Enabling Multiple Payment Gateways for BigCommerce Checkout

Customers today demand payment flexibility, so they should be given that. eCommerce checkout pages must be equipped with a variety of payment gateways that activate a range of payment options. This ensures that the checkout carries enough options to suit the preference of each customer.

BigCommerce is known for its multi-gateway compatibility, and user-friendly checkouts. But these checkouts are more versatile for one-time buyers than customers with subscription billing requirements. Merchants need to look for tools that allow them to combine multi-gateway functionality in a single checkout experience.

Luckily, SubscriptionFlow has got what they need. Let’s break this down.

How Limited Payment Options Affect Customer Relationships?

It is easy for ecommerce businesses to lose customers at the time of checkout. Even when customers like your store and products, and decide to purchase a subscription, the lack of their preferred payment method at checkout can deter their enthusiasm.

That’s why businesses offering only a limited number of payment options face higher cart abandonment rates. This is especially concerning for subscription-based businesses as their customers have recurring billing in mind. They may not opt for an option that’s inconvenient, as they have to be charged through that on a recurring basis.

In other words, they might not want to go through the inconvenience again and again, and that is understandable. To avoid these issues, BigCommerce merchants must offer their customers more payment options at checkout. And this is only possible through the enablement of multiple gateways.

Diverse gateways are especially needed for international customers. They might not always have access to the most popular methods, like PayPal. Therefore, offering some local methods targeting the geographies of your customer base also helps.

Can BigCommerce Make Multi-Gateway Subscription Billing Possible?

BigCommerce supports more than 60 gateways, and a number of them, such as PayPal, Braintree, Stripe and Adyen support recurring billing too. BigCommerce also allows merchants to enable as many gateways on the native checkout as they want. However, that’s where the multi-gateway functionality ends.

This is still great for one-time purchasers, as they can easily opt for their preferred method and pay. But subscribers need a lot more than that. Subscription-based stores have to conduct recurring billing. They have some needs that require advanced gateway functionalities. And this is how BigCommerce restricts them:

Only one gateway allowed per subscription

Customers are presented with diverse payment options at checkout. They can choose any one for their subscription. But that’s where the choice stops. They cannot change their payment method after the initial payment, even if it is supported by the same gateway as the previous one. So, even if a merchant faces payment failures through the selected method later, they cannot ask customers to change it.

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No automatic payment re-routing

When the customer’s chosen gateway experiences downtime, it can block their payments in progress, resulting in failures. The best solution to avoid this is to re-route payment from another available gateway. This process is automatic and instant. However, BigCommerce doesn’t support it, which can make payment failures challenging to deal with.

Subscription cancellation required for payment method change

If a subscriber wants to change their payment method later, they can’t do that. If sticking with the same method becomes impossible, then the only way to change it is to cancel subscription. So the customer has to re-subscribe, and start their billing journey from scratch. This process is tedious and requires effort, increasing the risk of churn.

Gateways cannot be deployed by region or plan type

BigCommerce does not natively support intelligent routing logic in its checkout. So the appropriate payment gateways cannot be automatically routed to the customers by their geography or subscription type. They need to manually select a method from the entire set provided.

Why Multiple Gateways are a Must for Subscription-Based Stores?

The multi-gateway setup in a single checkout is invaluable for subscription businesses on BigCommerce. Since they cannot unlock the full potential of this setup through the native checkout, they have to implement smarter solutions.

Here’s why having multiple payment gateways for recurring payments is a need:

Uninterrupted Billing

Customers’ billing journeys need to be free of hiccups, as that’s important for giving them a quality subscription experience. When payments fail, or unexpected delays occur due to factors not in the customer’s knowledge, it adds friction in their payment processes.

Advanced multi-gateway logic helps merchants avoid these problems. Merchants can ask customers to change their payment method, and can also re-route payment from other gateways if the chosen gateway causes any problem.

This ensures that billing continues smoothly, and customers are saved from any additional effort.

Saving on Processing Fees

With advanced subscription billing software, merchants can configure smart routing rules. So if their order value increases a certain amount, they can automatically assign those gateways to customers that have lesser processing fees. This makes cost-cutting possible.

Catering to Multiple Regions

Merchants should use a payment gateway stack focused on various countries. If they only provide a limited set, or the mainstream payment options, they may lose customers who depend on local methods. For instance, if a merchant provides only PayPal and popular digital wallets, it may miss out on customers using cards.

Catering to Mobile-First Users

It is important to offer alternative, and mobile-first methods such as PayPal, Venmo and WeChat Pay. This allows merchants to attract users that love the convenience of their mobile phones, and manage all payments from there.

Set Up Your Multi-Payment Gateway Checkout Using SubscriptionFlow

SubscriptionFlow offers BigCommerce merchants its custom checkout, which they can fully personalize. Through this checkout, they can reap the maximum benefits of multiple gateway support.

This is what they can do:

Change customers’ payment methods easily

Customers are empowered to change their own payment method through the self-service portal. This makes things incredibly easy for merchants, as they don’t have to entertain payment method change requests manually.

Payment method can be changed even if it is available through another gateway. The system registers this change, and continues billing the customer via the updated method smoothly.

Retry failed payments

Merchants can automatically retry failed payments via the customer’s chosen method. They can retry payments as many times as needed to increase the chances of payment recovery.

Auto-route payments via other gateways

Gateways are not invulnerable, and can undergo downtimes due to increased load or maintenance. In such scenarios, re-routing payment through another gateway is the best, and fastest solution. SubscriptionFlow supports this automatic re-routing feature.

Assign gateways according to country and subscription plan

A customer not living in the US cannot make payment through Venmo, as it is US-exclusive. So even if a merchant supports Venmo, there’s no point in offering that method to non-US customers.

In order to make checkout more convenient for customers, merchants can set up smart gateway allocation. This ensures that customers view only those payment methods at checkout that are available in their country. So they have less to navigate, allowing them to choose the right option faster.

Moreover, gateways can also be allocated based on the customer’s plan type and total payment. If their payment amount exceeds a certain number, they can be automatically offered only those payment methods that incur lesser processing costs.

Enable all payment methods at the same time

SubscriptionFlow supports a wide range of payment methods, and merchants can choose to enable all of them at the same time. This ensures that their customers are met with payment method diversity at checkout. It increases checkout completion chances. When a customer selects any method from the given, the system routes their payment through the appropriate gateway itself.

Like these features? Get all of these and many more at your fingertips. Sign up with SubscriptionFlow, and unlock smart multi-gateway functionality for your BigCommerce store.