Is your business ready for an ecommerce solution that can help you maximize sales while minimizing costs? Or do you want a way to offer customers more flexibility in how they pay so you don't have to build out infrastructure or hire staff to support it? If either of these sound like something you'd be interested in, then you might consider a white label payment gateway as part of your strategy.
A white label payment gateway lets merchants provide customers with a branded shopping experience by integrating third party services such as Dwolla, Stripe, Inc., Paypal, etc. into their site's checkout flow. This means no need for them to manage back office transactions, customer databases, fraud protection, PCI compliance, and other costly tasks associated with running a successful store. Instead, if you already maintain a website where people buy products and/or services from you (and maybe even sell some stuff on there), all you'll need to do is install the right white label payment gateway onto your site and integrate it using APIs provided by the provider.
In addition to simplifying the entire experience, this also allows you to brand your storefronts with your name, logo, and colors, which will make it much easier for visitors to find what they're looking for when browsing your inventory. And if you choose to use a white label payment gateway that offers integration tools for mobile apps, shoppers can purchase items directly from their phone too!
So what exactly does "white labeling" mean? What are the benefits involved with doing it? Is it really worth the investment? Let's take a look at everything we know about the subject and see what else we can learn along the way.
The term "white label" refers to a company selling its wares under another entity's banner. For example, if you were to open up a restaurant called The Great American Cafe, but instead wanted to operate it under the umbrella of Starbucks Corp., you could call it a "Starbucks Restaurant." In this case, you would not only get access to the same menu items and decor found inside any Starbucks location, but you'd also benefit from the coffee chain's infrastructure, marketing campaigns, customer database, and overall brand recognition. You wouldn't need to invest time, money, and effort in building out your own system, and you'd still reap the rewards once those efforts paid off.
But what happens when you decide to start offering your goods and services through different channels than the one you initially chose? Do you just continue operating the same old shop across multiple platforms? That's certainly possible, but isn't always ideal. A better option may be to set up a separate storefront for each platform, but why not go further and leverage the same technology used for each? After all, you've likely invested quite a bit in getting your current setup working correctly, and now you probably want to save yourself from needing to rework your existing setup whenever you add new functionality. So if you're willing to put forth the extra work required to integrate a white label payment gateway into your existing webstore, you should definitely think twice before passing up on this opportunity.
Not sure yet if you should try out a white label payment gateway? Here are some things to keep in mind:
It doesn't cost anything upfront - Unlike traditional brick-and-mortar stores, it's actually free to sign up for most white label payment providers today. All you need to do is register for an account on their respective websites, and then head over to their API page and follow instructions to connect your site to theirs. Once you do that, your transaction data will automatically sync between both locations, allowing you to track orders made via your storefront and receive real-time notifications when someone pays you using your integrated service.
You won't lose control - When choosing a payment processor, you must ensure that it provides enough flexibility to handle whatever needs arise throughout the course of your business' lifecycle. Some processors require you to host certain components on their servers, which gives them full ownership over the code and prevents you from modifying it to suit your unique needs down the road. Others allow you to modify the source code themselves, giving you ultimate freedom to tailor your product however you wish. With white labels, though, you retain complete control of the code you write since none of the underlying technologies are owned by anyone except the company providing them.
There's no limit to who uses it - Most white label payment gateways allow you to accept payments from virtually any type of device, including smartphones and tablets. Even if you currently rely solely upon desktop computers, you can easily expand to include devices capable of making purchases offline or online. As long as you have a browser connection, you should be able to reach your customers wherever they happen to be located!
As mentioned above, a "white payment" refers to a merchant who sells his goods or services through a white label payment gateway. But what exactly does that entail? Well, if you've ever shopped on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Target, and many others, you've undoubtedly noticed that each retailer has its very own branding. These aren't simply generic sites with similar features. They're built around specific images, fonts, and layouts meant to appeal to particular demographics. It makes sense, then, that when it comes to selling merchandise on the internet, retailers would prefer to utilize the same visual presentation and user interface elements everywhere they can. Otherwise, potential buyers will feel confused and overwhelmed trying to figure out which product belongs to whom. By leveraging a white label payment gateway, you can give consumers exactly what they expect to encounter regardless of whether they're buying from your bricks and mortar store or from your digital storefront.
When you sign up for a white label payment gateway, you'll generally end up paying somewhere between $50-$250 per month depending on the number of users you intend to serve. However, there are ways to reduce this expense significantly. First, you can negotiate discounts based on volume purchased. Second, you can opt to charge additional fees to cover bandwidth usage and maintenance. Third, you can implement tiered pricing plans that cap monthly spending according to the number of active accounts maintained. Finally, you can also purchase a dedicated server hosting package, which will typically come bundled with unlimited storage space, email addresses, domain names, SSL certificates, FTP accounts, and even custom cPanel login credentials.
