Ecommerce is simply buying or selling online on your website.

A payment gateway is the technology that, after your customer has initiated a card transaction, securely captures their payment details and transmits them to the relevant parties for authorisation. Essentially, it's the online bridge between your bank and your customer’s bank.

The benefits of selling online can far outweigh the challenges: cross-border selling, access to new customers, greater flexibility and scalability – the opportunities are endless. Before you begin setting up an online store, be sure to have these steps completed.
1. Market research
2. Choose what product(s) to sell
3. Identify your target audience
4. Decide on your ecommerce platform
5. Create your product content (images and copy)
6. Build your online store (shopping carts)
7. Promote and market your online store, e.g. via social media, Google advertising, influencer marketing, email marketing, discounts.

Any business that wants to sell online will need a payment gateway as well as a merchant account – a payment gateway so your business can collect card data, and a merchant account to receive the funds.

Keeping up with security requirements can be tough – and so are the penalties after a data breach. But rest easy. Trust Elavon to protect your customers’ data, as well as your own reputation. We’ll take care of security, so you can concentrate on sales.

Compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) can help companies protect cardholder payment account data. PCI DSS compliance is an industry mandate. For that reason, you should consider PCI compliance one of your critical payment system features. The easiest course of action is to find a partner that handles this for you.

There are four levels of business classification that the PCI assigns, based on the number of transactions a business makes.

Level 4: Fewer than 20,000 card transactions per year
Level 3: 20,000-1 million card transactions per year
Level 2: 1-6 million card transactions per year
Level 1: More than 6 million card transactions per year 

Generally, it takes two to four business days for payments to be processed from the customer’s card, through the bank and to your account. Some payment processors, like Elavon, fund you within 48 hours – or you can pay a bit extra to upgrade to same or next-day payments.

Faster Payments is a fast, secure system for transferring sums of money between bank accounts: you'll pay a bit more for this extra-speedy service. Unlike a regular payment, which can take up to three days, Faster Payments sees money paid into your account the next day. With next-day funding, you’ll have cashflow you can depend upon. And with our customer portal Elavon Connect, you can monitor funds anywhere, any time. 

Online payment security is all about guarding your business and protecting your customers’ personal details. With state-of-the-art security tools like tokenisation and 3-D Secure, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be securely selling your wares.

When paying online, sometimes customers get redirected to their bank for extra checks. Those are 3-D Secure checks. 

If your business website doesn’t have a conventional way to buy online, we can provide a web link that sends your customer to a payment page instead. 

• The 3-month fee waiver is only for gateway fees all transactional fees will continue to be charged.
• You must be accepted for Merchant Services and batch to be eligible for the gateways fees to be waived.
• You must apply within 60 days of receipt of your proposal and before the 31^st December 2025 to be eligible. Please review the full Terms and Conditions below.

These Specific Conditions apply in addition to the Elavon Payment Gateway Fee Waiver Offer Terms and Conditions below.
 

1. The offer of a 3-month monthly gateway fee waiver is eligible to merchants successfully meeting the eligibility conditions set out below (see Eligibility). For the avoidance of doubt, the waiver only applies to the monthly gateway fee and all transactional fees will remain chargeable to the customers.
2. This Offer applies to new Elavon customers only when contracting their acquiring with US Bank Europe DAC, trading as Elavon Merchant Services (formally Elavon Financial Services DAC) for a period of 12 months.
3. The closing date for the campaign is the 31^st December 2025. The cut-off date by which you must apply for your Merchant Services application is within 60 days of receiving your proposal and before the closing date.
4. For the avoidance of doubt, the Agreement shall be deemed accepted subject to Elavon’s standard onboarding process and completion and approval of an application form, incorporating the “Offer” and Terms and Conditions herein. For the avoidance of doubt, the Agreement shall include the most up-to-date Terms of Service, which can be found here.
5. In the acceptance of the Offer and of the Agreement, the Applicant accepts these Terms of Service.
6. The 3-month monthly gateway fee waiver offer will be automatically applied to your ecommerce gateway account once you have been accepted for Elavon Merchant Services and performed your first batch. After the promotional period, the monthly £10 monthly fee will resume for the Elavon Payment Gateway Lite product. Each customer will be completing a new application form and a schedule of fees as standard in the boarding process. These will be signed via Instant Decisions with docu sign etc all standard process. The call out in the TOS is for the customer to read their Schedule of Fees when they are signing their application forms for specific information on their pricing.

