What is a Payment Gateway?
A Payment Gateway is the credit card processor that provides you with a secure pathway between your e-commerce website and your Merchant Account. In simple terms is a method for the credit card to be verified and for funds to be secured from that card. In a physical store environment, think of it as the "Retail Swipe Terminal" device in which the cashier swipes the credit card through. The process of swiping the card and verifying that the card is valid along with securing funds against that card is what the payment gateway does.
The Payment Gateway checks for validity, encrypts transaction details, ensures they are sent back to the correct destination and then decrypts the responses which are being sent back to the shopping cart. This is a very seamless process and the customer never directly interacts with the payment gateway. All customer interaction is handled by the shopping cart.
Simply Web Services uses Authorize.net as our preferred Payment Gateway.
