How to transition your Nigerian or Ghanaian business online in under 30 mins

Like many business owners, you might be asking yourself how to keep your business running during the 14 day lockdown period announced by the governments of Ghana and Nigeria.

In this article, we're going to show you everything you need to know about growing your online sales during this period when your customers are unable to visit your physical store.

You'll learn:

• How to collect money from your customers online even if you don't have a website (or your business is yet to be registered)
• Free tools to collect payment, send invoices, and more
• How to quickly integrate with eCommerce platforms like Shopify and WordPress
• Recommendations for delivery companies who are still operational
• How to leverage your payment data to better manage your business

What is Paystack?

If you're not already familiar with Paystack, kindly allow us to introduce ourselves. Paystack is a technology company powering growth for businesses through our collection of simple, powerful payment tools.

Over 60,000 businesses of all sizes use our tools to grow their business, including MTN, Silverbird Cinemas, Wakanow, Startimes, Bolt, the Lagos Internal Revenue Service, and AXA Mansard Insurance.

• Learn more about why 60k+ companies choose Paystack →
• See testimonials from 200+ of our customers →

A quick intro to online payments

Unlike cash, or face-to-face bank transfers, Paystack allows you to accept online payments from your customers however, whenever, and from wherever they want to pay — Lagos, Accra, Kano, or New York. It doesn’t matter.

Your customers can pay you with:

• Card (Local and international debit and credit cards)
• Bank (No card? No worries, customers can pay you with just their bank account numbers)
• Mobile Money (Customers in Ghana can pay you via their mobile money wallets)
• USSD (Customers can pay you with USSD codes such as GTB’s popular 737)
• Visa QR (Your customers also have an option of scanning an auto-generated QR code with their phones to pay you)

It’s all very easy. If you'd like to see exactly what your customers will see when they try to pay you, you can try a demonstration for yourself here: paystack.com/demo/checkout

Once a customer pays you, you instantly see the balance on your Paystack Dashboard, which you can access from your phone or a computer. Paystack then pays out all the payment you’ve received within 24 to 48 hours.

Security — How Paystack keeps you and your customers safe

Paystack processes well over 6 million transactions every month, and we go to extreme lengths to ensure that both our merchants and their customers are safe.

We are a PCI DSS Level 1-certified organization (the highest certification possible in the world) and we take security extremely seriously.

Pricing — how much does it cost to collect payments online?

Payments companies like Paystack only make money when you do. We charge a small fee on top of the transaction amount. Here's where you can find the most up-to-date prices we charge businesses in Nigeria and Ghana: paystack.com/pricing

How to create a Paystack account

It’s free to create a Paystack account, and you can do everything — start to finish — in less than 30 minutes. Here’s how:

• Go to dashboard.paystack.com/#/signup
• Enter your business details, such as business name, address, etc.
• Tell us if your business is registered or not. No worries, you can accept local and international payments with Paystack, even if your business isn’t registered yet. And that’s it. Step 1 done!

If you'd like more information about how to create a Paystack account, here's a detailed tutorial on what to do.

After you've created your Paystack account, you'll need to activate it. Here’re 2 video explainers that show you how to activate your Paystack account:

• How to activate your Starter (non-registered) business →
• How to activate your Registered business →

If you don't have a computer, you can also create your account using the Paystack Merchant App. It’s simple to use, and very straightforward.

• Paystack Merchant App for Android →
• Paystack Merchant App for iOS →

Free tools for managing your business — Invoices, Subscriptions, etc.

1. Payment Pages

Payment Pages are literally the easiest way to accept payments with Paystack. And you don’t even need a website to create or use a Payment Page. With a few clicks, you can create a simple, high-converting page through which your customers can pay you.

Here's a quick example of what a simple Payment Page looks like: paystack.com/pay/demo

Think of a Payment Page as an online equivalent of a shop: you sell products A, B, C, and you want your customers to walk into your shop, see the prices, and then select and pay for what they want.

It’s the same way with Payment Pages:

• First, you create the shop in minutes (the link will be something like paystack.com/pay/your-business-name)
• Next, you put the products on your shelves by uploading product details prices.
• Finally, you sell. Once you create a Payment Page, you can start sharing the link with potential customers via WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram etc. They'll click on your link, see what you're selling, and pay for what they want

If your business sells something that customers buy often, you can even set up recurring payments on your Payment Page, such that you can charge them automatically for as long as you provide a service to them. You can learn more about Subscriptions in the next section.

The following video walks will show you a visual walkthrough of how to set up a Payment Page.

Here're some additional resources for getting set up with Payment Pages

• Here's a detailed explainer of the Payment Pages interface →
• Here're some ideas for how different kinds of companies use Payment Pages →

2. Subscriptions (Automatic recurring payments)

Imagine receiving money on a recurring basis from your customers, automatically, without needing to lift a finger. Paystack's Subscriptions lets you set this up in a few clicks.

