Right, that’s that clickbait-y title out of the way. But in all seriousness, don’t you find that payments are unfairly sidelined as the boring part of running an eCommerce business? It’s so much more exciting to set up your website, design your logo, source your products, interact with customers, etc. But, hate to break it to you, payments are essentially the final frontier. They’re what stands between your customer and a successful transaction.
So, how exactly are payments sexy? There are at least six ways, which Paul Marcantonio, Head of UK/Western Europe at ECOMMPAY, has kindly arranged into a friendly, digestible listicle for you:
1. User experience
Modern consumers are fickle. How do you keep them on your website, not to mention convince them to go through with their intended purchase? You optimise the customer journey, of course! That means an adaptable, streamlined checkout. As consumers ourselves, it’s easy to think of moments where we’ve been put off by a frustrating payment journey. What do you mean, I have to reenter my details three times in a row? I guess I don’t really need that plush cat-unicorn after all. But wait! A good payment service provider (not naming any names here) could definitely sort that out for you. How’s that for sexy?
2. Security
You can’t have conversion without security. Well, you can, but it won’t be quality conversion. You’re bound to end up with lots of fraud and chargebacks, which means you’ll end up paying a lot more in fees, so perhaps you don’t want conversion without security. Essentially, if you want only the good, authentic transactions to get through, you need a great automated risk management system in place, not to mention some experienced experts with excellent expertise (how’s that for an alliteration?) to provide manual monitoring, configure and reconfigure your anti-fraud filters, and advise you on patterns of fraudulent behaviour.
In our hyperconnected world, mobile is a thing. In fact, it’s so much a thing that there are actually people out there who’d prefer to lose their finger than their mobile phone
3. Conversion
So if your security system’s choking your payment acceptance rates, how do you increase the likelihood of those authentic transactions getting through? With clever payments technologies, of course! There are things like one-click payments, which, if we’re being technical, are actually called Credential on File Customer Initiated Transactions, that register your customers’ card details to streamline future purchases. There’s also split payments, recurring payments, delayed payment – anything you, or your customers, could possibly want. See, payments are totally sexy!
4. Mobile
In our hyperconnected world, mobile is a thing. In fact, it’s so much a thing that there are actually people out there who’d prefer to lose their finger than their mobile phone. True story. Unsurprisingly, mCommerce is massive and growing daily. In order to provide that same seamless customer journey on mobile as you’re providing on other devices, your payment service provider needs to be able to adapt their payment pages for mobile apps or mobile browsing. And if they do that, you keep your customers happy and your conversion rates high.
5. Payment methods
There’s a million and one ways to pay. Though that figure’s probably a slight exaggeration, the reality of the situation is that payment preferences vary by all sorts of factors: location, age, type of product being purchased, etc. If you’re looking to grow your business into either new market segments, whether by geographical region or by consumer demographics, you need to offer your perspective customers the option of paying the way they’re used to paying. It would be a blow to your revenues if you invest considerable resources opening an office in China, but don’t offer Alipay or WeChat Pay. That’s essentially your entire market gone. Do the research, reap the rewards.
6. Tailored advice
On that last note, wouldn’t it be great if someone else could already give you those sorts of insights? You can’t be an expert in everything, so why not delegate by establishing a reliable partnership with a payment service provider who’d be able to take a good, hard, external look at the internal intricacies of your business and give you some qualified, actionable advice?
And so, in summary, payments are sexy. If you say otherwise, you probably haven’t found the right payments partner yet.
