What are the best payment gateway options for a South African business?

Shopify Discussion
41

Finally got a solution up and running just yesterday!

visa and mastercard payments in USD is working. The company is on shopify’s list, it’s tazapay. Singapore based company, very friendly and was easy to integrate. They work like “paypal” in the sense that they collect the payments in USD to their wallet, then pay you weekly, or twice weekly, whatever you want, to your USD FNB account, OR to your local ZAR account of choice, or even crypto. The fees are close to paypals but a little bit less.

So now our website has paypal and visa + mastercard with Tazapay. They also have a sleek design so the customer feels safe.

You can do a checkout on our site just before you punch in card details to see how it works

www.noodleandbun.com

5 Likes
42

Thank you for fighting the good fight and finding a workaround! Definitely going to implement this

43

Buddy you have no idea how much you have just saved my dream by this comment, I have 4 months struggling to make my store accept payments, I am in Lesotho, registred my business here thinking i would get help bcos DPO needed the registered company, after registration DPO said they can not help me, so i registred my Business in SA only to find out the payment gateways in there accept only local payments, just yersterday i came across this comment and i have just signed up with Tazapay awaiting the approval now, I am so Happy, thank you very much for sharing.

44

Has anyone successfully managed to set up Taza pay? My application has been rejected. They did not provide details as to why, but I assume it’s because I either don’t have a sales history (it is a new store) or because I don’t have a USD bank account @Gottfried Did you have either of these things when you set up your store with Taza pay

45

Shopify team, although this is flagged as an accepted solution, it does not actually solve the problem at hand for any South African Ecomm store wishing to sell internationally. Please bring Shopify payments to our country or charge us lower transaction fees. This is a huge headache and very limiting

3 Likes
46

Hi Nelson,
Has your account been approved by Taza pay, are you all set up?

47

My Tazapay application has also been rejected, no explanation as to why

48

Hey Simeen!

So they pay directly into my USD account that i have set up on my FNB banking profile. They did however have the option to pay into my ZAR account too. So im not sure if that would have disqualified your application. They do scrutinize stores heavily so i think it might be plausible that if you have no sales history / or data they dont take the risk. For our store we have about 100 orders a month, it’s not much but it seemed like enough for our application to go through

Kind Regards

G

1 Like
49

Hey there! Tazapay did not approve my application either and no reason was
provided, so I went with paystack and everything went smooth. Please try
them

50

@Shopify_77 Please find a solution that is workable for us South Africans! We want to work with you but you are making it exceedingly difficult. Any solutions in 2024 for this payment issue.

51

hi @AM13 did you find a workable solution? What is Payfasts Maximum Payment Limit currently? Hoping you are still in business in 2024 and have a solution

52

Can we add our bank account as a payment method which is also attached to our SASSA R350 social grant?

53

Can we add our bank account as a payment method which is also attached to our SASSA R350 social grant? Please answer my question

54

Hi all and Hi @Shopify_77

I can relate to what everyone has said on this thread.

I have had the same problems since 2018 with Payment Gateways.

Without going into all long details of back and forth with Shopify, let me just say, I think all South African eCommerce Stores should boycott and leave Shopify!

Only then will Shopify start caring what we the Merchants want.

At one point I had to run two Stores, one in USD just to use PayPal, and the main website in ZAR (Rand)!

Imagine the nightmare of managing two separate stores that have 10,000 to 20,000 products, let alone costs!

We want to sell to both South Africa and internationally, but Shopify makes it impossible.

I had to decide to close or pause the store that’s in USD. Worse still is that we sell both electronics and offer services. Imagine quoting South African customers in USD! Or making them checkout via PayPal in USD!

I’m actually considering WooCommerce just to be able to sell in Multi-Currency.

For now, we are stuck with offering services to mainly South African market and with a few international shoppers who don’t mind paying in ZAR at checkout. Even with all currency switcher Apps on the front end with geo-locators, customers still abandon carts when the checkout Currency switches back to ZAR.

I just refuse to change the Store currency to USD just to be able to use PayPal, for a business that is based in South Africa. Yes, I’m getting tons of losses for this move, but loyalty comes first for me. I would rather the South African shoppers buy in their local currency than forcing them to pay in USD just to get an extra buck!

Shopify can solve this issue by providing Shopify Payments to South African Merchants so that all shoppers can pay in their own Preferred currencies.

I use Payfast and Yoco payment gateways, which are specifically for SA market. But our international shoppers are frustrated that they can’t checkout, cause some don’t know ZAR and are skeptical with the whole Currency conversion or exchange rates. Plus they don’t know Payfast nor Yoco.

Shopify is killing the eCommerce industry in SA. I still maintain, when Shopify starts losing Merchants to their competitors like WooCommerce, they will start addressing this Payment Gateway issue.

We have customers in USA, EU, India and other African countries. Some even send mail to request for Quotes for Wire Transfer or PayPal invoice so that they can pay via PayPal Supported Currencies. Imagine that!

