It’s no secret that consumers love quick, simple solutions. Luckily, payment service providers can assist eCommerce merchants in facilitating smooth, streamlined user experiences by integrating technologies like payments in one click, recurring payments, and optimised checkout. ECOMMPAY’s Arthur Zaremba, Customer Relations Team Lead, explains how these payment instruments work and how they improve conversion rates, customer satisfaction, and client revenues.
Quick repeat transactions
Customer-Initiated Credential on File (CI COF) is a type of payment that enables a merchant to save card data – after receiving the customer’s consent, of course. Consent is optional, but can be provided when the customer makes their first purchase with the merchant in question. Once consent is granted, the card data is stored securely and accessed if the same customer wishes to make another purchase from the same merchant.
The initial payment may require completion of a one-time 3D-Secure identification procedure, such as entering a code received by text message, but all further payments can be completed in a single click. This type of payment scenario is most relevant for eCommerce industries offering inexpensive items that tend to be purchased spontaneously (e.g. online games or items of clothing).
Offered by well-known outlets such as Aliexpress and Yoox, the OneClick Payment technology is quickly gaining popularity. Consumers who make frequent purchases online prefer to entrust their card details to the merchant rather than look for their physical card every time they need to pay. The data is secure, reliably stored by payment service providers using encryption and tokenisation technologies.
Payments through a single click streamline the checkout process, increasing the number of repeat visits and repeat purchases. Consequently, customer loyalty and lifetime profit per customer also increases.
Automatic debiting for recurring purchases
Merchant-Initiated Credential on File (MI COF) are payments based on an agreement between merchant and consumer that the latter party will pay a certain sum every month (or any other period of time, as per the agreement). In this case, the payments are initiated by the merchant rather than the customer. This method is commonly used in subscription services or in the automatic crediting of a customer account (with an IP telephony provider, for instance) once a certain limit is reached.
The most important thing to consider in this scenario is local consumer preferences. That is to say that the schedule of subscription charges and automatic recurring payments should adapt to regional factors: when residents of a particular country or area receive their salary, for example. For the merchant, an obvious advantage of this approach is that the risk of a customer failing to make a payment due to the lack of funds on their account will be minimised.
Streamlined customer journey
For the aforementioned payment instruments to work efficiently and effectively, consumers must trust the eCommerce store from which they intend to make purchases. The webpage or app should feature a clear, customer-friendly payment page capable of validating the data entered. For instance, the space in which customers will enter their card number should only accept numerical values, so that if a customer accidentally types their name instead of their card details, the system will not accept it and will flag the error.
The design of the payment page should also be easily adaptable to the website or application on which it is displayed. Checkout must be concise, intuitive, and not overloaded with unnecessary logos and/or information. A useful tool is a dynamic list of payment methods. When a customer selects the payment method with which they intend to complete a purchase, their previously selected options will be at the top of the list. For future purchases, this dynamic list of payment methods will automatically adjust to the customer’s region and offer the most relevant payment options.
An optimised payment experience
Technology assists eCommerce merchants in driving conversion and customer loyalty. Any payment model based on saved card data, coupled with an intuitive payment page and effective security measures, offers an excellent resource for increasing customer lifetime spend and, ultimately, the merchant revenues.
