At Magento’s Imagine Conference, I delivered a talk on the eCommerce payment landscape. Retailers should understand that the significant changes happening present real opportunities. Payments have evolved beyond the traditional four options: Visa, MasterCard, Amex, and Discover. Do you think your site is trendy because you offer PayPal Express? Think again. PayPal provides a fantastic range of tools and services to help retailers boost their conversions. It’s crucial for retailers to keep up with what payment companies can offer.
A common theme heard is: Make the Transaction Invisible. What can be done to make the process of making the payment so easy it disappears. Disruptive new companies are making this happen today. Take Uber for example. The company that has challenged the classic taxi industry, in part, by making payment invisible. Once you have signed up, take a taxi, and once you arrive, your card of choice is touchlessly charged, including tip. LevelUp, another disruptor, offer a simple app that allows people to pay with their phone at the retailer’s POS. Leverages existing scanner technologies and integrates easily with POS systems.
Both of these companies have leaned on mobile to make their payment concepts a reality, and this is a trend that won’t be changing anytime soon. In fact, according to Forrester, U.S. mobile payments will reach $90 billion in 2017. Further, 40% of all mobile sales will be proximity payments by 2017.
As people’s purchasing behavior changes, retailers need to be ready to capitalize on that change. Because these changes will be coming over the next several years. It is important that retailers stay in contact with their payment providers and ask them what capabilities do they offer. Check in every 6 months, new capabilities are released all the time.
Look no further than PayPal to understand how diverse the capabilities can be. PayPal has truly stepped up to the plate to address these growing payment expectations. “PayPal Here”, for example, lets businesses charge credit cards by adding swipe functionality to employee smartphones and tablets. “Order Ahead” addresses one of the top desires of U.S. consumers, according to a joint study between Forrester and Accenture – the ability to pay online and pick up in-store. “Beacon” allows for hands-free payments, and promotes offers to users when they’re near a business they like.
All of these solutions are creating unique experience for customers. But the key to success in the global landscape relies on these three key directives:
1. Customer First
Understand how a customer expects to make a transaction, and then make the process easier. Zoetis, for example, is a global animal health care company with a large sales force. Many of their customers, however, are in locations without Internet access. This requires an offline order process that can easily integrate with complex and deep data sets that paint a larger picture of their needs. Empowering field sales reps with this data allows them to provide the right products when they’re needed most.
2. Launch and Learn
Never stop testing and optimizing. Even the smallest changes to an eCommerce site can vastly affect conversions. This is most important when making payment decisions. For example, the addition of a “Pay with PayPal” button on a product page can save a shopper significant time and manual information entry by pulling their vital signs over from their PayPal account. The easier and less time consuming this can be, the more likely a customer is to actually complete their purchase. PayPal is just one example, though, and should be tested against other payment systems with a special focused on timing.
3. Think Global, Act Local
There is a great deal of diversity between the preferred payment methods in different countries. Understanding these differences in local markets is critical to order conversion rates. While Americans prefer to pay by credit card, Germans will be more likely to settle up using online bank transfers or PayPal. Shoppers in the UK generally use their debit cards, but in Germany they can’t be used to make payments. Leaping before you look into markets like these can be a critical error for online retailers, so it’s wise to study up and truly understand what makes each country unique.
Hopefully you’ll find these points helpful. As the payment landscape continues to grow and change direction it is important to call PayPal, call Visa. Ask them what service offerings they have and keep in regular tough as new offerings are released all of the time. At the end of the day, listening and learning will go a long way in increasing your conversion rates. Also, please feel free to download our white paper, A Practical Guide to eCommerce Technology Implementation and Re-platforming to learn many more techniques to help you increase conversions even further!