While the terms "payment gateway" and "merchant" tend to refer specifically to the online side of retailing activities, "billing" is often synonymous with the physical world. Regardless of whether you run an actual brick-and-mortar store or are merely selling through a virtual storefront, it's important to understand that a good amount of the financial activity surrounding a given sale takes place outside of said store itself. Whether you're dealing with shipping invoices, bank statements, or other paperwork related to your business, chances are you'll need to print or send copies to various parties. If you had to manually enter information into spreadsheets every time you needed to perform this task, you'd surely become frustrated pretty quickly. Fortunately, there are several solutions available for generating PDF files containing a wealth of information that can be sent electronically rather than physically. One of the best options here is a white label bill generator.
Like a white label payment gateway, a whitelabel biller helps facilitate transactions between two entities. Rather than requiring sellers to manually enter bills into accounting software, they can instead generate customized documents that contain all necessary details. Additionally, if you plan to use a white label bill generator, you'll never again need to worry about printing paper receipts or sending hardcopies of forms filled out by hand. Everything can be done digitally, which saves everyone involved a lot of hassle.
A white label payment gateway lets merchants offer services like Paypal or Dwolla on their website using their own brand name. This can be extremely useful for small business owners who don't have time to learn complex coding languages or set up web servers.
In addition to offering an attractive alternative to traditional payment methods, many of these services also provide other benefits such as fraud protection tools that help protect your customer's information from being stolen in case of data breaches. For example, if you're worried about people stealing your email address when they buy something from your site, you may choose to use a service that offers two-factor authentication. You'd never know it was there unless someone tried to steal money from your account.
There are several popular white label payment gateways available today including Braintree, Dwolla, Payoneer, and more. They all work similarly by allowing companies to integrate their software into their websites. When a user chooses one of those options, instead of paying through a third party, he or she will pay directly to the company whose logo appears on the page.
Here we'll explain what this means, how much it costs, and whether or not it makes sense for any particular business owner. If you want to go ahead and try out some of these services yourself before deciding which ones make sense for you, here's everything you need to know about setting them up.
What is the difference between a private label credit card and a general purpose card?
When you see a "white label" payment option listed on a website, chances are good that it's actually just another way to pay using a generic Visa/MasterCard. There are plenty of different types of cards so you might wonder why anyone would bother buying one that says their name on it. A general purpose debit card doesn't require monthly fees, but the only reason to get one is because you want to avoid getting hit with excessive interest rates (which could cost hundreds each year!) when making purchases at places where you normally spend cash. That said, most major banks offer plastic versions of their branded debit cards, so even though they aren't technically called white labels, they often look similar enough to confuse users.
Private label credit cards are very rare and usually come with higher annual fees than standard bank accounts. The main benefit over a regular credit card is that you won't incur additional charges every month when making payments. For instance, if you were previously charged $10 per transaction, then you wouldn't have to worry about adding that amount onto your statement ever again. Instead, you'd simply add whatever fee you agreed upon during setup. In fact, since these cards typically come with lower interest rates, you might end up saving thousands of dollars in total over years of usage! Unfortunately, the best private label cards tend to carry high upfront fees. Also keep in mind that while private label cards do exist, they're generally designed for commercial purposes rather than personal use. Therefore, they often lack features found on normal consumer cards, such as international travel insurance.
Similar to its namesake, a white mastercard is essentially just a version of a regular credit card that comes with a specific name printed on it. Unlike a private label card, however, a white mastercard has no special perks attached to it beyond the branding itself. Its main advantage is that it allows the holder to receive rewards points whenever they shop or dine at certain restaurants, hotels, retail stores, etc. However, the value of these reward points depends entirely on the terms of whichever program you sign up for. Some programs pay 1 point for every dollar spent, others give 2 points for every dollar spent. And finally, there are still others that award 5 points for every dollar spent. It's important to note that although you can earn these rewards points, you cannot redeem them for free merchandise. So if you've already decided to purchase a new pair of shoes or shirt with your newly earned points, you'll either have to sell them back to the store or exchange them for gift certificates.
