Ready for Your Close-Up goYWP?

As a new budding company, we are lucky to come in contact with lots of innovative companies who are growing rapidly. We’re lucky to have met goYWP and enter into a beautiful partnership together. Aww how romantic!  We want to shine a spot light on their awesome abilities.  Consider the following a how-to-be-awesome guide book!

goYWP is the predecessor of a company called Internet Solutions.  Around 1999 Internet Solutions was commissioned by a local news media outlet to create a custom web-based article management solution.  By 2001 the product was running strong and had evolved into a full-fledged content management system called WebPress. This was the beginning of the company’s embark down the custom web-development road.  In early 2011 Travis Risner acquired the company after having employment with Internet Solutions in the past.  Risner, having a strong desire to write web-based software, continued on developing creative solutions for goYWP’s client base.

Later in 2011 goYWP’s new flagship utility billing solution was released to the eye of the world; UPI or Utility Payment Interface. The flexible online payment solution was integrated with many major billing systems right out of the door and boasted payment integration options from many of the world’s top payment gateways.  The system was truly an all-in-one online payment solution jam-packed with features for utility customers, service representatives, and accounting admins alike.

The story doesn’t end there.  After careful consideration to what the customers were looking for goYWP turned to Arrow Payments for an easy, reliable, and affordable payment gateway solution for its customers.  Thus, the relationship between Arrow Payments and goYWP was born. goYWP is now developing full integration of Arrow Payments into its UPI product and hopes to launch the new gateway solution in early 2013.  The company feels the ease of the signup process and the lack of hidden fees Arrow stands by will greatly benefit its customer base for years to come.

goYWP feels the new relationship is crucial for the future.  Ecommerce in the coming decade will become more and more prevalent to our everyday lives. A rapidly growing number people all over the world are using conveniences like online-bill-pay and “recliner shopping” to save time and money.  This is a virtual world and virtual money is not too far off.  When key economic players like Google fully dip their feet into the market ecommerce will evolve quicker than ever and goYWP has confidence that Arrow Payments will have the ability to adapt right along with the times.

6 Tips to Improve Your Ecommerce Website

There are many benefits of making your products available for sale through your ecommerce website—increasing revenue and expanding your customer base to name a few.  

But simply setting up an ecommerce website, and dumping your product catalog into your shopping cart software isn’t enough. Usability, navigation, and design make the difference between just browsing and actually buying.

1. Keep It Simple
The whole point of having an ecommerce store is to sell your products, so why make it difficult for your customers to find what they’re looking for? Finding a product to purchase shouldn’t be a scavenger hunt, so it’s essential to simplify your site navigation. Create a clear hierarchy/dropdown menu for customers to browse by category. Customizable sort options—by price, arrival, brand, etc—can also help your customers find what they want, fast.

Additionally, consider simplifying the registration process if you require it to complete a purchase. Complex and lengthy registration can cause customers to abandon their cart at the checkout.

2. A Picture is Worth a Thousand Sales
The downside of making purchases online is not being able physically see the product yourself. It sounds simple, but having a picture to accompany a product can be the difference between sale and no sale. Depending on your merchandise, you may also want to add multiple images of the same product from different angles. When a customer can actually see what they’re getting, there’s a considerably lower chance that they’ll return it.

3. Go Into Detail
Your customers should never have to leave your site to find information on a product you sell. If they do, you risk losing the sale—especially if another ecommerce site comes up in the search results. It is essential that your product catalog—descriptions and specs included—be seamlessly incorporated into your ecommerce site.  

4. It’s All Relative
If you aren’t linking to related products, you’re missing out on a huge selling opportunity. When a customer views a product on your site, they should be offered a list of products that fall in the same category your customer is searching. Not only does this provide customers with options, but it also helps to establish return business.

5. Cover Your Customer Service Bases
Just because ecommerce sales take place online doesn’t mean you don’t have to work for the sale. Businesses can sometimes forget that a successful ecommerce website requires support team manpower. Easy to use, easy to find contact info can help customers address any issues or ask any questions efficiently and privately.

