An ecommerce salesman checks a payment from a laptop while his coworker looks over his shoulder holding an empty mug

6 eCommerce Payment Methods Your Small Business Needs to Succeed

Thursday, January 30, 2025

Innovation in fintech (financial technology) is constant, not to mention complex.

We get it. Keeping up with payment trends alone can be challenging. Sifting through the hype to separate the must-have functionality you need from flashy, nice-to-have features can be even more daunting.

It’s time to put those worries to rest. In this post, we’ll bring it all into focus for you. Read on to learn about what’s driving the relentless evolution of digital payments technology and the six online payment methods your small business can’t succeed without.

A smiling customer on his couch completes a card payment at his laptop

The pandemic changed digital payments forever

So what ultimately drove payments innovation? In a word: COVID

Here’s a brief history: In 2020, traditional brick-and-mortar businesses that relied primarily on in-person traffic and card-present transactions were forced to embrace ecommerce practically overnight. Digital payments technology — and the convenience that comes with it — created an army of online shoppers that helped businesses survive. But it also set an expectation: that all businesses operate online, with the ability to serve their customers and take ecommerce payment methods with ease.

Years later, that expectation hasn’t changed. In fact, it’s grown. Customers now demand omnichannel capabilities that blend online and in-person payment services perfectly.

In other words, consumers want a frictionless user experience whether they’re at your checkout counter or on their couch.

An online seller checks her website for a completed ecommerce payment

Business owners are embracing ecommerce payment options

While meeting that demand may have felt overwhelming at first, you’ve likely since joined the majority of small businesses in beginning to embrace online shopping as eagerly as your customers have. And it’s no wonder. Ensuring you’re visible online gives you access to a virtually limitless ecommerce marketplace and plenty of cash.

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According to Transaction Trends, the value of worldwide payments will likely reach $250 trillion over the next few years.

Expanding the ecommerce payment methods you accept is the best place to start making inroads. That means if you haven’t already, it’s time to establish core payments functionality. So what is that exactly? We define it as must-have digital payments technology that equips you to:

  • Accept all of the ways your customers want to pay

  • Deliver a flawless, omnichannel customer experience anywhere

  • Get paid faster by streamlining online transactions and processes

  • Rely on a robust tech stack that positions you well for the future

The 6 online payment methods you should be accepting

Get your business up and running with solutions that make it easy to take the following types of payment methods:

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1. All major credit and debit cards:

This category includes Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover cards.

If your business has a physical location, you need hardware that allows customers to tap their cards and pay via contactless payments, like NFC, or insert EMV chip cards into a card reader. Since physical stores aren’t always necessarily brick-and-mortar shops, this type of capability can look like a slimmed down version of a robust point of sale (POS) system or a mobile card reader. And if your business is on the literal move — like a food truck or pop-up shop — that doesn’t mean you have to forgo the ability to easily accept credit cards.

Not only is this tech convenient for customers, but it also helps your business comply with PCI standards. If you fail to achieve compliance and experience a data breach, your merchant account could be revoked, losing the ability to accept credit cards, not to mention the financial burden of the fines and penalties you could face.

Businesses worldwide are projected to lose $43 billion to credit card fraud over the next year. If trends hold steady, US businesses alone will shoulder almost a third of that burden ($12.5 billion), making America the most credit card fraud-prone country in the world. All the more reason to rely on tech you can trust.

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2. Digital and mobile wallets:

Apple Pay.® Google Pay.® PayPal. You know the big-name examples of digital and mobile wallets. And although they all function a little differently, we’re grouping them together here because they’re equally important — and popular among consumers for in-person and ecommerce payment methods.

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According to our 2025 payment trends report, about 5.2 billion people, or more than 60% of the global population, will use digital wallets or mobile payments apps by 2026. That’s up from 3.4 billion users in 2022, according to Juniper Research.

In fact, more than half (53%) of the retail and ecommerce businesses we surveyed with Bredin say the most important feature of a payments system is the ability to accept digital wallets. Some of the benefits include faster authentication, enhanced fraud protection and fraud prevention with built-in tokenization, reduced chargebacks and improved conversion rates and cart abandonment.

And while this trend isn’t as prolific in physical locations as it is on ecommerce sites, it’s still significant. Data shows that 30% of payments made at a POS over the last year came from a digital wallet, more than any other payment type.

So whether consumers want to tap their mobile device in-person, or use their digital wallet to make purchases on ecommerce websites, it’s important to be able to accommodate anyone who wants to pay with a mobile device. Otherwise, you risk losing out on a significant chunk of business.

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3. Phone and online purchases:

We’ve covered how it’s important for you to offer convenient ways for your customers to pay. We’ve also talked a lot about ecommerce transactions and payment processing. But what happens when those two things don’t connect? What about online transactions for those customers who still want to pick up the phone?

