It’s no rocket science that customers gravitate to sellers who have a smooth shopping experience and payments are an important step in the process. If someone really likes your product, you’d not want to put them off with a tricky payment experience that makes them doubt your business.
In 2021, a number of local sellers have completely transformed their payment experience to match up with the competition. Be it e-commerce or your physical store, cash is slowly becoming redundant. Digital payments are the new normal but there’s a lot unpack there too. Let’s talk about some of the newest ways to accept payments and how this might improve the overall payment experience at your store.
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1. Offer The Most Preferred Payment Modes
Customers are not stopping at anything when it comes to new-age payment methods. Be it Paypal, American Express cards or the latest digital wallet, the North American markets are undergoing a complete commerce revolution.
This calls for reforms in your payment acceptance process as well. You need to offer more payment methods to the customers. Go for the payment methods that are in line with the digital trends and shopping habits.
As a quick side note, Apple has been pushing Apple Pay quite a lot these days, and anyone who owns an iPhone would want to check it out. In case your store accepts payments through Apple Pay, you’d instantly attract a large customer base ready to purchase from you. That’s the difference.
Other popular payment methods that are a must at your store are;
- Cash
- Checks
- Credit cards
- Debit cards
- Digital payments (PayPal, Apple Pay, Chase Pay, etc)
- Gift cards
Adding multiple payment methods increases the likelihood of customers wanting to shop from you. This has been proven over and over by studying customer behavior in the e-commerce landscape.
If you’re looking to integrate a payment gateway that offers multiple payment methods, we recommend you use Payor, as it consolidates all popular payment modes in one solution. You can start offering as many payment modes as possible to your customers online or in person at your store using the POS.
2. Open Up Multi-Channel Payment Avenues
Customers are everywhere. They’re online checking out your website, they’re interacting with your Instagram page and they’re visiting your physical store. It’s important that you offer a payment experience that follows your customers wherever they go.
This has been the success factor for a variety of businesses that have opened up multi-channel payment avenues. You can look at Amazon that has a strong social media presence alongside its e-commerce website and now it has propped up physical stores as well. All of this helps Amazon maximize its visibility and offer a better shopping experience.
The takeaway is that you must set up a payment experience compatible with your customer’s preferences.
Some of the most popular payment avenues that currently exist are as follows;
- Online – Ecommerce
- Via telephone – Phone Authorized Payments
- In-person – POS
- Through social media – Payment Links and Landing Pages
Many businesses don’t really have a physical store which might motivate them to diversify their online offerings. In the digital world, you must capture the various avenues your customers can reach you. Payor understands your needs and hence, we offer a diversified payment experience to all our B2B customers.
You can set up a number of ways of payment acceptance mechanisms. One of the easiest ways to do this is to call up your payment provider and discuss your case. Thing is, why leave any avenue unturned?
3. Make It Super Easy To Pay
Whenever your customers are at the Checkout page, they can either traverse smoothly and complete the transaction or they can deter due to payment hiccups. Each unnecessary hiccup is a customer loss, and you would really want to avoid such hiccups from happening.
It could be anything from asking the credit card number too many times, a failed payment confirmation system, or a slow page load rate. It’s best to properly check everything before your e-store goes live and ensure that the customers don’t have to do much to pay you.
It should be as simple as handing out a dollar bill at the store. Anything more difficult than that would result in loss of potential business and revenue. Experts suggest three things you can do to achieve this;
- Minimum Clicks – Reduce the number of clicks it requires to access the payment page. Automate information capturing systems to get as many details from the customer as needed in the fewest clicks as possible.
- Stay on the page – If the customer deviates away from the payment page, the game is over. Design a UX that incentivizes the customers to stay on the page.
- Make it apparent – Provide clear instructions on how the payment system works. Write messages that educate customers on what information to fill in and any extra instruction that they must know in order to avoid failed transactions.
4. Prioritize Security
Payment gateway security swings both sides. For you and for the customer. A recent attack at TSYS, the payment processing giant, has had confidential customer data leaked online by the attackers. It has payment information of thousands of paying customers in unsafe hands.
You’d want to avoid such a scenario at any cost. Therefore, it’s important to invest in a secure and compliant infrastructure early on. Payor is one of the best payment gateway solutions when it comes to securing your data and enabling a safe payment experience at your store.
We have invested heavily in ramping up payment processing technology that is robust enough to figure out fraud payments and keep the gateway secure at all times. Make sure you have enough confidence in the payment provider you choose to go with. It’s your responsibility to find the safest bet for your customers.
5. Update Your Tech
The obvious next step is to update your technology. If you’re still using age-old CRMs and accounting software for gathering payment data, you’ll not be able to gain the competitive advantage modern-era business have.
Updating technology also means investing in payment solutions that are not only easier to operate but offer better security. Payor’s Point of Sale or POS is one such example that connects you with the virtual terminal no matter where you are in the world. The technology adds convenience without compromising productivity.