It’s always good business practice to have your customer service policies listed up front, and most merchant providers (including us) actually require it. Return and refund policies should be prominently displayed to avoid any headaches down the road—i.e. chargebacks.

Likewise, consider including a shipping rates calculator or make the various shipping rates visible throughout the shopping experience. Sites that don’t clearly state shipping costs up front risk losing sales when the final total is added up.

6. Take the Process Out of Processing
And last but certainly not least, make payment processing easy. The customer has made it this far, but functionality issues at checkout can cause a potential purchaser to cut and run. Your customer should be able to select, purchase and confirm the sale without hassle—thus the need for integrated shopping cart software. Many shopping cart providers also offer open support, and can act as an additional safety net should any glitches appear.

Also, make a point to accept a wide range of payment options. Simply accepting Visa and Mastercard will lose you AmEx, Discover, and gift card users who were planning on purchasing. If you are hesitant about adding American Express to your list of accepted cards for fear of high fees, don’t be. In fact, the cost of accepting AmEx is (literally) pennies compared to the cost of losing a sale. Check out our pricing page for a detailed breakdown.  

At Arrow Payments, we review the ecommerce sites of all our merchants to make sure they have all of these elements in place before they begin processing with us. 

Arrow Payments provides a Simply Better solution for processing payments online. Have a question? Tweet Antonia at @ArrowPayments

5 Ways to Use the Arrow Payments Gateway

We’re a team of multi-taskers, and we created our gateway in the same vein. Why serve just one function, when you can seamlessly handle 5? The Arrow Payments gateway doesn’t just move your money; it moves your entire business into the future—and an efficient future at that!

There are 5 ways to use the Arrow Payments gateway. That’s 5 excellent tools for the price of one. 5 more reasons to love us. 5 less things you have to do. I could keep going, but instead let me present the Fabulous 5:

1. Virtual Terminal – A virtual terminal is a web-based payment processing platform that allows you to process phone, mail, and POS transactions instantly online. Remote login allows you to access and process over the virtual terminal anywhere with internet access.

2. Transparent Redirect—Payments received via Arrow’s payment form which can be integrated with your own website. We simplify PCI by keeping sensitive data on our servers and off yours. Find out more about the magic behind Transparent Redirect here.

3. API—Arrow’s Application Programming Interface (API) is simple, modern, and a web developer’s dream. Our API can easily integrate into any mobile application or shopping cart software your ecommerce website may be using.

4. Recurring Billing—Transactions are automatically billed to customers via a schedule set up on the Arrow Payments website. Billing cycle lengths and due dates are all completely customizable to suit your business. The gateway will also alert you when your recurring customer’s credit cards are expiring.

5. Invoices—The gateway invoicing tool allows to you initiate customer bills through email. Clients are sent to our servers to make a payment and reports notify you of the transaction status, insuring that you never physically or electronically come into contact with sensitive cardholder data—making PCI compliance simple and secure.  You also have the ability to resend the email until the bill gets paid. 

The Arrow Payments gateway is the Swiss Army knife of payments processing—all the tools you’ll ever need, in one sharp little package. 

Arrow Payments provides a Simply Better solution for processing payments online. Have a question? Tweet Antonia at @ArrowPayments

What is a Payment Gateway?

All of the blogs I’ve written have been about the amazing benefits of using a payment gateway for your ecommerce site. I’ve been so excited to share all the great features of our gateway with you that I may have skipped over the most important part—explaining the magic behind it all!

A payment gateway facilitates the transfer of information between your ecommerce website, mobile phone, or point of sale system, and your merchant account in a secure, encrypted format. In other words, the gateway is the armored truck that moves your customer’s money to your account, safely and securely.

Each transaction made on a payment gateway is sent through SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to a processor for approval. It sounds like it’d be a long trip, but really it takes about 2-3 seconds. Throughout each business day the gateway sends (still via that bulletproof, fraud-proof, error-proof armored car!) all your day’s transactions to be stored in our secure vault, and then releases them as a single batch to deposit into your account.

What’s So Great About Arrow Payment’s Gateway?