Say your business sells and delivers food to customers. You could set up a subscription plan with Paystack where your customers are automatically charged once a week. This is good for your business because you’re able to lock in revenue, and because your customers simply wake up and see their food at the door, without thinking about payments every single time. If once a week is too frequent for you, you can set up monthly, bi-annual, or even an annual subscription plan.

Whatever it is your business sells, ask yourself: “Is there a way to turn this into a subscription?” There probably is!

Here’re a few resources to help you learn more about Subscription plans on Paystack:

• How to create a Subscription Plan →
• How to collect recurring payment with Payment Pages →

3. Invoices

Using Paystack Invoices, you can request for payments from your customers directly. You simply log into your Paystack Dashboard, enter the person’s email, the name of the item they bought, the price, and hit send.

The invoice is automatically shared with the customer via email, but you can also share a link to the invoice via WhatsApp, Instagram, or wherever you talk to your customers.

Once your customer clicks on the invoice, it takes them to a page (similar to the one in the screenshot above.) When they click on "Pay Now," it takes them straight to the Paystack Checkout Form where they can immediately pay you!

Here's a detailed guide on how to create invoices. If you prefer video, the video below will show you to send invoices quickly.

How to quickly integrate with eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix

Payment Pages are a simple way to get started, but if you need more extensive features, you might want to consider eCommerce platforms such as Shopify, Wix, or WordPress.

Paystack has a wide range of plugins that allows you to integrate with these platforms in literally seconds.

In just a few clicks, you can start to accept payments using Paystack on popular platforms such as Shopify, WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Magento, Opencart, Prestashop, Joomla, and several others!

Here're some detailed instructions for some of the more popular platforms

• How to set up Paystack on your Shopify store →
• How to set up Paystack on WordPress →
• How to set up Paystack on WooCommerce →

Recommendations for delivery companies in Nigeria and Ghana

When customers pay you online, they often expect that the product will be delivered to them. To do this effectively, you need a good and reliable delivery partner. Due to the lockdown, it appears that many delivery companies have paused operations, but a few are still operational in Nigeria and Ghana.

GIG Logistics (Nigeria)

They can deliver all kinds of goods.

For Android users: download the GIG app on Google Play →
For iOS users: download the GIG app on the App Store →

Gokada (Lagos)

For the duration of the 14-day lock-down period, Gokada will only deliver essential products such as water, food, and medicines.

For Android users: download the Gokada app on Google Play →
For iOS users: download the Gokada app on the App Store →

Kwik Delivery (Lagos)

For the duration of the 14-day lock-down period, Kwik Delivery will only deliver essential products such as water, food, and medicines.

Website: http://kwik.delivery/
WhatsApp/Phone call: 0809 064 2991

Delivery Guys (Ghana)

They can deliver all kinds of goods.

WhatsApp: +233 54 012 8281 or +233 54 012 8282

Shopnaw (Ghana)

They can deliver all kinds of goods.

Place a delivery from their website: https://www.shopnaw.com/

Mmirika Courier Service (Ghana)

For the duration of the 14-day lock-down period, Mmirika will only deliver essential products such as water, food, and medicines.

WhatsApp: +233 55 380 3116

If you know any other good delivery companies in Nigeria or Ghana that are still operational, even during this lockdown, kindly recommend them to us via email at [email protected]. We'll speak with them and possibly update this article with your recommendation.

Connect your customer data to all your other business tools

Selling online is only the first part of running your business. When you accept payments with Paystack, you’re able to leverage the payment data to do so much more.

Here's a practical example: say you wanted to send a personalised thank you email from an email marketing tool like Mailchimp to every customer that buys from you and also record every sale made through Paystack into the Wave accounting tool. You could do this using Paystack's Zapier integration to Mailchimp and Wave.

Using Zapier, here're some Paystack connections you can immediately try out:

• Connect Paystack to Wave: You can record every sale made through Paystack into the Wave accounting tool.
• Connect Paystack to Mailchimp: You can automatically add all new customers into Mailchimp. You can then send these customers broadcast emails, as well as add them to automated upsell campaigns.
• Connect Paystack to Slack: You can send details of successful or failed transactions to a Slack channel.
• Connect Paystack to Google Sheets: Say a customer's transaction failed, you could send details of the failed transactions to a Google Sheet so your team can follow up with customers.
• Connect Paystack to Hubspot CRM: You can add new customers to your Hubspot CRM, and manage customer relationships better.

We're here to help ❤️

For many businesses, the internet is new territory, but we're here to help. Over the years, we've helped over 60,000 businesses in Nigeria and Ghana start to accept payments and do business online. Selling online might look like a very big change from what you're used to, but you'll come to see that it opens you up to even bigger opportunities for growth.

If you have any questions at all as you navigate your new Paystack account, we're eager to help! You can contact us via livechat when you log into your Paystack Dashboard, and you can also reach us via email at [email protected].

We wish you and yours the absolute best during this challenging period, and please remember that we're always here to help!