You got everything right. Strong headlines and calls to action. Powerful copy that makes customers salivate for your product. Your UX and design drive people grab attention, excite desire and provoke action.
Now the customer has made their decision. They hit the checkout button and reach the page where they enter payment information. This, unfortunately, is where too many online merchants drop the ball.
You can have a secure, fraud-resistant payment experience without adding friction at checkout. Here are best practices that work for our most successful customers.
Offer Many Payment Options.
Do you accept all the major credit cards or just Visa and MasterCard? Can a customer use a debit card or even wire transfers and electronic checks?
Every customer has their own preferred payment method. Some customers are okay with charges to their credit cards. Some customers, including continuity purchasers, may prefer the payments come from their checking accounts.
Purchasers of big ticket items—coins and collectibles—may prefer electronic checks or wire transfers. Know your audience and make sure you cater to them.
Pinpoint Intelligence has solutions that help you accept more payments from more customers—yet reduce the chance of fraud. Contact us to learn more.
Don’t Force New Buyers to Register as Customers.
There are a lot of customers out there who just want to buy something and move on. They don’t want to register as customers. They don’t want to be on your email list. They just want to buy and move on. Asking them to go through a registration process, no matter how simple, just creates more friction at checkout.
Offer a “Be Our Guest” option. Let them buy and go through the entire checkout process without registering as a customer. Then, give them the option to create an account after they’ve made the purchase.
By this point they’ve already given you most of the information you need. Registering is simple. And they’re more likely to check a few boxes and come back as a repeat customer.
Be forgiving of mistakes.
A customer’s checking out and for whatever reason, they’ve missed a box they were supposed to check. Maybe they put in their zip code, but not the city or state. A small error, yes. But it becomes a big deal when your payment system erases the entire form and forces customers to re-enter every detail a second time.
For many customers, it’s just easier to abandon the shopping cart. But if the process simply asks them to add a few missing—and clearly indicates what they are—they’ll continue.
Use checkout software that allows users to correct simple errors without having to re-enter every detail. Put the error message close to the purchase button, so the customer doesn’t have to scroll or hit the back button to see what went wrong. Highlight the boxes that need to be corrected, so customers don’t have to go searching or guessing.
Keep the Payment Process on Your Site.
By the time a customer’s decided to buy from you, they’ve probably come to trust you. On some level, they like or want to like products and your brand. All that goes out the window when they go to pay the bill and jump to some third-party site.
Even a trusted name like PayPal can add friction. The logo they’ve been seeing, the visual identity they’re accustomed to, the language they’ve come to trust—poof. Now they’re in a different world.
Look for an online payment solution that lets you integrate your shopping cart with your site, that you can display on your page. It will help you build your brand, even as the customer finishes the process.
Pinpoint Intelligence can help you build chargeback and fraud protection into your checkout, with little to no impact on user experience. Contact us to learn more.
