How easy it is for your customers to pay will dictate whether or not they finalise the sale and whether you retain them as customers. And in ecommerce, there are multiple factors that influence how easy it is for your customers to pay.
To deliver the experience and results you need, you need to be focused on personalisation, empowering your customers with a sense of control, and a variety of methods that cater to their preferences.
Let’s examine a few things in your eCommerce store that could be impacting customer payment ease.
Too Many Steps
The last thing you want is for the customer to have to sift through multiple pages or too many steps to check out. This can be applied to many features, such as “add-on purchases” or “before you go” suggestions. The more you bombard them with the things they don’t want or have to navigate through, the less likely they’ll want to complete checkout.
While these are great ways to boost sales, having too many things to click off or refuse can be off-putting, so be careful with what you ask of customers as they approach the payment stage of the transaction to ensure they make it that far.
Not Enough Payment Options
If you’re not offering enough payment options, the customer might consider ending the transaction. You need a wide and varied range of payment options, including card payments, Apple or Google Pay, PayPal, etc. The more options you can give, the easier it will be for customers to use the payment method they prefer to make them feel safer completing their sale with you. Using a payment initiation service provider can also be useful as it allows you to cut out the middleman in transactions and make transactions safer for the customer as they are not redirected via another site to make the payment.
Forcing Them to Create an Account
Requiring all potential customers to create an account can be detrimental to your business and limit sales. Not everyone wants to create an account, nor do they want to go through page after page, filling in details that don’t relate to the purchase they’re trying to make.
Allowing guest checkout can make things easier, and then giving the option of using entered details to create an account automatically or sending an email post-sale to create an account can be a more effective option. This way, you get the sale, they still get the option of creating an account, and you don’t put a sour taste in their mouth, meaning they don’t come back to shop with you again.
Hiding Details
Making it harder to find details such as your contact information, delivery times, costs, and the company you use to deliver your orders won’t make customers feel at ease about shopping with you. The elusiveness of these details can leave people wary of your intentions and whether you are a genuine business or not.
Have clear pages with all of the delivery and shopping information people will need, or have it clearly on the product pages so they can see it before they enter the checkout process. This will reassure them and instil confidence in your business.