Virtual terminal capabilities could be the answer. This technology allows your business to securely accept and process credit and debit card payments without the card being present.

Interactive voice response technology also makes it easy for customers to pay by phone without requiring someone to physically take the card information. An automated menu walks callers through pricing and what essentially becomes a secure online transaction.

Virtual terminals may also be ideal if you don’t need a complete POS system, but still want the ability to accept, enter payment information and process payments through a payment gateway, ecommerce platform or other payment systems.

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4. Links and digital invoicing:

Invoicing may be the last thing you think of when it comes to online payments. But it deserves high priority. Relying on manual, paper-based processes drives increased, unnecessary expenses, in terms of both lost time and hard costs.

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According to Paystand, it takes 35 days for the average B2B payment cycle to run its course, and almost half of invoices are paid late anyway. Between reviewing, correcting, printing, mailing and reconciling invoices, various industry resources estimate it costs businesses between $12 - $30 to process a single invoice. If you’re dealing with invoices regularly like many contractors and ecommerce stores, that’s no small amount.

But there’s good news. Automation can reduce those costs and help you get paid faster, improving cash flow and reducing transaction fees. Payment links allow you to create and share custom links through almost any channel — text, email, you name it. And digital invoices allow you to send an invoice and request a secure payment with the click of a button, while also creating a documented trail that reduces the ability for payers to say they never received a bill, streamlining the checkout process.

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5. Checks and ACH:

While shoppers writing checks to pay for a retail or grocery haul may sound like ancient history, plenty of businesses (even ecommerce businesses) still use checks regularly to accept payments from vendors or pay employees.

If you’re one of them, and you use tedious processes to manage paper checks, it’s time for a change. Consider embracing electronic payments and using ACH transactions and electronic checks to manage bank transfers between yourself and your vendors, customers and employees.

Not sure what ACH is? It stands for Automated Clearing House, a network in the US used to electronically transfer money between bank accounts. You might know it as a type of bank transfer called a “direct deposit” or “direct payment.”

Not only is this a faster, cheaper, more reliable way to move money to your merchant’s bank account, but it also makes back-end accounting easier by eliminating the need for manual reconciliation. Always a plus.

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6. Short-term financing

Installment loans — not to be confused with traditional business loans — allow consumers to make purchases over a series of payments, like buy now, pay later (BNPL). A certain percentage is always due at checkout. After that, the payment installments are divided into equal amounts.

At first glance, you may be thinking short-term financing like BNPL sounds pretty much the same as making a credit card payment. While both involve delayed payment for an item, there are differences in the details.

For example, if buyers qualify for a credit card (and many can’t), they have the ability to carry a credit card balance indefinitely — and the ability to incur credit card debt due to steep interest rates. On the other hand, the short-term financing model gives end-consumers several low to no interest payment installment loan options, which they can quickly and easily qualify for online.

Originally an ecommerce-only payment method, short-term financing is moving into brick and mortar stores. Even banks are embracing BNPL. As a result of its growing popularity across different channels, it’s certainly worth considering as a must-have layer of your business’ tech stack, even if you don’t have an online store.

An ecommerce seller checks her digital invoices from her laptop in the back office before shipping a package

Choose your payment provider wisely

When it comes to equipping your business with the payment solutions and ecommerce payment processing you need, separating the hype from the must-haves is crucial. Working with the right service provider can help you stay on track.

When choosing your payment provider, it’s important to select a partner who can allow your business to accept the fundamental online payment types we just covered together. But that’s not all. It’s also important to make sure your provider’s checkout experience meets your needs.

At Heartland, we can do both.

From eBilling and invoicing, to mobile wallets, ecommerce payment methods, ACH transactions and so much more — Heartland offers powerful digital payment solutions backed by a suite of flexible financial service technologies that allow you to accept all the ways your customers want to pay — from anywhere. Serving over 100 verticals, we offer cloud-based payments technology and APIs, while supporting the flexibility you require to scale.

Best of all, we make it easy for you to get the help you need quickly. Whenever you need a helping hand, you can simply email or call one of our specialists. They’re quick to respond and invested in your success. Contact us whenever you’re ready to chat.

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Apple Pay® is a trademark of Apple, Inc. Google Pay® is a trademark of Google LLC. All trademarks contained herein are the sole and exclusive property of their respective owners.

Heartland is the point of sale, payments and payroll solution of choice for entrepreneurs that need human-centered technology to sell more, keep customers coming back and spend less time in the back office. Nearly 1,000,000 businesses trust us to guide them through market changes and technology challenges, so they can stay competitive and focus on building remarkable businesses instead of managing the daily grind. Learn more at heartland.us.