Using 3rd party applications on your website

We’ve all shopped online, in fact figures show that £1 in every £10 is now spent online (source: Office for National Statistics, 2011) – it’s not only quick, convenient and saves you from that dreaded trip into town, but it also opens up a wider range of retailers and products.

Paying for goods and services online no longer carries with it the worries of lack of security or risk of fraud that were once commonplace amongst web-sceptics, although it’s still just as important to be vigilant. It’s also become so much easier due to the rise of universal payment facilities such as PayPal or Google Checkout.

We’re now finding an increasing number of clients keen to incorporate a payment facility onto their website, perhaps for collecting fees from their own clients for invoices etc. There is a multitude of ways to do this, from companies who each claim to be ‘the most secure’ or ‘the fastest and easiest’. The fact of the matter is that the end result is always the same – a secure payment from the end user into your account via a third party. The question is, who should you choose?

Hopefully, this will help you decide. You’ve no doubt received calls or emails from the providers of payment facilities asking you to incorporate their solution onto your website (I know I have). You’ve probably also listened to and read extensive explanations on how their solution works and why it’s ‘the safest around’ – what you must remember is that all this security and efficiency is governed by some form of technology or other that may or may not be compatible with your website.

Thankfully, more often than not we’ll be able to accommodate most payment solutions onto our sites, but there will be instances where the software technology is so incompatible that no amount of effort on our part will make it work. The implications of this could result in you being left with an expensive software solution that you can’t actually use – something I’m sure you’ll be keen to avoid.

The answer to this conundrum is quite simple – contact us before you decide to part with your cash. After you’ve had the initial conversation with your third party, put them in touch with us so we can investigate their solution and ensure its fully compatible with our platform – this way we can all live happy in the knowledge that people making payments through your website are doing so safely and securely.

The same applies to any third party software which you hope to incorporate onto your website – due to the quirks of technology, there’s no guarantee that it will work unless it’s looked at by a professional, so please bear this in mind.

If you’re not interested in shopping around for a payment integration solution, and you’d rather just take our advice, then two examples of solutions which we’ve tried and tested are PayPal and Google Checkout. Both are big names in the web world, and both offer full support and comprehensive features that are worth investigating before you make the final call.