There are perhaps no two things more important to your customers than these two aspects, and if they are done properly they should never be overtly noticeable. They are security and seamless design. Perhaps even more powerful is when these two elements work together with your payment processing. To say this is cornerstone to any web business would be an understatement. Bixly frequently advocates integrating Stripe for this purpose, and we have plenty of experience implementing it on many sites. Let’s take a closer look at how Stripe satisfies both of these attributes.
Security
You’re dealing with your client’s personal and financial information. It needs to be secure. This is so self-evident that little else needs to be said on the topic. Stripe is an excellent solution for payment processing simply on the basis of their security. One of the greatest advantages to any web owner and operator is that Stripe takes on the majority of the obligations for security from ensuring their servers are PCI compliant to isolating all information input so that it never has to touch your site or your databases.
So, how exactly does that work? How do you… you know get paid? Stripe uses an iFrame, which you can imagine is a veil overlaying your webpage. But it’s a really teeny, tiny veil that only covers the credit card information fields. When your customers fill in those necessary fields, the information is actually inputted to their website, not yours, and goes straight to their servers, not yours. Once payment has been confirmed, Stripe sends back a token associated with a particular customer that tells your site that payment was successful. If your site ends up customizing Stripe’s integration in a way that opens you to PCI compliance, Stripe will let you know via a self-assessment questionnaire and will even help you answer the questions or adjust your implementation as needed.
Seamless Design and UX
While security is of utmost important, it doesn’t matter if the security causes inconvenience on the part of your customers. If the process causes them to jump through too many hoops, even if those hoops are for their own benefit, they won’t finish the process and they won’t become returning customers. This is where Stripe’s seamless design comes in.
As mentioned, Stripe uses an iFrame, that tiny veil that overlays the credit card field on your site. They made this as minimalist and flexible as possible from a design perspective. You can make the styling of that field and the submit button next to it match the rest of your website to the very last pixel. From your customer’s perspective it will look and act like your site. They won’t be redirected through an additional log in or have extra pop-ups on their screens, like some other payment processors have. Their experience is simple, streamlined, and beautiful.
Combining these two attributes is something that the average user of your site won’t notice. And that’s the way it should be. Excellent design and secured transactions should never come to their attention because it just works. Connect with us if you want to give your customers peace of mind and an unparalleled experience on your site.