The downside to using a white mastercard is that unlike a regular credit card, you must apply and obtain approval before signing up. While this isn't necessarily difficult, it does take longer than applying for a regular credit card. Another drawback associated with white masters is that you can't open a savings account to deposit your earnings. Although you may be able to transfer funds from your checking account to a savings account after earning enough points, you can't withdraw earnings until you reach a minimum balance. Finally, while you can use a white mastercard anywhere Visa or MasterCard is accepted, it's always wise to check first if your intended location accepts the card. Keep in mind that sometimes these rules change depending on the country in question.
While stripe is primarily known for providing the technology behind Bitcoin ATMs, it's also used by many ecommerce sites around the world as well as numerous startups. Like almost anything else, you can start your own custom stripe server to accept payments right now. But once you do, there are a few things you should know. First off, stripe is completely free to use, regardless of how large or small your business is. Since it provides all the backend processing, you don't even have to maintain your own servers. Second, stripe currently supports seven currencies: USD, EUR, GBP, CAD, AUD, NZD, and HKD. Third, stripe requires a minimum order size of 10 cents ($0.01) and a maximum limit of 100 million transactions per day. Lastly, stripe is built on top of Amazon Web Services' cloud platform, so there's nothing stopping you from running your own servers in AWS and hosting your stripe code there.
If you decide to pursue this route, you should realize that stripe is meant to replace existing solutions, such as Square Cash and Shopify Payments. As such, you shouldn't expect to find all the same features offered by those products. For starters, stripe only works within the United States and Canada. Additionally, stripe limits the number of items you can ship at one time to three, compared to Square Cash's unlimited quantity shipping rule.
On the bright side, stripe is incredibly simple to implement thanks to its API, SDKs, and documentation. Furthermore, developers love working with stripe because it's easy to scale down to low volumes of traffic and easily expand to accommodate larger loads later on. All told, stripe is probably the easiest payment provider to set up.
Stripe charges a flat rate of 3% plus 30¢ per successful transaction. This includes both credit card sales as well as direct debits. To put that in perspective, if you run a single subscription plan worth $100 per month, you'll pay approximately $3.30 for every sale made on your site. Of course, this amount varies greatly based on how long you've been accepting payments via stripe. The earlier you begin charging, the less expensive the transaction will be.
As mentioned above, stripe does allow you to integrate its system into your existing ecommerce solution. However, you must first submit a request for authorization to activate the integration. Once approved, you can immediately generate invoices and collect payments. On the flipside, integrating stripe involves creating a separate, dedicated application that handles all the complexities involved with collecting payments. Depending on your needs, this might prove beneficial or detrimental.
To sum it all up, a white label payment gateway is basically a digital storefront for accepting credit card payments. Because many of these services are hosted outside of your control, you'll have limited access to functionality such as managing security measures or storing sensitive customer info. However, since you retain full ownership of your domain name, you can continue to offer your product or service under your own unique identity. At the end of the day, it really boils down to whether you prefer to focus on building relationships with your clients or maintaining strict privacy policies.
The concept of “white labeling” has been around for quite some time now, but it's only recently that it's become more mainstream in terms of its usefulness to small business owners who are looking to have an easier way to accept payments from customers using any number of different platforms. It allows merchants to take advantage of third party services while still retaining full control over how they appear to customers. This means that instead of building out your own system or buying products that you'll never use again, you can simply pay someone else to build one for you!
In this article we're going to go through what exactly a white label merchant is, as well as some other common questions about these types of solutions.
A white label merchant is essentially a company that offers another service to help facilitate transactions between two parties (customers and sellers). These companies often specialize in providing a specific type of transaction solution such as processing credit cards, gift cards, bitcoin, etc... They will do all of the work required to make sure that each transaction goes smoothly so that both parties stay happy.
As mentioned above, there are many different ways that white label merchants come into play. However, the most popular ones today revolve around offering payment options for eCommerce stores so that they don't need to set up their own infrastructure. This includes things like accepting Bitcoin payments, creating gift cards, making ACH transfers, and even accepting Apple Pay directly. There are also plenty of ways that white label merchants provide value beyond just facilitating purchases though. For example, they may offer additional features such as fraud protection, customer support, refunds, coupons, shipping, etc...
So what makes them valuable to a seller? Well, aside from allowing them to not worry about setting up their own infrastructure, they can usually charge much lower fees than if they were doing everything themselves. In fact, sometimes they won't require any setup costs at all since they've already built everything needed for you to get started accepting payments immediately. Also, because they handle all of the technical details behind the scenes, you can focus on growing your store by selling stuff rather than worrying about getting paid. With that being said, however, when comparing pricing structures across different white label providers, it pays to shop around and find the best deal possible. Some providers might be willing to cut you a better rate if you commit to a long term agreement where you agree to buy lots of goods in bulk, whereas others might prefer that you stick to smaller orders. It really depends on which provider you choose. And although you should always negotiate the lowest fee possible, it's important to remember that every dollar saved counts towards helping your bottom line grow.
