One of the aspects of the ecommerce industry that has arguably been overlooked by some in recent years, is the explosion in payment methods that many people use to pay for goods.
In particular, smartphones have continued to play an ever-more prominent part in online purchases. So, if the range of payment options that you present to your customers doesn’t reflect this change in people’s purchasing habits on the web, you could be missing out on sales.
What are the types of payments your store should be offering?
In 2020, your e-tailer should really be giving shoppers options from across the full range of popular payment methods online. And as we touched on above, mobile is increasingly at the centre of it all – so it’s not just your desktop site you should be fine-tuning for greater payment convenience.
Of course, there’s a strong chance that debit and credit cards will already be well-represented among your site’s payment options, but even here, scope for optimisation exists. It’s frankly a hassle for the customer to have to keep on entering their full card number, expiration date and CVV (Card Verification Value) code whenever they buy from you, so autofill functionality should be essential.
Next up in the list of the slightly more obvious online payment methods, is integrated express checkouts like PayPal and Amazon Pay.
These latter platforms are known for their speediness and convenience, given the little data that needs to be manually inputted compared to debit and credit card payments; even the delivery address and contact information are typically already provided to the merchant. These are also hugely trusted services that your customer will be reassured to see if they are unfamiliar with your ecommerce site and aren’t entirely sure whether to purchase from you.
But mobile is also coming to the forefront in today’s online payments
If the above express checkout services sound slick, though, mobile payment wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay might well be even more so. These platforms typically only require a thumbprint, passcode or face scan from the user, and that’s it – the payment is processed.
Finally, another payment option that has risen in prominence in the last few years is the ‘pay later’ one – think services like PayPal Credit and Clearpay. The idea behind these methods is that the user can get a product now and pay for it in subsequent instalments.
While you can expect to have to pay a fee to accept transactions on a ‘pay later’ basis, the funds will be deposited when the order is placed, and studies have suggested average order values for this type of payment are often considerably higher than the average across all payment options. These services can be especially attractive to the buyer when interest-free payments are offered.
It’s not about overwhelming your customers – it’s about giving them options
Many ecommerce store owners are understandably hesitant at the prospect of adding more payment methods to those they already present to their customers, out of a fear that this might ‘overwhelm’ or ‘confuse’ the shopper.
There’s no need to fret about this, however, when you present even a wide range of payment options well – for example, by grouping different types of payment method together.
If you are unsure about any aspect of how you can improve your online retail offering as a merchant, why not give our ecommerce design experts here at Piranha Designs a call today, or send us an email? We’d be delighted to outline the key steps that you may need to take with your store in 2020 and beyond, in order to bolster the user experience, sales and revenue.
