5 Tested ways to Accept Payments Online in Nigeria

Are you looking for ways to accept payments online?

Do you want to sell your product online, but don’t know how customers can pay you?

Or maybe you’re tired of accepting payments manually.

That is why I wrote this article.

In this article, I’ll discuss 5 ways to accept payments online in Nigeria.

These 5 ways are used heavily on the internet today.

Some are recent and popular, while one is as old as Coca-Cola.

But each has its own advantage. Selecting an appropriate method of payment depends on your current business situation.

Let’s get started.

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1. Integrate a Payment GateWay

This is currently the best way to accept payment online.

Online retail store like Jumia, Aliexpress, and Amazon uses a Payment Gateway to accept payment on their website.

A Payment Gateway is your channel to accepting payments online. A payment gateway will enable you to charge your customer’s credit/debit/ATM card with the purchase he/she makes on your website.

Just like a POS(Point of Sales) terminal at a physical retail store like Shoprite, a Payment Gateway authorizes you to accept card payments directly from your website.

The payment gateway acts as a middleman between the transactions that take place on your website and the Payment Processor.

For security reason, a payment gateway is needed to accept card payments on your website — because you’re not allowed to transmit a customers payment information directly from your website to a payment processor.

Most online merchant accounts come with a payment gateway included, like Paystack.

Nearly all internet retail store in the world uses a payment gateway to accept payment from their customers.

Reasons

1. Integration: They can be easily integrated into your website
2. Security: Your customers can buy from you with confidence since a Payment Gateway normally encrypt user payment information via a sockets layer (SSL) and it works with their bank to determine whether the payment is legitimate.
3. Payment options: A typical Payment Gateway accepts both debit and credit cards. Some do accept “Pay with Bank” or from a mobile wallet. You can provide different payment options to your customers.
4. Usage feedback: A Payment Gateway can send you transaction reports in real time so you can gather insight into how your business is performing.
5. Multiple Currency: Most Payment Gateways supports several currencies allowing you to charge a customer in different country or region. So you can not only charge in Naira or Dollar. But it is worth noting that this might cost you more than charging a customer in Nigeria.
6. Seamless: Your customers don’t have to visit a bank to pay for your products or waiting for you to manually confirm their payment in order to use their service. A payment gateway can be integrated directly to your website to programmatically handle payments, removing the need for manual payment verification. This is a great benefit for those offering a service or selling digital product online.

If you’re serious with selling product via your website, I see no reason why you won’t use a Payment Gateway.

To integrate a payment gateway into your website, you’ll need a merchant account that allows website integration in Nigeria.

2. Setup a Payment Page

Sometimes you might not be interested in setting up an online store on your website.

You just want to sell a product and cash out, without having to set up a website — which has its own cost.

What you need is a simple web page that customers can pay you online.

To set up a payment page online, you’ll need a merchant account.

A merchant account allows you to accept and make payment online.

In Nigeria, they’re several online merchants account provider. All you have to do is to signup with them.

Examples of online merchant account provider:

1. Paystack
2. Rave
3. AmplifyPay
4. Remita
5. And several others.

See an example of a payment page I created easily with Paystack.

You don’t need a technical person to help you set up a payment page.

Benefits of using a payment page

1. A website not needed — you simply create a payment page with your merchant account. This will save you the cost of running a website.
2. You don’t need a software developer — as long as you browse on the internet, you can do it yourself.
3. Simple and fast to setup — you can create a payment page in 5 minutes.

Anyway, the only drawback with using a single payment page is that you’ll have to verify your customer payment before providing a value — sending a book or a product you’re selling. You can’t programmatically connect a payment page to work in harmony with your website.

3. Bank Deposit/Transfer

This is the oldest method of collecting payment on the internet.

You simply ask the customer to pay to a designated bank account. When you receive the payment successfully, you simply send the product or confirm their payment to a service.

In the early days of the internet, this is how a merchant receive payments online. Even in some cases, this method is still considered.

Some reputable Nigeria company still use this method as an option for a customer to pay.

They’re some customers in Nigeria without a credit/debit card, so you might consider adding this as one of your payment options for them.

And today banks are now making it possible for customers to send money without moving an inch, they can just transfer money to you from their mobile phone.

USSD is a popular method of payment in Nigeria. So you can specify to your customer that they can transfer to you using their bank code or with the bank app.

But,

Just like “Payment Pages” you have to verify customers payment in order to provide value to them. Sometimes this demand you’re in an active conversation with them, this gives them a feeling that you’re with them.

Still,

Most internet fraudsters have used this method to run away with money, so you should create a trustable business system — like having a professional website, a register business name, and a location, for this method to work.

4. Mobile Wallet

Similar to “Bank Deposit/Transfer”, a customer transfer money to you using an electronic wallet.

You can create a mobile wallet with a wallet provider so a customer can pay you with that wallet.

They several mobile money wallets in Nigeria.

1. QuickTeller
2. Paga
3. mCASH
4. Zenith Eazy Money
5. FirstMonie by FirstBank
6. and others

This method is getting common with big retailers. They simply provide an option for a customer to pay with a mobile money agent.

Still, like “Payment pages” you will need to manually verify each payment before offering your product to your customer.

They’re also some digital currency (e.g bitcoin) wallet provider you can signup with so your customer can pay with a digital currency.

Digital currency is going upward, and some few online companies are now supporting payment with bitcoin.

If you don’t want to set up a Payment Gateway but you can afford to verify user payment manually, then this is also an option to consider.

5. Marketplace Website

Finally, they will be times, selling your product on a marketplace platform can bring in more sales than doing it yourselves.

Selling a book on a website like Amazon can bring in more sale than trying to sell it on your own website.

Sometimes you don’t want to bother about Marketing, Sales page, Payment verification, Security, Traffic, or a set up a Website.

You just want to use a platform that can handle all that for you.

I know people who have made money selling on a platform like Amazon, Aliexpress, Shopify, and Jumia.

They simply created a merchant account on these websites and uploaded their product on sale.

Some of these websites already have millions of customers who visit their site daily to purchase an item.

By uploading your product, you stand a chance of selling your product in BIG volumes.

Like in business, they say location matters. Selling on this platform is like opening a computer store in a popular computer village.

Two big advantage of selling through a platform is you don’t have to worry about Payment Gateway and Web Service cost. They already help you with that.

Yours is just to sell the right product people need.

However, this method has some drawback.

1. You’re mostly not in control of your product.
2. Sometimes you might not be allowed to sell anywhere else.
3. You’re might be charged a particular percentage from each sale, or pay a recurring amount of money.
4. They can block your account or banned your product from their platform.
5. Very hard to create your own brand — since your customer will always refer to that platform as where they bought from.

Most of the items we buy from Amazon or Jumia are sold by independent businesses. But I and you will always refer to Amazon as the brand.

Now, in most cases, this downside might mean no harm to your business. Especially if you’re just starting out with online businesses.

So do some calculating before choosing this option.

Here is a small list of online platforms you can sell your products.

1. Amazon
2. Shopify
3. Aliexpress
4. Jumia
5. Magento
6. Jiji.ng
7. Woocommerce
8. and others

Conclusion

Choosing a suitable way to accept payments online depend on the business situation.

For serious online business, you should integrate a Payment Gateway on your website. But you can also combine multiple of these payment options for customers.

As a reflection, here is a list of payments method you can you use to receive payments online.

1. Integrate a Payment Gateway
2. Setup a Payment Page
3. Bank Deposit/Transfer
4. Mobile Wallet
5. Third-party Websites

NEED HELP?

If you need help setting up a Payment Gateway and general handling of payments online, you can contact me here.

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