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Online Payment Gateways for Pharmacy

 

The Kings of Convenience, Amazon, are here to make things easier for your customers. You need to be just as convenient if you want to keep hold of them.

 


This article is updated periodically to reflect changes in both the online payments and pharmacy industries.


Accepting Online Payments for Your Pharmacy

If COVID-19 didn’t stress the importance of online payment gateways for your pharmacy, Amazon’s recent inroads into the pharmacy world should.

Recently we talked about the importance of a website that works for you. Being able to accept payments is one of the key elements of a brilliant pharmacy website.

I tell people all the time that they aren’t competing with other pharmacies, but the general expectation of the public to what they should be able to do online now. Is it really too much to ask that someone can book and pay for a service online from you?

Well, now you are competing against other pharmacies. Amazon Pharmacy isn’t just out for you, but for everyone. Everyone will be stepping their digital game up.

The Digital Wave

This isn’t the beginning of the digital wave. The wave has been swelling for a long time. But it’s only just now reaching Community Pharmacy. If you haven’t bought into the idea yet that things are going to change dramatically in pharmacy, then soon it will be too late to surf the wave. Soon the wave will be crashing down on you and pulling you under.

Fortunately, a lot of pharmacies are now taking action. Also, with the evolution of digital health and mobile technology, and the ability to provide a vast array of private services, there are so many more reasons why taking payments online is a fantastic thing to do for your patients. We’ve had a lot of questions recently about online payments for pharmacy. Which one is the best? The cheapest? Which one has the best customer service?

We’ve learned a few things over the last year about pharmacy payment gateways. For example, Stripe, a brilliant online payment gateway that we use for our own business, does not generally accept pharmacies as customers.

So we decided to write this article to give you an idea of the options available to you.

Here are the Top Online Payment Gateways for Pharmacy in the UK

opayo logo

Opayo – A new name, but one you can trust – Our Recommended Solution and our Partner

Opayo, formerly SagePay (a massive name in online payments) is an incredibly reliable online payment solution for pharmacies. The name change has come about because of a takeover by Elavon a Subsidiary of U.S. Bank, which adds extra weight behind an already robustly reliable and secure platform. They offer an entirely scalable suite of payment options to suit your needs, including card machines for your physical location as well as their online offering. Opayo offers all the same integrations with website platforms as PayPal, which is a massive plus.

All your data in one place.

Collecting and understanding data from your existing customers is critical in getting them back into your pharmacy and spending more money. We wrote an article about Data Collection for Pharmacies and its value for pharmacy owners. Opayo’s Cloud Connect solution generates helpful data from your payments, allowing integration of orders, payments, and returns into your online data system to offer personalised product recommendations.

The fact that Opayo offers both in-store and online payment solutions means your data collection doesn’t miss anything. If people are paying by card, you’re collecting valuable information on customer activity. With real-time reports, understand what sells best, when you’re busiest, and who the bestsellers in your team are.

Convenience encouraging returning customers

Using a secure method called tokenisation, customers’ cards can be held securely on your system without you risking being hacked and having their details. This means when customers return to your site (to re-order a repeat item for instance), their checkout journey is a lot quicker. You know yourself, a quick checkout process is exactly what you want. That’s why Amazon’s “Buy with One Click” functionality exists.

Pricing

Pricing is helpfully not measured in % of a transaction, making comparison guides that much easier to write. Starting at the basic package, you pay £25/month for 350 transactions/month, workingwhich works out as 7p per transaction. volume discounts aren’t disclosed on their website. If you like mysteries, that’s great, but less so if you want to plan things meticulously. We recommend understanding futures rates before signing up with any provider.   makes our top online payment gateways for pharmacy in 2021. 

  • Transaction Fees: 7p/transaction on the basic package,  
  • Monthly Fees: None Disclosed.
  • Set-Up: None disclosed.

Get Opayo Payment Solutions for your Pharmacy

 

 

Paypal online payment gateway for Pharmacy

 

PayPal – Trusted Name, Transparent Fees

PayPal is probably the easiest payment gateway to add to any website. It’s also one of the most trusted names in online payments, which gives people convenience and confidence – two crucial factors when you’re looking to defend against convenience on an Amazonian scale.

PayPal is everything you’d want from a modern payment services provider: transparent, affordable and flexible even for the smallest of businesses.

It’s optimised for mobile and major eCommerce CMSs such as WooCommerce (WordPress), Magento, Wix, BigCommerce and Shopify – not something all gateways can claim.

 

 

Pricing

PayPal’s pricing is also completely transparent. Their comprehensive list of merchant fees means you know exactly what you’ll be charged for depending on the kinds of transactions you’re accepting. There’s a high chance you only need to look at the Domestic Card Payment rates if you’re a UK-based pharmacy.

The ideal PayPal customer is going to be a small business with a relatively high volume of card transactions every month – some pharmacies definitely fall into that bracket. 2.75% transaction fees for UK-based companies are pretty steep by anyone’s measure. However, that rate decreases the greater the volume of sales you make is. If you can turn over £15k sales every month, it’s highly affordable at 1.0%.

Remember, having more than one gateway on your site gives people more options and flexibility with paying you. Including PayPal alongside another solution is sometimes a better solution for your customers. Ultimately, that’s the game here – making it easy for people to give you their money.

On the downside, PayPal business customers are known to complain about funds not being released for lengthy periods and getting a resolution can take too long in the case of customer disputes. This is often just whilst PayPal verifies you as a trusted seller, but it can still be a pain if your cashflow is tight. On a similar note, its customer support team is generally quick to respond but often slow to resolve issues.

  • Transaction Fees: 1.9%-3.4% + 20p per transaction
  • Chargeback Fees: £14
  • Monthly Fees: £20 per month (Web Payments Pro)
  • Set-Up: No Fee

Click here to sign up to PayPal

 

Pharmacy Mentor are Partnered with PayPal, so if you want to get in touch to see if we can get you a better deal, please contact us and we will refer you to them.

 

Zion Payments – A new breed of Payment company

Zion Payments are a modern day company. You can tell immediately from the way they present themselves that they’re the type of company that was founded because they looked at all the existing companies and thought…we can do better.


This article is updated periodically to reflect changes in both the online payments and pharmacy industries.


As companies automate more and more, they forget customer service shouldn’t be automated. Zion Payments challenge on the basis that simply by delivering excellent customer service, they’ll take a decent chunk of market share with the people that value good customer service.

One-Click Purchases

I mentioned whilst talking Opayo that Amazon’s One-Click option exists, and it makes it INCREDIBLY easy to buy from them. Long-term readers of mine know I preach about making it easy for people to give you their money. Zion Payments offering this One-Click Purchase is only a small feature, but it makes such a big difference.

It also shows that they understand how the modern consumer’s mind works. Not a bad trait for a company you’re partnering up with.

  • Transaction Fees: We’re currently enquiring about the full breakdown of transaction fees.
  • Monthly Fees: Subscription models are available.

Let’s explore Zion Payments

So which is the best online payment gateway for your pharmacy?

The best online payment gateway providers for pharmacies in the UK enable you to take card details online and they’re all highly capable options. In reality, the best choice for your business is going to come down to additional factors, such as the other payment services you need from a provider and the transaction fees you can expect to pay. It also depends on what you prefer more, lower fees, or better customer service.

PayPal, Opayo, and Zion give you a varied selection to consider initially. Then it comes down to flexibility vs simplicity. 


Have you been using a particular payment system for your online pharmacy sales and transactions? Finding a solution useful or poor? We’d love to hear from you.

If you’re looking for help in selecting the right online payment gateway for your pharmacy, please get in touch with us. We’ll be glad to help.