Authorize.net High-Risk Payment Gateway

Today's businesses need to keep up with their competitors more than ever. This means being in front of your customers with the right product at the right time with a seamless cart-to-payment checkout process. Losing a sale because of a lackluster payment experience is huge. According to research by Xero1, 86% of small business owners invest in technology, but only 32% invest in mobile payment acceptance.

For high-risk eCommerce merchants, it's even more crucial to capture every sale. But how can you process payments fast enough to keep customers happy and not heading to your competitor's site?

With Authorize.net, a subsidiary of Visa.

What is Authorize.net?

Visa's payment gateway tool, Authorize.net, offers high-risk eCommerce businesses all the tools needed to succeed. Authorize.net lets businesses accept payments however they choose for the fastest, most streamlined payments process.

In a traditional payments ecosystem, authorization can be slow and at the mercy of bandwidth and processors. The processing power of the Authorize.net high-risk payment gateway approves or declines a sale within seconds — this technology knows the moment credit card data is entered whether to approve or deny the transaction.

This is especially important for eCommerce merchants and fraud prevention because every transaction is card-not-present. For high-risk merchants, this is even more important — card-not-present transactions contribute to higher chargeback ratios. With the cost of chargebacks expected to climb to over 117 B USD by 2023 (merchants' share: 79 B USD), a high chargeback ratio can get a business labeled high-risk even if it isn't in a high-risk industry.

Struggling to find a merchant account because you're considered high-risk? Reach out to us, and we can help.

What are some benefits of Authorize.net?

Authorize.net was designed with high-risk businesses in mind. High-risk businesses have different needs than a typical merchant. For instance, businesses classified as high-risk require payment processing tools that offer increased insights into transactions. Signing into Authorize.net offers a quick glance for business owners to:

• Track orders
• Manage delivery
• View payments
• See inventory levels

Returning customers enjoy an even faster checkout process thanks to Authorize.net's safe payment storage. For products or services customers buy on a monthly basis, such as subscriptions, store owners can set up recurring billing within the dashboard. High-risk merchants can integrate Authorize.net with their current eCommerce website, such as BigCommerce (more on that below). Integrations are fast and easy, thanks to the use of an API, or application programming interface — which just means a simple way to connect things.

Accept international payments with Authorize.net

No matter where you or your customers are in the world, Authorize.net can process your customers' credit card payments, which lets you open your store to a whole new audience. You can accept payments in any currency on your website, and if you opt for the Authorize.net credit card reader, you can even process payments in a physical store, at a trade show, flea market, or anywhere you sell to your customers. You benefit from the protection of Authorize.net's instant approve or decline functionality while also accepting multiple payment methods.

How does Authorize.net payment gateway work?

Authorize.net makes high-risk payment solutions easy. The company's gateway works by:

• Making sure the cardholder's account has sufficient funds
• Placing a hold on funds to cover credit card transactions
• Transferring funds from the customer's bank to the business owner's bank at settlement

Settlement doesn't occur right away, but because Authorize.net ensures funds are in the customer's account immediately and places a hold on those funds, you can rest assured that the funds will be in your account soon, guaranteed.

From your dashboard, you can control your payment gateway's functionality. For instance, if you don't need all the features turned on, you can turn off the ones you don't need. Features you turn on are available immediately. Merchants can enjoy numbered invoices and inventory tracking with up-to-the-moment inventory levels.

What are the benefits of Authorize.net for high-risk merchants?

Authorize.net boasts of having helped facilitate over a billion dollars' worth of high-risk merchants' payments. Some of the benefits of using this payment gateway include:

• Encrypted user information
• PCI compliance
• Industry-specific regulation compliance
• Well-established relationships with top credit card companies, such as Visa
• High-risk payments acceptance

Authorize.net was designed with high-risk merchants in mind. Traditional payment processors can't assume the risk associated with certain high-risk industries, which can leave business owners without a merchant account. Authorize.net protects your business so you can continue selling your products or services to your customers.

The only question remaining is how to get Authorize.net for your eCommerce store. In a word? Integrations.

Zenti offers several integrations for eCommerce businesses. Call us today at (248) 422-1398 to see how we can help you beat the "bad rap" of high-risk.

Why do eCommerce merchants need integrations?

