You may figure that a payment gateway is something for online retailers. The gateway will move transactions over a network and will communicate with a credit card network to confirm a deal. The gateway ensures the customer has the funds necessary to complete the purchase, thus helping you send the customer’s info to your bank to help you get the money you are owed for the deal.
While payment gateways are often associated with online transactions, they can also work for in-store purchases. They can even be used by restaurants that take in payments that aren’t worth as much as what other retailers may collect.
Your restaurant can use whatever payment gateway fits your needs. But the extensive variety of gateways on today’s market makes it a challenge for you to find a solution that fits. But you can find a quality choice that fits your needs and doesn’t require as much of an investment or commitment for you to use. Look well at how you’re finding a gateway, and you’ll discover a solution that works for your demands.
Gateways Support Many Payment Methods
Payment gateways are ideal for restaurant merchants in that they can handle various payment methods. You can get a gateway ready in many forms, with each coming with unique features:
- A gateway can link to a credit card reader. These include a reader attached to a traditional POS setup or a mobile card-reading device. You could also use a set-top payment kiosk at a table or booth to let customers facilitate the payment effort themselves when they are ready.
- You can also connect a gateway to a mobile app your restaurant runs. Your gateway will collect food orders and payment info and forward them to the credit card network.
- Traditional restaurant websites can also use gateways. You can keep the gateway on your page, or it can move a person to a secondary page if necessary.
Restaurants are taking in orders in more ways than ever before. People can order their foods online for delivery or pickup, or they can order through a mobile app and have it delivered. Your gateway will support every effort customers use for ordering foods, whether it is traditional or something more modern.
The dining industry has been evolving as customer trends change. Not everyone is interested in dining in, and the people who do wish to dine in may want to pay for their orders from their seats. Your gateway can work with whatever solutions you utilize.
Works With New Technologies
Gateways have evolved to support the latest payment technologies. Customers at your restaurant might use Google Pay, Apple Pay, or other smart payment solutions. These include choices that use NFC technology to link to a payment setup.
A gateway can accept NFC payments from these smart wallets and many other solutions. The transaction makes payments easy, plus the added encryption and tokenization used through some NFC-based solutions make the payment process safer.
Some of these newer payment methods can also take less time to process. You can complete a payment in a few seconds, for example.
What Should Your Gateway Feature?
A payment gateway for a restaurant will require plenty of points to help you handle your transactions:
- Watch for whatever fees a gateway may charge. Some gateways can charge a startup fee, monthly fees for access, and chargeback fees.
- Transaction fees are common among some gateways. A transaction fee is a percentage of the deal plus a fixed fee. You could spend 2.5% plus 30 cents on each transaction you process, for example. The transaction charge could be a problem for restaurants that constantly take in low-value payments.
- A gateway should offer fraud protection. It can include identifying transactions based on a customer’s past payment behavior and finding potentially fraudulent deals.
- There should be no processing limits in the effort. You should have the option to accept as many payments as you wish.
- The customer service department should also support your business. It can help you complete your application to start processing funds in moments.
- The gateway should not come with any long-term commitments. The gateway can include a monthly deal where you can pay for whatever services you need each month, keeping you from spending more than necessary.
Don’t Forget Security
Your payment gateway also needs to be secure and protected to ensure customers are managing their payments securely and effectively without risking possible losses. Security for a restaurant gateway entails two points:
- PCI Compliance
All restaurants must be PCI-compliant when accepting credit card payments. Compliance entails storing card data and ensuring the right content is secure. The work entails keeping your data secure to where the customer won’t be likely to lose one’s data.
- Encryption
Data encryption works in the gateway process by scrambling customer data over a network. The data is deciphered by the proper authority and will only be used to handle the payment process. Some encryption setups go further with tokenization, a process that randomizes data into various characters.
The security features a gateway provides will ensure you’ll have the help you need when handling payments. Restaurants might not be the most obvious targets for fraud or chargebacks, but it doesn’t take much for a business to lose its payment data. The security features your gateway provides will ensure your data stays safe and your customers will feel comfortable dining with you.
A Final Note
Your restaurant will benefit from having a payment gateway if you use the right choice. Be certain you note what you’re going to manage when getting a quality gateway ready, especially when you consider how many gateway choices are available.
The best thing to do when looking for a gateway is to find a solution that can handle whatever payment methods you accept and the ways how people can order food from your place. The gateway should provide a simple approach to handling payments, plus it must be affordable. You can find many choices, but the one you use should be sensible and easy to manage for whatever payment plans you wish to handle.