1. Please read these terms & conditions (“Terms”) carefully. By entering this Elavon Payment Gateway Fee Waiver Offer, you are agreeing to be bound by these Terms.

2. The Elavon Payment Gateway Fee Waiver Offer is only applicable to those agreements that are for the provision of gateway services (the “Agreement”).
 

3. The Elavon Payment Gateway Fee Waiver Offer is only open for business customers in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (excluding the Isle of Man and Channel Islands) who satisfy all criteria set out in clauses 6 and clause 7 below.

4. Each Applicant as defined in clause 6 below that satisfies the Eligibility Conditions set out in clause 7 below shall be deemed to be a ‘Qualified Business’ and will be awarded with the following benefits subject to the provisions of these Terms:
 

4.1. the applicable Monthly Gateway Fee on the Qualified Business’s Elavon account shall be waived for the Applicable Duration (as defined in clause 7 below) from the date when you have been accepted for Elavon Merchant Services and performed your first batch the Agreement (the “Benefits”). For the avoidance of doubt, the Agreement shall be deemed valid when. you have been accepted for Elavon Merchant Services and performed your first batch.

5. The customer that entered and is named on an Agreement (the “Applicant”).

6. Each Applicant must satisfy all of the following eligibility conditions in order to be deemed a Qualified Business and to qualify for the Benefits (together the “Eligibility Conditions”):

6.1. The Applicant must have received communication from Elavon via email and/or by the Elavon team informing them of the Elavon Payment Gateway Fee Waiver Offer and the Applicant’s potential eligibility.
 

6.2. The Applicant at the time of the Application:
 

6.2.1. must be established and trading in the England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (excluding the Isle of Man and Channel Islands) ,

6.2.2. must have entered into and are under the terms and conditions of an Agreement for Elavon Payment Gateway services.

6.2.3. must not be a current Elavon acquiring customer.

6.3. If requested by Elavon the Applicant shall promptly provide evidence of its eligibility under clause 7.2 above to the reasonable satisfaction of Elavon.

7. Upon satisfaction of the above Eligibility Conditions and upon confirmation by the Applicant of their acceptance to the Elavon Payment Gateway Fee Waiver Offer, the Applicant shall be bound by these terms.

For the purposes of these Terms “Merchant Services” shall mean the acceptance of card transactions in documentary and/or electronic form from the Qualified Business in order to process and clear such transactions for settlement and payment to such Qualified Business and other related products and services provided by Elavon.
 

8. Elavon reserves the exclusive right at its sole discretion to determine whether a Qualified Business satisfies the Eligibility Conditions and to reject an Application and Elavon shall not be obliged to disclose the reasons or justification for the rejection of the Application.

9. Costs incurred by the Applicant, or the Qualified Business associated with the Elavon Payment Gateway Fee Waiver Offer shall be borne solely by the Applicant or the Qualified Business.

10. The Benefits are not transferable, or exchangeable and no cash alternative will be offered in the event that a Qualified Business does not or is unable to claim or receive any of the Benefits for any reason whatsoever.

11. Any information submitted as part of this Elavon Payment Gateway Fee Waiver Offer will be processed for the purpose of the Applicant to enter into a Customer Agreement and will be used in accordance with Elavon’s privacy policy here.

12. Elavon reserves the right at any time, without prior notice, to change, vary, postpone, delay or discontinue the Elavon Payment Gateway Fee Waiver Offer and Benefits or any stage(s), in whole or in part.

13. It is advised that all Applicants retain a copy of these Terms for future reference.

14. This Elavon Payment Gateway Fee Waiver Offer and these Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Any disputes (contractual or non-contractual) arising under or in connection with the Elavon Payment Gateway Fee Waiver Offer or these Terms are subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts of England and Wales for business customers in the UK.