Gate2Shop - Sell more.

Check out our friends over at Tanki Online. They are running some nice promotions for crystals if paid through Gate2Shop.
You can find more information here.

Attractive and, above all, efficient websites is the great challenge for every online merchant. Being efficient means to sell more and improving the user experience will definitely help. In this post, we will give some keys points to improve customer experience for software, digital goods and games online merchants. The main peculiarity of the digital product industry selling online is that there is no physical products so certain parameters that are important to the retailing sector, such as stock availability, shipping charges or payment on delivery, do not need to be considered. Nevertheless, the tips listed below can and should be applied to any online store:

1. Optimize your website. Optimize the more technical aspects of the site: Improve accessibility, site-speed and create a simple, attractive and well-organized website structure. Bear in mind that clear and clean navigation is critical.

2. User oriented design. Keep it simple! Online consumers like simple and short processes. Users do not want to learn to use your site; they want your site to be adapted to their mental structure. Add clarity to simplicity and do not make the mistake of, for instance, labelling call-to-action buttons with confusing words like “submit” if what you mean is “buy now.”

3. Product display and information. Accurate, complete and clear information about your products is essential. You cannot allow your users to find the information needed to finalize the purchase elsewhere. Create your own product descriptions and never just copy the description given by the manufacturer. When selling digital products online, you do not really need to include 360-degree view of the products, but be imaginative and include, for example, a demo or an explanatory video of your digital goods.

4. Social Shopping. People like to know what other people have bought, which the best-sellers are or what the online community thinks on a given item. Bear in mind that personal recommendations are a major influence on purchase decisions and build trust. So include the options to rate products, post comments, and show these references to future buyers and you will improve significantly the user experience. Additionally, combine users-ratings with cross-selling options, which will be very effective if you display “Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed…”

Do not forget to include social media sharing buttons to every product, this will allow your clients to recommend your products, inform their contacts about their latest acquisition or ask for advice to their network.

5. Price policy. Price is one of the first things consumers watch and one of the main reasons to purchase, so display it clearly. Your users will appreciate not having to do extra clicks to find the price and remember that your competitors are also one click away. On the other hand, do not hide additional charges revealed only at the checkout; nobody likes to be taken for a fool.

6. Checkout process. The checkout process MUST be as short and quick as possible. Users will also appreciate if you inform about how many steps the purchasing process is going to take and at which point they are.  Allow checkout without registration. Registration is a useless burden and a major cause of cart abandonment for first time clients (most of the users do not want to reveal personal information when is not really necessary) but also for returning clients, since they might have forgotten their password.

7. Payment options. Provide a great variety of payment options to boost your sales, markets and conversions. Do not assume that everyone has a PayPal account, that everyone has a credit card or that everybody can pay in dollars. It is best to offer the greatest possible number of credit and debit cards from as many countries as possible and to accept payments in different currencies.

8. Keep in touch. Cultivate the relation with your customers. Once customers have finished the purchase, it is time to ask them to subscribe to your newsletter or any other personalized alert system. Find out which are their interests and keep in touch accordingly (e.g. or accumulative points, extra discount for frequent users, etc.)

We take this opportunity to share with you this video about Tesco Homeplus Virtual Subway Store in South Korea. Although we want to focus our post on the virtual goods sector, it is a great example of how to eliminate boundaries and frustration and fascinate consumers:

If you found this post helpful, share it with your network!

Following on from our previous blog posting, we have since added another two payment methods…

AliPay is an immediate authorization eWallet, renowned in Asia, and the most famous and frequently used payment method in China.  Swiff is an offline bank transfer-like payment option available in Canada, with delayed authorization (pending status) and without chargebacks.

Making sure that the most relevant global and local payment methods are integrated into an ecommerce platform is just one piece of the jigsaw, but a very important piece.

We have just integrated two more payment methods into our ever expanding global ecommerce platform, which is good news to vendors who sell where these payment methods are popular.

AstroPay Card is a virtual pre-paid card for use in Brazil, while paysafecard is a pre-paid card for use in Europe. Both offer immediate authorization, without chargebacks.

The two new additions have already processed a number of transactions in the first few days of operation.

It’s spring again and we’ll spend time in Kyiv, Ukrain for the Spring Conference of ISDEF which is going to happen on April, 22-24. If you’re into the business of developing software and would like to learn how to sell it online successfully, we’ll be more than happy to meet you there. A cup of coffee later you may have a better understanding how selling software online works and what you need to do it successfully. We’re going to do our best to provide you with the right tools and payment options.

Drop us a line and we’ll meet you there.

We have joined forces with Atlas Interactive to offer a better solution to all our gaming, social media and virtual world clients. With this latest partnership we strive to achieve full international coverage in terms of mobile payments and allow end-customers to pay for their products the way they want to.

Our bet is you can’t wait to get your hand on the company phone and pay for some of your favorite social games. Or better yet, have your customers pay exactly that way…

We have combined our efforts with ViArt for providing a winning combination of online payment solutions and shopping cart software, which extends ViArt’s coverage and allow its clients to receive an outstanding packaged service.

