Using Paylinks to get paid on social media

The most important digital asset you need for your business to find success in the digital age is your website. Your website is the place where e-commerce can happen. People can go to your website, add to cart, make a purchase using their credit cards or the new Linx Visa debit cards (once the business is using a Caribbean Payment Gateway) and all of these sales can happen without someone ever having to speak to the business.

E-commerce allows your business to be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!

One thing to keep in mind is that none of the e-commerce features for the social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok is available in the Caribbean. So if someone wants to make a purchase online from your business, they need to be directed to your website to do that.

But what happens if you want to participate in the e-commerce game and you don’t have a website? How can we allow online transactions to happen then?

Well, let me introduce you to a nifty little strategy using something called Paylinks.

To keep it simple, Paylinks is an online-hosted payment form. You can take a product or service, give it a name, allow people to fill out their information, you can set how many times the link could be used to aid with stock management and you set the price of the item or service.

Once completed, a clickable link is then generated that you can either send to people directly or post on your social media platforms. Your clients will be able to click the link, see the product information, state how many of the products they are ordering (if applicable), fill in their delivery info and then put in their credit card or Linx Visa debit info to complete the purchase.

Where the real fun begins is, let’s just say you don’t have a website, but you at least have social media, say an Instagram or TikTok account.

You can use a free service like Linktree. Create an account and since Instagram and TikTok only allow you to put one link in your bio. Linktree gives you a custom link and allows you to add multiple links, so that it extends what Instagram and TikTok allow you to do.

You can then list all of your products inside Linktree and create Paylinks for each of those products, so that when people go to your link in your bio, they can see all your products and make their purchases.

You will then be sent an e-mail of your new orders with product info, how much was ordered and the address information.

Typically, the money collected goes into the virtual wallet of the service you are using, you connect your bank account to the service and withdraw the money when you are ready to.

There are a few companies that offer this service of Paylinks and can also be called payment buttons. depending on the company you are checking out.

You can get this service from Social Pay, Fygaro, Buzz Pay TT, Republic Bank E-Pay, Scotiabank E-Com+ and FCB Eazy Biz, to name a few.

Social Pay is free to sign up for and has transaction fees. The other services do have low monthly fees, starting from US$15/$100 per month.

WiPay also gives you the option to use a PayLink. The only difference is that it is an open PayLink and doesn’t allow you to set up links for each of your products and have inventory management.

This is great if you want to accept donations or have people quickly pay you without the need to send them a digital invoice. WiPay is also free to set up and has a transaction fee. Money goes into your WiPay wallet and you will be able to withdraw the funds to deposit in your local bank account.

All these services allow you to get paid from international clients and except for Social Pay, they can all process the funds in US dollars and keep the US dollars, providing you have a local TT US account with your bank to receive the US funds.

This strategy of Paylinks and Linktree is a great way to start allowing your business to accept online payments. It’s
not a replacement for a website!

Your website is still the most critical asset for your business that does more than e-commerce. But if you do not have a website, your customers should have the ability to pay you online, and this strategy gives you the ability to do that.

Keron Rose is a digital strategist who works with Caribbean businesses to help build and monetize their platforms. For more tips like this, check out Keronrose.com or the Digipreneur FM podcast available on all Podcast platforms.