Here are some examples of companies that fall under the umbrella of "white label" payment processors:
Stripe - The most well known option available right now, Stripe offers a variety of different payment methods including credit/debit cards, debit cards, cryptocurrency, gift cards, loyalty programs, prepaid cards, and bank accounts. You can integrate Stripe with almost anything you sell, whether it's physical items, digital downloads, subscriptions, event tickets, etc... And thanks to their robust API, developers can easily add new functionality based on user feedback and requests.
WePay - WePay specializes in processing payment via credit card and virtual currency. Thanks to their unique technology called Instant Exchange™, you can instantly convert funds from any supported form of currency into US dollars within seconds after receiving approval from the buyer.
Braintree - Another major player in the world of white label payment processors, Braintree provides easy integration with nearly any platform imaginable. Their goal is to simplify commerce by simplifying the shopping experience. By integrating with hundreds of apps and websites, Braintree helps retailers increase conversion rates and drive sales through their mobile app.
Worldpay - Though less well know compared to the giants listed above, Worldpay is actually pretty awesome too. Like Braintree, they excel at solving problems associated with traditional forms of payment such as international wire transfer, cash deposits, recurring billing, and invoicing.
BlueSnap - BlueSnap focuses primarily on credit card processing, but their technology works with virtually any kind of payment method imaginable including cryptocurrencies, bank account withdrawals, direct deposit, electronic checks, and more. As far as security goes, BlueSnap uses 256 bit encryption along with multi layered authentication processes designed to protect against fraudulent activity.
These are just five of the prominent players in the industry. If you want to learn more about what happens behind the scenes when you purchase something online, check out our guide detailing how Bitcoin works for more information.
A white label credit card is basically the same thing as a regular plastic Visa or Mastercard except that it comes preloaded with all of the necessary software tools to allow you to run a credit card processing operation yourself. That means that once you receive the card, you're ready to start taking credit card payments straight away. Because they contain all of the necessary components, no extra steps are involved in order to begin accepting credit cards. All you need to do is load them onto your POS device(s) and then plug them into your computer. Most importantly, unlike with a conventional credit card, you don't have to wait weeks before you see profits roll in. Instead, you'll typically begin seeing revenue flow in mere days after activating your first card.
While many people assume that these kinds of cards look identical to a standard credit card, there are several differences worth noting. First off, they tend to cost slightly more than a normal credit card due to the added expense associated with manufacturing them. But overall, they generally carry similar APR rates and annual fees. So you shouldn't expect to see huge savings either way. Second, if you plan on running multiple locations, you'll probably want to consider purchasing a separate card per location to avoid confusion. Third, because they are preloaded with everything you need to get started quickly, there isn't a lot of room left for customization. Although you could potentially change the color scheme or design of the front side of the card, you wouldn't have access to any of the back end functions.
Finally, a word of warning here -- unlike a real credit card, a white label credit card doesn't give the holder permission to spend money anywhere. Rather, it gives the owner authorization to collect payment. Thus, if you ever lose the card, you can't reverse the charges to prevent the person from spending money on unauthorized expenses.
Similar to the previous section, a white label card is a customized version of a regular plastic credit card that contains all of the necessary components necessary to operate a credit card processing facility. Unlike a white label credit card, however, a white label card does not include any sort of software. Instead, it consists entirely of blank pieces of paper that can be printed with whatever image you'd like.
Because they lack any software whatsoever, white label cards aren't very useful unless you intend to print them yourself. Otherwise, you'll likely need to hire professionals to produce custom designs for you.
When you apply for a credit card, you'll notice that there is a sticker on top of the card itself. What you call this sticker varies depending on the issuer, but it is commonly referred to as a "marker." On a white label credit card, the marker would refer to the name of the issuing institution, so that customers know whom they're dealing with.
If you decide to accept a credit card using a white label processor, be careful to ensure that you read the fine print carefully and understand exactly what you're agreeing to. Many times the contract states that the issuer reserves the right to terminate the relationship with you at any point in time if you violate certain conditions. So if you think you're going to save money by cutting corners and accepting bad risk, you might regret it later.
Also keep in mind that if you're dealing with a large corporation, you might want to ask for a copy of their privacy policy before signing anything. Companies that have been around for decades will normally have a track record that speaks volumes about their integrity. After all, if they didn't care enough to properly vet the people or organizations that they partner with, why should you trust them?
Just follow our battle-tested guidelines and rake in the profits.