Many businesses across Asia-Pacific, particularly in our key markets of Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, are interested in subscription or recurring/recurrent billing. So what are the options in the region?
Firstly lets define the term; subscription or recurring/recurring billing is the capacity for merchants to initially charge and then automatically re-recharge their customers for goods or services as they are delivered. Depending on the product being sold, customers may be charged on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or as consumed basis.
As a practical example, imagine you are a merchant running a furniture storage business. You are storing your customer’s belongings for a minimum period of 6 months and charging an initial setup fee and then a monthly storage charge. Subscription or recurring/recurrent billing through IPGPAY would allow you charge your customer’s card for their set up fee and initial storage fee and then every month thereafter automatically charge your customers card. Depending on how your configure the IPGPAY Gateway receipts can be automatically generated both to your customers and yourself plus a range of other value added services and features. Through the optional IPGPAY Customer Self Service Portal, your customers can even log on and view and modify their payment details.
Other examples of industries for whom subscription or recurring/recurrent billing are attractive include merchants selling media subscriptions (e.g. magazine subscriptions), Software as a Service (SaaS) or recurring/recurring donations to your favourite charity.
IPGPAY can easily handle your recurring/recurrent or subscription billing needs within the IPGPAY Gateway simplifying administration, enhancing cash flow, reducing costs and removing the need to send out monthly invoices by post (and wait for payment).
Not all of gateways in the region can support subscription or recurring/recurrent billing as easily as IPGPAY if they can offer it at all. Unlike most other payment gateways, IPGPAY includes recurring billing for subscription, recurrent payments and donations as standard features, providing merchants with a range of tools, such as coupons, flexible billing periods, free/paid trials, multiple subscription plans and pro rata plans, at no extra cost.