Give us payment features that the rest of the world has. Stop taking us for granted!

Thank you.

Chichi

55

It’s so frustrating I’ve tried multiple providers only to be rejected!!! My store is on hold because my customers can’t check out in the US!!! I’m fed up will be looking at other platforms. Why can’t Shopify payment be activated for us in South Africa?! And even if it is they want you to submit US TAX details!!!

1 Like
56

Oh my I am having a similar problem but for me most of my customers are based in Europe and the US, but I am unable to set a USD base store. Shopify is also unable to help me, and they seem so uninterested in solving this problem. If you don’t mind me asking, what Payment gateway did you use for your US base account? What were the requirements to open this account?

57

Hi @phoneboxint

The short answer is that there is no real resolution to this issue.

As per your specific questions:

  1. I’m not using a USA based account and I’m not sure you wanna go that route.

  2. We have only South African based bank accounts. FNB seems to be more advanced for eCommerce.

  3. The “USA based Store” was not a physical Store in USA, it was an eCommerce Store still based in SA, but with USD as a default currency.

That’s the only way you can integrate PayPal and it will resolve most of your issues, but it will cause you new issues for the SA market that don’t want to use or be quoted in USD.

Just to offer more details on the process:

a. Convert your SA Store currency to USD, Shopify support can assist you with that process

b. Open an FNB Business bank Account

c. Open a PayPal business account via PayPal website

d. Once the PayPal account has been verified and actived, link the PayPal account to your FNB Bank account (FNB can assist you with that)

e. Activate PayPal as your Payment method on Shopify (Settings> Payments> Activate PayPal).. The page will send you to a PayPal login. Then login to your PayPal business account.. to complete Intergration with Shopify..

f. Remember to recalculate your shipping costs and convert them to USD from ZAR..

When a Customer buys a product on your website, the amount will be deposited into your PayPal USD account. You can then transfer the amount from PayPal to your FNB Bank account or access the PayPal amount via FNB App.

As for your EU clients, PayPal will fix that issue as all major EU currencies are supported by PayPal, e.g, British Pound, Euro, also USD, CAD, AUD, and about 33 major currencies.

Note: Once your Store currency is changed to USD, you won’t be able to use any of the SA payment Gateways like Payfast, Peach Payments, Yoco, etc. That’s the down side.

As for me, this whole process to change the Store currency to USD was not worth it as the primary target market is SADC, Africa.. though we have a lot of EU, ASIA and USA customers as well.

In case you keep your Store currency to ZAR, International shoppers who are willing to use Payfast can still checkout in ZAR via Visa, Mastercard, American Express. You can also request Payfast to activate Multi-Currency features. That’s if you don’t switch your Store currency to USD.

When a Customer is redirected to Payfast to complete the checkout, they can then choose their preferred currency on Payfast dashboard.

Another option is to consider WooCommerce. The Team at Peach Payments told me that they can assist in fixing the currency issues if the Store is on WooCommerce. I think they do custom Intergration to allow both PayPal and local SA payment Gateways intergation, then shoppers can checkoutin their local currencies.. and there are are tons of plugins on WooCommerce to use for such Multi-Currency Checkout. I will test WooCommerce with a sample Store and few products to see how the features work before migrating to WooCommerce completly. Cause it doesn’t look like Shopify will ever fix this payment gateway issue for South African Merchants.

Either way, there is no easy fix to this. I have only provided the solutions that I have used before. I’m sure there are other solutions out there.

This is why this question has so many comments. That’s because Shopify has refused to fix the payment gateway issues for SA Merchants. Offering Shopify Payments can resolve this matter once and for all.

I hope the above information will help clarify some of your issues.

Thanks.

58

When selecting a payment gateway for your Shopify store in South Africa, it’s essential to consider the needs of your target audience. Here are some of the top options:
PayFast
Peach Payments

59

Hi there,

When selecting a payment gateway for your Shopify store in South Africa, it’s essential to consider the needs of your target audience and the type of payments they’re likely to use. Here are some of the top options:

  1. PayFast
  2. Peach Payments
  3. Yoco
  4. PayGate

If your store connects with customers who benefit from social grants like SASSA (South African Social Security Agency), it’s worth considering how accessible and affordable your payment gateway options are for these customers. Many grant recipients use mobile payment options or bank EFTs, so integrating a gateway that caters to these methods could expand your reach.

For more information about SASSA grants and how they support millions of South Africans, check out:



https://alumni.myra.ac.in/read-blog/135722_how-to-navigate-the-sassa-appeal-process-for-srd-grants.html


https://famenest.com/read-blog/52684


https://www.diveboard.com/srd370/posts/discover-south-africas-marine-majesty-a-divers-paradise-B4PlZ3x


https://www.friend007.com/read-blog/161433


https://webyourself.eu/blogs/640772/How-Assistance-Programs-Empower-South-African-Communities