Merchants often don't think to optimise payment gateways. This can directly cost them up to 4% in lost revenue on a sales Item.

As we sell globally it’s becoming increasing hard to make sure that the sales and payments process is optimised. Merchants can pay anywhere between 2.8% to 9% on credit card processing. If you are lucky and some customers pay you via wire transfers this can be only 2% to 5%.

Some tips to cut down on costs:

Spend some time identifying the key payment gateways in your target markets. Often using these will be cheaper than using the global omni channel gateways. The multi channel gateways have many middleman leading to higher costs. Large global players save you a lot of time for example adyen.com , and I highly recommend you stick with them as its less work but if you have for example a huge customer base in Brazil then its worthwhile finding one for Brazil also.

There are new technologies like processout.com, which help you find automatically the best gateway both from a cost perspective and from a customer experience perspective. Look at all the costs that the credit card processor charges. For example how much for the credit card processing, the foreign exchange fee, account maintenance fees and for rebate fees.

Optimise only when you have to too. Having to many payment gateways can be a headache and in the long run could also cost you more money make sure if you plan to add a new processor only if:

• You have large volumes in a target market to justify the time.
• The savings from processing and currency exchange fees justify the investment.
• Weather it will improve the customer journey and improve the customer process

Use wire or bank transfers whenever possible. When it comes to large transfers bank transfers are still the best and cheapest option. This is due to:

• No possibility of recharge.
• The fees for the transfer are a lot less than credit card processing
• You can control the foreign exchange costs and shop for the cheapest rates out there.