure payment page (example).

Commerce Or Not, Move Towards SSL

Whether or not you accept payments online, you should take steps to obtain an SSL certificate on your website. Not only does having a https page protect customer data, it also adds trust to your site and helps conversions.

With more and more sites moving towards a secure web, many hosting companies are offering discount or even free SSL certificates. Stay ahead of the curve (and gain a slight ranking boost) by investing in https today.