In a word, everything! If you’ve read any of our blogs, or visited our website, one thing should be abundantly clear: we’re REALLY excited about our gateway, and with good reasons: 

  • For one thing, our gateway was created, and is supported, in house so if you have any questions, we’ll never outsource your call. Just call one number, and reach a team of gateway experts.
  •  Advanced reporting tools come standard in our gateway, so searching for transactions and comparing sales volumes is a breeze.
  • All our fabulous features and user accounts are fully customizable to meet your specific needs.
  • Our easy invoicing tool allows you to initiate customer bills through email.
  • Our gateway allows you to set up billing plans and subscriptions, initiate trial periods, pull billing reports, and update expired credit cards.
  • The best part—the gateway sends all sensitive information to be stored in our secure vault, so no cardholder data even touches your system at all!

The Arrow Payments gateway offers the best of both worlds—the bells and whistles to take tracking your ecommerce transactions to the next level, and the user-friendly simplicity that makes it all possible.

Arrow Payments provides a Simply Better solution for processing payments online. Have a question? Tweet Antonia at @ArrowPayments

Expand Your Customer Base with a Payment Gateway

If your business is on the fence about making the move to ecommerce, here are some questions to ask yourself:

Do I want to expand my business?
Do I want to save my customer’s precious time?
Do I want to make my products and services available to everyone?

If you’ve answered yes to any of the questions above, congratulations, you’re ready to start accepting payments online. All you need is a payment gateway and—what do you know?—we have one right here!

There are many benefits to accepting payments online with the use of a gateway—security, convenience, and easy access to your transaction history.  But there’s an added benefit that you may not have considered: A payment gateway will allow anyone with internet access to be a potential customer.  

The World is Your Oyster… or At Least, Your Customer
Thanks to the World Wide Web, time and distance are no longer keeping your business land locked from the sea of could-be customers. There’s a lot of big fish out there, so it’s time to cast out your business and reel them in!

Expanding your customer base benefits you, but what about those new customers? Not only do they now have anytime-access to your products and services, but they also have the added bonus of shopping with ease thanks to lightning fast authorization and heightened security measures.

And, unlike brick and mortar stores which require customers to wait in line to checkout, the use of an online gateway means everyone can check out when they want, and where they want.  That’s right; someone across the country could be at home, in their pajamas, dropping $100s on your site.

When accepting payments online, PCI Compliance and security are always a major concern. That’s why all of our merchant’s credit cards and addresses are stored through tokenization and can easily be recalled through our API for future use in a secure environment. In addition, by using our transparent redirect, we keep your sensitive data completely off of your servers.

At Arrow Payments we’re making things easy for your current customers, and making it easy for you to get new ones. Let us get you set up with our amazing gateway so you can make your ecommerce dreams a reality. Because let’s face it, a big fish like you deserves a big pond to swim in. 

Arrow Payments provides a Simply Better solution for processing payments online. Have a question? Tweet Antonia at @ArrowPayments

We’re A Developers Dream

When’s the last time you stopped and gave your developer a big old “thank you for the many sleepless nights you endured making our website absolutely perfect” hug? If you answered never, than shame on you! Sure, we don’t understand a majority of what they’re saying, but that’s what they’re here for.

Here’s a great way to let your developers know you care—give them a break from jumbled and frustrating code, and finally treat them to some easy-as-pie API. 

Our feature rich API was created by developers, for developers, and was designed to make processing ecommerce payments a breeze.  The Arrow Payments gateway was built to integrate in to just about anything from POS systems to mobile phone apps and websites, and will seamlessly acclimate to any shopping cart software.

Treat your developer to the benefits of our gateway’s API, such as:

  • Multiple programming languages
  • Fully accessible developer library and sandbox
  • Pre-written applications
  • Integration assistance
  • Simple REST API for Ruby, .Net, Java, Python, Perl, and PHP

Save time, money, and your developer’s sanity.  And as an added bonus, you’ll be processing credit card transactions on a gateway so user friendly, that you won’t even need those developers to teach you how it works. 

Arrow Payments provides a Simply Better solution for processing payments online. Have a question? Tweet Antonia at @ArrowPayments

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