If you've had your eCommerce store open for a while, it's likely you already have integrations and just don't know it. If your products are listed on your website, you have shopping cart functionality and a payment page — these are all examples of eCommerce integration. An eCommerce platform that provides all of these things and more is solid and gives merchants access to the customers in search of what they offer.

Some of the most recognizable eCommerce platforms include:

• Shopify
• Opencart
• Magento
• BigCommerce

But not all eCommerce platforms offer all of this, especially for high-risk merchants, hence the need for eCommerce integrations. So, let's take a look at BigCommerce and see how this giant in the eCommerce industry stacks up and how you can integrate Authorize.net with your BigCommerce site.

What is BigCommerce?

Not only is BigCommerce one of today's leading platforms, but it's really big — for businesses generating a million dollars or more every year, this is the go-to platform. So, it should come as no surprise that BigCommerce was designed so high-risk and high-volume businesses can integrate the tools they need to operate their business, including payment gateways.

BigCommerce's default payment gateway is PayPal, but PayPal doesn't accept transactions from high-risk merchants. This is why Authorize.net is the perfect solution. Now, because PayPal is the default, switching over to Authorize.net involves some manual tweaking in your BigCommerce dashboard, but worry not — it's incredibly simple. You'll find how to integrate BigCommerce with Authorize.net in a section below. First, let's look at some of the greatest advantages of switching to Authorize.net.

Benefits for eCommerce merchants integrating Authorize.net with BigCommerce

The most significant advantage of integrating Authorize.net is that it opens up a world of acceptable payment options. Your customers can pay using:

• Credit cards
• Debit cards
• Electronic or eChecks
• Direct deposits
• Automated clearing house (ACH)

Regardless of payment method, the funds get deposited into your business bank account. Plus, you find several third-party point-of-sale (POS) options already available. Authorize.net even provides a virtual terminal POS, or VPOS, tool. And it can be used in both eCommerce and physical stores.

The VPOS system is great for merchants accepting orders over the phone or by mail. There's even a mobile app that allows mobile payments.

The following benefits are also standard and automatic:

• A payment gateway account
• Credit card processing
• PCI compliance
• Payment processing
• Recurrent billing and payment services
• Customer data tokenization
• Advanced fraud detection suite
• Transparent pricing

Sounds like a win/win, right? Now, let's learn how to complete an integration.

How to integrate BigCommerce with Authorize.net

Integration sounds intimidating, but when you have integration-ready tools built into your site, the rest is a breeze.

To integrate Authorize.net's payment gateway with your BigCommerce store:

1. Go to your dashboard in BigCommerce.
2. Click your Store Setup tab, then click on Payments (this is where all payment settings are located).
3. Click on Online Payments.
4. Scroll through the dropdown of BigCommerce's integrations and hover the mouse over Authorize.net.
5. On the right, click the integration's Setup button to open Settings for Authorize.net.
6. Click the Get Started Now button, and setup begins.

Onscreen instructions take you through the whole process, and whenever you need to enter information, you'll be prompted to do so. Here's the information you'll need to prepare to provide:

• Displayed name. This appears a bit vague at first, and many merchants think it means their own name or the name of their store — it doesn't. This is actually going to go on a payment button that will display on your online site when a customer enters the checkout phase. For clarity, choose something like Credit & Debit or Credit/Debit so customers know this is the button to click to pay with a credit or debit card.
• Your merchant ID. Your merchant ID is your merchant account identification number. You'll either obtain one from Authorize.net or already have one from a merchant account provider.
• Authorize.net username and password. Your login information helps maintain the connection between Authorize.net and BigCommerce. If you don't enter this or you enter it incorrectly, customers will receive a decline/payment failure code when attempting to pay.
• Transaction key. Sometimes errors occur in checkout, and when this happens, you have to request a new transaction key from Authorize.net.

And that's it! That's all it takes to complete the integration between Authorize.net and a BigCommerce storefront. Now, you can manage your Authorize.net account settings through the payment gateway's dashboard or from within your BigCommerce dashboard.

Partner with Zenti

Do you already have a merchant account but can't get an Authorize.net account?

Have an Authorize.net account but no accompanying merchant account?

Or do you need both?

Zenti can help. Our payments experts can help you get set up with a high-risk merchant account and a high-risk payment gateway. Processing high-risk payments or high-volume sales puts your business in a different category — but it's a category our payments experts feel right at home helping with. Contact us to get your payment gateway integration started so you can begin accepting payments today.