Credit card payments are becoming more and more common, considering that the majority of customers have a credit card now. Vendors and ecommerce merchants can leverage the association between payment methods and conversion rates to increase the number of visitors to their websites that potentially become customers.
In today’s time, if you want to increase cart conversion, it’s imperative that you offer multiple payment options to your customers. Additionally, you can take several steps to improve the payment conversion rates. Let’s discuss this in detail.
What Is a Conversion Payment?
The conversion rate of a website refers to the proportion of visitors that become paying customers. Every merchant is well aware of the fact that not every visitor will become a customer.
At some point in your sales funnel or customer journey, you fail to keep the customer engaged and satisfied. As a result, they do not complete their transaction.
A conversion payment typically refers to the payment made by a visitor when they become a customer. To accomplish a high payment conversion rate, merchants need to improve online payments and focus on eliminating certain obstacles that disturb the customer’s journey.
Factors Affecting Payment Conversion Rate
There are several factors that affect the payment conversion rate. By focusing on these aspects of the customer’s journey and making the checkout process as swift as possible, you can increase cart conversion rates.
Transfer Value
Depending on the platform you use, your customers may be required to type in special characters before finalizing their purchase or making an account on your website.
These special characters are called Captchas, and their function is to make sure that the person buying or signing up for something is indeed a person and not an automatic program.
For example, if you’re using Facebook Messenger to send messages via your website, there’s no captcha for this step because connecting with Facebook automatically authenticates the users.
If you try to sign into Facebook Messenger without logging into Facebook first, you’ll be required to solve the captcha before proceeding.
It may seem like it would be tedious to have people type in captchas before they can use your product but captchas are effective at preventing bots from accessing your platform or making purchases on your site.
However, the downside to captchas is that they make the checkout process longer. According to Baymard Institute data, the average checkout flow of new customers of a website is 5.2 steps, counting from adding the product to the shopping cart to reviewing the order.
If adding a captcha makes the checkout process longer, it may affect your checkout conversion rate.
Payment Experience
Another factor that affects checkout conversion is the complexity of the payment process. If the steps are complicated or confusing, you will lose potential buyers.
When designing your websites’ payment page, avoid adding unnecessary clutter or confusion by keeping forms simple and easy to understand. As a rule of thumb, the fewer fields, the better.
Also, whether your website is compatible with mobile devices or not also impacts the payment experience. Nearly 79% of smartphone users have made an online purchase using their phones.
Meanwhile, 69.4% of internet users use shopping apps on their mobile phones. Therefore, a mobile-friendly payment process affects your checkout conversion.
Card Issuing Bank and Card Scheme
What kind of credit card do you accept in your ecommerce store? Do you accept alternative payment methods? In today’s time, if you’re not accepting major credit cards, you’re bound to lose on sales.
Stability
Besides being swift and easy, transactions should also be stable. The processing power of the acquiring bank and the payment company should be stable enough to handle a large influx of customers.
Also, customers prefer shopping from places if they know the store has measures in place to deal with emergent payment issues, such as double payments or accidental payments.
Transaction Return Result
As a merchant, if you want to increase the conversion rate, you should have a detailed description of each transaction. Why did a transaction fail? At which step did the customer abandon the transaction?
Knowing these details about transactions helps you find optimal solutions.
Product Coverage
The number of currencies and payment methods supported by a store also affect the checkout and cart conversion rates. If you offer more payment methods, you’re likely to retain more customers.
Likewise, if you allow customers to scroll your website in their preferred currency, they’ll feel more comfortable shopping.
Operational System Capability
You can increase checkout conversion through credit card payments if your website is capable enough to handle data coming from multiple sources. Intelligent routing refers to the ability of an application to decide on the fly where to route a message.
Most applications are used through multiple channels (web, mobile apps, mail), but they do not have all their features available in all channels. Some features may be missing due to the lack of space or time, whereas others may only exist in some channels.
It allows customers to be directed to the channel where they can shop most comfortably.
Payment Conversion Rate of Different Industries
Payment methods and conversion rates differ in individual industries. Here are some examples:
- Physical Objects: The payment conversion rate for industries making physical objects is 70% to 90%. The success rate of payments goes up to 90%.
- Virtual Objects: Industries that make virtual products, such as ebooks and games, have a conversion rate of 60% to 80%. The payment success rate is up to 85%.
These conversion rates are calculated after factoring in different aspects of a customer’s journey, such as market promotion, shopping experience, and website functionality.
Overview of Various Types of Credit Cards
To improve online payments through credit cards, it’s also important to know the conversion rates of different cards.
- Visa and MasterCard: These are mainstream credit cards. Visa has a higher conversion rate than MasterCard, but the rates for both cards can be up to 90%.
- JCB and AE: These are beneficial for high regional targeting. The payment conversion rate is 90% to 95%. You should use them for Japanese, European, and American markets.
- Discover and Diners: Discover is the fourth-largest credit card brand in the world. Its market share is 9.2% globally and the payment conversion rate is up to 90%.
Credit Card Conversion by Region
The credit card conversion rate is higher in some regions than in others.
- In the Middle East, the conversion rate is up to 60%. Up to 70% of the transactions are successful.
- In North America and Europe, the popular markets include bags, shoes, and apparel. The conversion rate is up to 82%, with the payment rate being up to 90%.
- In East Asia, there is a high sale of physical products. The conversion rate is up to 84% while the success rate is up to 90%.
- In South America and Africa, the conversion rate is lower as compared to other regions.
How To Increase Conversion Rate?
If you want to increase cart conversion, follow these pointers.
Strengthen Purchase Intention
You can do this by highlighting your product’s advantages and attributes. If you offer next-day or quick delivery, make sure you mention it in a prominent place on the web page.
Some other ways to ensure this include:
- Reducing the number of steps required for checkout
- Making your product cost-effective
- Reducing repeated entries
- Reducing page jumps
Doing so will help you retain more customers and increase conversions.
Comprehensive Payment Methods
Customers are more likely to trust and shop from your website if you allow them to pay in their local currencies through their preferred payment methods. Payment partners, like Oceanpayment, help improve online payments by facilitating cross-border transactions and enabling you to offer tens of payment options to your customers.
Stable Payment Channels
Moreover, make sure your website has stable payment channels as they increase the conversion rate. If you’re uncertain about the things you can tweak about your customers’ journeys, read the reviews and feedback to get an insight into the problems the customers are facing.
Attract Users to Repurchase
If you want to ensure your customers return for a second purchase, you should do the following:
- Make customer service your property.
- Offer loyalty programs or discounts to incentivize returning customers.
- Offer new products to keep your customers engaged.
- Inform the customers about any upcoming collections or sales, giving them a reason to return to your website.
Conclusion
When you improve online payments, you make it possible for your customers to pay through their preferred method. On the one hand, it helps increase cart conversion. On the other hand, it ensures customer satisfaction and gives your customers an incentive to return to your website for subsequent purchases in the future.
A credit card is one of the most common payment methods on the market, so you should consider offering it as an option from your very first day of business. However, implementing a system that allows your customers to use their credit cards correctly can be more difficult than you think.
That’s where a payment partner, like Oceanpayment, comes in. Contact us today to learn more about our payment services.
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