As part of the cooperation, Gate2Shop will provide its portfolio of more than 80 local, international and alternative payment options to ViArt clients. The integration does not take more than a couple of minutes to set and once completed all of Gate2Shop’s services are available, including: fraud prevention package, promotional features, customer support, alternative payment options and many more.

On the other hand, Gate2Shop will benefit from ViArt’s years of experience and specifically designed suite that can support hundreds of orders per day with full automation and multilingual support.

Hello, ladies and gents! Did you know that mopay had teamed with Gate2Shop?


We have integrated with mopay, a leading provider of mobile payment solutions worldwide, to deliver a payment option especially designed to reach unbanked and underserved consumers i.e. people who do not want to use their credit cards and bank accounts have a way to pay now.


With this latest addition to our payment options portfolio, Gate2Shop addresses a current trend: mobile payments for digital and virtual goods. Having mopay on board will allow us to offer mobile payments in over 60 countries at a very competitive rate, frequent payouts and high conversion rates.


We are very pleased to announce this special partnership and believe that mobile payments can compete and even one day outpace other payment options when it comes to ease of use, conversion rates and of course, penetration rate. Whenever two established and experienced players like Gate2Shop and mopay team up, the results will be best in class.

Online businesses of all sizes demand resolutions to their needs to work through the changing financial landscape that is occurring throughout the world. This calls for the competitive service provider to take extra steps to stay ahead of these changes. Payment solutions are the key when it comes to conducting business of any size in today’s market, and hence Advanced Payment Solutions are needed.

Although most service providers offer similar options, taking a step ahead and using local payment solutions is a valuable investment. Some examples of these are: For the vendor, who sells software online and is targeting customers in Germany, the preferred payment options to consider are giropay and Sofortueberweisung, which are a real-time bank transfer payment options with payment guarantee, and ELV – this is a direct debit payment option, in order to better serve its German consumers. Adding these payment options is a huge step in offering options that are extremely popular in that specific location and most frequently used.

Another example: A developer that wishes to sell games online with their main focus on customers being in Europe should consider the Carte Bleue which is currently one of the larger debit cards in use throughout France, the Carta SI is a very popular debit card in use in Italy, and of course the Dankort Card, this is a Danish debit card and the national credit card of Denmark. The addition of these payment methods is intended to make it easier for the vendors to expand their successful online transactions. Together with a flash based payment billing model that can be easily integrated in any game, social media, video streaming or software, allowing the end users to quickly and conveniently pay for their requested service.

With these payment solutions only the addition of SMS payments can top off the list of providing the more advanced payments system. SMS or mobile payments are a new and rapidly-adopting alternative payment method – especially in Asia and Europe. The SMS and mobile payment market is expected to reach more than $600B globally within a few years so the leading e-commerce service providers are taking advantage now. To stay competitive and to truly offer “Advanced Payment Solutions” the SMS and mobile payment solutions must be provided so the vendor can stay competitive. This type of mobile payment method, which is extremely prevalent and popular in Asia, provides all of the benefits as the “standard” payment methods but allows the vendor to keep pace with the ever changing e-commerce market. The leading e-commerce service provider prides themselves on offering flexibility and innovative features in their e-commerce solutions that are continually evolving and added to the solutions that they offer their clients.

With the complexity of competing in the online industry during these extremely tough financial times, finding the perfect combination of solutions to provide for selling software online can be hard. The best alternative today is to select an e-commerce service provider with resources to best compliment your particular business model. Selling software online presents different challenges than some so the service provider should be able to offer more than just payment options. To provide a comprehensive service for this business model, research e-commerce platform providers; they offer more than a list of global payment methods but also provide an edge in an extremely competitive market. While conducting business throughout the world, vendors need a service provider that can provide a more complete e-commerce solution to work with the growing market.

Promotional features offered by e-commerce service providers offer powerful features that allow the online vendor the ability to design and promote their individual sale promotions and to manage the marketing of their products or services. With the software industry specifically, the use of this feature will perfectly compliment various promotions. By correlating the vendor’s products in the payment page administration area and with marketing tools complete control is obtained for each marketing endeavor.

Some of the control panels that are offered to vendors contain features or tools that differ greatly from provider to provider, so the research into these must be conducted in detail. The more complete e-commerce platform will provide:

•Promotional coupons – This can increase the sales of merchandise simply by offering additional products or services at a reduced rate within a certain time frame or with no time restrictions.

•Up-selling and Cross-selling tools – This gives the vendor the opportunity to increase sales online and the end user to purchase the products that they want by either combining them in bundles or substituting them with higher-priced ones.

•One Click Payment – One Click Payment allows repetitive customers to make online purchases with a single click. For returning customers this feature allows them to make further purchases without having to re-enter credit card information. This information is securely stored on the PCI certified system of G2S.

•Integration Assistant – This feature simplifies generating the script needed to create the Buy Now and Subscribe Now buttons so that with a simple copy and paste the generated script into the web page and the buttons will be ready to use. Once selected, the product and even the discount is applied directly to the payment page.

As you can see, these dynamic features when included into the control panel can have a great impact on sale promotions, and at the same time they can reduce the overall investment into extensive integration time and costs. These features are designed not only for the software industry but are highly useful for membership, digital content and many other applications.