If your business includes selling products online, there are extra steps and choices once you have purchased your domain name, and SSL Certificate (Security for yourself and your customers) and have started building a professional website.

1. E-Commerce Platform
2. Payment Gateway

Choosing the eCommerce Platform

WPBeginners says it clear and simple:

“There are two popular eCommerce platforms that we recommend: Shopify or WordPress + WooCommerce.

Shopify is a fully hosted eCommerce solution that starts at $29 / month. It’s a hassle-free solution where you just login and start selling. The downside to Shopify is that it gets quite expensive, and your payment options are limited unless you pay additional fees.

This is why most users choose WordPress + WooCommerce because of the flexibility it offers. It does require some setup, but it’s worth doing it for the long run. WooCommerce is the world’s largest eCommerce platform.” – WPBeginner.com

Payment Gateway

WooCommerce comes with PayPal and Stripe, which work seamlessly with WordPress. 360WD suggests small business owners start out with one of these standard level plugins and then make changes as they need them later, like changing to a more robust PayPal plugin, or a whole different gateway through a bank. There a many factors in the percentage you pay to gateways like Elavon. The percentage may be less, but there may be a monthly charge, or may change depending on how much you sell. PayPal is higher, but allows small businesses to use credit cards without selling in large quantity.

“By default, WooCommerce comes with support for PayPal, PayPal Standard, and Stripe payment gateways. There are many other payment methods available for WooCommerce which you can install later if you need.

The easiest way to accept payment is using PayPal Standard.

A lot of people use both PayPal and Stripe. By using Stripe, you allow your users to enter their credit card information on the checkout page without having to leave your site and going to PayPal.” – WPBeginner.com

PayPal Standard protects your PCI Compliance. Read about and compare PayPal versus Stripe, and keep an eye out for upcoming blogs on PCI Compliance. To automatically receive weekly 360WD blogs, subscribe on the main blog page.