To reduce shopping cart abandonments and improve the conversion rate whilst increasing customer satisfaction, the payments process for your customers should be made easy and convenient with more than one payment method to choose from.
Choosing the right payment method for your online shop
Once a customer is in your shop and placed one or more products in the shopping cart, you’re home free – or so you would think. However, several studies show that many customers abort the transaction at some step in the ordering process. Apart from poor usability and data safety, another factor that negatively impacts the number of aborted transactions is often the absence of the customer’s preferred payment option.
The following points are important to pay attention to when adding payment options to your shop:
- Choose the right option based on your target customer group
- Offer your customers a variety of payment methods
- Take the average value of your shopping cart into consideration
- Protect yourself against payment defaults
- Consider the relevant contractual/transaction costs
What is the target group of your shop?
Which payment methods make sense? There is no general answer to this question because, just like all other topics in your online shop, the target group is an important factor in terms of choosing suitable payment methods. In the end, it is this group you want to persuade to buy your products. So ask yourself if your online shop addresses mainly younger or older buyer groups, or if there is a clear majority of female or male customers. This differentiation will help your narrow down the choice of preferred payment methods for your respective target group.
What type of goods do you sell?
Your range of goods is another factor when selecting payment methods. If you’re selling goods with an increased likelihood of being returned – as is often the case with clothing – payment upon receipt of an invoice is often used as the payment method. In addition, you should also consider the average value of your shopping cart. This, as well as the period within which the goods can be returned, present potential business risks. You could minimise the risk of payment default by choosing a compatible payment method. And don’t forget to find out about the costs involved in adopting potential payment solutions.
What devices do your customers use when shopping?
The number of customers who access shops from their mobile phone is steadily increasing. Before thinking about optimum payment solutions for this customer group, you should first adapt your shop accordingly. Shopware 5 offers you excellent preconditions with its standard fully responsive design. For the ordering process, you should then select payment methods that provide simple data input on the go.
Reduce your costs with a payment service provider
What does the term ‘payment service provider’ actually mean? Online payment service providers process payment transactions and usually offer various payment options. Choosing a payment provider means that you only have one contractual partner to deal with, rather than several providers. Working with a payment service provider offers two distinct benefits:
Significant time-savings:__ __For the initial integration as well as the actual payment transaction process, payment solutions score points in terms of time and effort.
Risk protection against payment defaults: Using payment service providers makes a lot of sense when your customer group has preferred payment options. The payment provider acts as contractual partner for the customer and guarantees that the retailer gets paid.
Factors for selecting a payment service provider
Due to the variety of providers and legal stipulations, it is of particular importance to find the right partner. The following factors come into play when selecting a suitable payment provider:
Customer security: An independent payment provider must certified in accordance with the worldwide Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
Integration capability of various payment options: The more payment options a payment provider offers, the fewer options will need to be integrated separately by the retailer.
Payment on all devices: The checkout pages of payment providers should automatically adjust to the relevant devices to ensure perfect usability.
There is a diverse range of payment providers to choose from and it is constantly growing. The most popular payment providers in Europe include PayPal, Amazon Pay and Klarna.
Comparison of payment providers
Stand 2019
Summary of payment providers
PayPal
The U.S.-based payment provider PayPal offers its several hundred million customers a wide selection of different payment options: payment by credit card, direct debit, payment upon receipt of invoice or payment by instalments.
Transaction costs comprise an authorisation fee of EUR 0.35 and a fee of max. 2.49% for processing. There are no setup or monthly fees. PayPal comes preinstalled in many shop systems, which ensures trouble-free integration. The focus is on worldwide customer penetration with the primary emphasis on North America and Europe.
Amazon Pay
Amazon Pay is a subsidiary of Amazon.com and has its corporate office in the U.S. and European administrative headquarters in Luxembourg. With Amazon Pay, customers can complete their transaction without having to enter any personal data (Express Checkout), as already stored payment and customer data is accessed.
The payment options offered by Amazon Pay are credit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express) and debit card (Visa Electron, Visa Debit, Maestro), as well as direct debit. Amazon Pay can be integrated via direct payment API or shop plugin. The focus of the payment provider is on North America (U.S.) as well as Europe (DACH countries, UK, Ireland, Benelux, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain) and Japan.
Klarna
Headquartered in Sweden, the easy payment options offered by Klarna Group enable 60 million end customers worldwide to complete cross-border payment transactions with over 89,000 retailers. The payment methods are fully tailored to customer requirements and facilitate a smooth transaction whenever and in whatever way they choose: direct debit, instant funds transfer, payment upon receipt of invoice or payment by instalments.
Transaction costs comprise an authorisation fee of EUR 1.69 and an additional processing fee of 3.25% for payment upon receipt of invoice and 3.0% for payment by instalments. Klarna comes preinstalled with many shop systems, which makes it easy to integrate. The focus of strategic country targeting is on Scandinavia and the DACH countries, as well the UK, Belgium, France and Eastern Europe (e.g. Poland and Slovakia).
Bottom line
To increase the conversion rate and improve usability in your online shop, you should have several payment methods on offer. The more payment methods you have, the more customer preferences are covered and the lower the purchasing barrier. Shopware comes with eight different payment providers integrated as standard, offering easy backend activation using the Plugin Manager.
