A rapid shift in the Digital Adoption by consumers for Merchant Payments augurs well for the Digital Payment ecosystem at large. While the behavioral shift could be attributed to the current situation and to the influence of millennials and Gen-Zs, the success behind every digital adoption lies with the user experience that includes convenience and security.
Evaluating the connection between customer experience, online payment, and sales
Customers are always attracted to rich, intuitive and easy-to-navigate shopping experiences. While merchants and e-commerce sites/apps have been constantly innovating and working towards improving the customer shopping experience, the key to maintaining customer stickiness and ensuring repeat sales is a factor of the Payment experience offered.
Payment Gateways are an integral part of the overall shopping experience. Hence, the choice of payment gateway solutions is of paramount importance. If your payment structure is cumbersome, lacks familiar payment methods, or involves multiple redirects, it can result in transaction declines leading to bad customer experience and potential loss of sales, not to mention risk of losing a valuable customer.
Some of the key considerations for an effective Payment experience are:
- Offering popular online payment methods: Lack of preferred payment methods could become one of the reasons for cart abandonment. Rule this out by expanding the range of online payment methods -debit cards, credit cards, e-wallets, UPI and more and ensure an integrated checkout experience.
- High success ratio: Besides offering multiple payment options, the payment gateway should provide a high success ratio. In case of transaction time outs and or declines, it should offer the customer an alternate payment method, without abandoning the transaction.
- Marketplace for SME merchants: With the increased need among Small and Medium merchants in taking their business online, Banks and Merchant Aggregators need to support these small-time merchants with a Marketplace where they can publish their goods and services.
- Flexible Payment options and promotions: The customers and merchants prefer to have flexibility in payment options like EMI schemes, BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) besides supporting features such as loyalty rewards, redemptions and promotions.
- Unified and secure checkout: Customers prefer a simple yet secure checkout experience irrespective of the payment methods opted for. Options like saved cards for faster checkout, a single checkout page with an option to enter the OTP/ PIN, smooth transition to payment approval and order confirmation are key to ensure a seamless payment experience.
- Branding @ checkout: Customers should be able to connect the merchant and bank brand at checkout. A truly white-labeled payment gateway platform, offered by top online payment gateway providers allows the Banks and its merchants to manage to brand thereby enhancing the visibility to the customer.
Bottom line: Online payment process is critical to the overall shopping experience; it influences customers in evaluating the value proposition and making the buying experience smooth. The payment gateway needs to focus on both Merchant and Customer centricity and enhance the payment experience for both Merchants and Customers. The relationship between buyers and merchants would enhance manifold based on the experience offered at the Checkout stage.
Mindgate understands how small things can affect your business in multiple ways. Hence, we bring to you feature-rich, secure, and integrated payment solutions that will not only optimize your back-end business operations but also facilitate online transactions, ensuring maximum customer satisfaction.
Connect with Mindgate – a global leader and innovator in payment solutions, to reap the benefits of an advanced payment gateway system tailored to meet the needs and budget of your business.
To know more about our payment solutions and how to make the most of them to gain a competitive edge contact our payment experts today!