5 Ways to Improve Online Payment Experience for your Business

Shopping cart abandonment is common in many online stores for various reasons. Therefore, many online businesses lose a lot of revenue as a result of this. When customers can easily pay for their purchases, it can increase conversions and, ultimately, sales. A frustrating payment process results in sales loss or makes a customer look for another website for future purchases. Luckily, there are many ways merchants can improve the online payment experience for their customers. Here are five proven ways to make online payments simple and better.

1. Assure Your Customers about Their Privacy and Security

A survey conducted by eConsultancy revealed that 58% of respondents abandoned their shopping carts because of security concerns. It’s why businesses should always showcase the measures they have in place to ensure customer security. For example, if you’re compliant with the PCI Security Standards Council, don’t fail to indicate that. Buying from a store is easy if it protects your data from being accessed by hackers. Additionally, also ensure that your online payment page has a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate.

2. Avoid Redirections during Payments

Don’t chase people away after you’ve worked so hard to get them to your website. Therefore, we advise merchants to try using online payment systems that don’t redirect people. When a customer is redirected to another place, they may feel like they’re interacting with a different company. However, if you’re using PayPal, don’t worry so much since it’s a known site that offers a high level of trust. Therefore, redirection to their site won’t chase your potential customers away. But, if you’re using a less popular online payment system, ensure that you choose the in-context experience that pulls the payment form into your website.

3. Make Errors Easy to Fix

It’s normal for people to make mistakes. A customer can sometimes forget @ in their email or overlook a zip code. But, if mistakes are hard to solve, customers will likely look for another site that makes it easy to fix errors. Businesses should point out mistakes and get people to correct them within their online payment form. Ensure that the checkout page displays an error message on top. It’s also important that you point the error message in the exact field it occurred. It’s frustrating for a customer to have to scroll all the way up to determine what went wrong. Additionally, businesses should ensure that customers can save the information they submit to re-fill it again.

4. Allow Guest Checkout

Registering and filling in usernames and passwords can discourage some customers from buying in your store. Additionally, some consumers may be reluctant to give their emails for fear of receiving endless promotional emails. It’s why merchants should find a comfortable way of keeping customers through the entire online payment checkout process. Consider allowing anonymous/guest checkout, which encourages customers to finish their shopping cart.

5. Provide a Variety of Payment Methods

Among the reasons that can make a customer abandon their shopping cart is not to pay using their preferred payment method. It’s why merchants should accept a wide range of payment options. Remember that customer preferences vary. Therefore, allowing various payment systems on your page is one way of meeting their preferences. Apart from credit and debit cards, consider adding ACH to your payment offerings. Additionally, it’s wise that a business considers accepting different currencies to help reach even more customers.

Conclusion

Merchants should ensure that every step a consumer takes on their website uses minimal effort. If users use more effort on your online payment form, whether physically or mentally, they’re likely to abandon the checkout and payment process. However, these five simple tips can help simplify things for your customers and give them an incredible experience when they’re shopping online.  For additional online business success tips, check out this additional article. If your business requires a secure, simple, and fully integrated payment solution, please reach out to Payment Savvy. Since 2010, our payment systems have been dialed in to provide a custom and innovative experience for various e-commerce businesses and shopping cart platforms.