If you run an eCommerce business, you’ll probably understand the frustration of losing potential customers at the last stage of conversion — the checkout.
For this article, I’ve gathered three common eCommerce payment mistakes that are (probably) hurting your conversion rates. If you fix these three issues, your conversion rate should improve, making you more money in the process.
1. Delivery Charges
For the past two decades, post and packaging charges have caused havoc with eCommerce businesses. Do you offer free delivery at a certain price point? Do you offer discount delivery? Do you always charge?
However, that all changed with Amazon’s free delivery option. People now expect free delivery and will walk away if they don’t get it. According to a study from the Baymard Institute, unexpected shipping costs was amongst the top causes of shopping cart abandonment.
To convert as many users as possible, you should remove shipping costs entirely.
Don’t panic, though! When I say remove, I don’t mean eat the cost yourself. Instead, include the price of delivery in the ticket price of each item. Customers are far more willing to pay slightly more for a product when they are getting all the ‘admin’ costs for free!
2. Wrong Payment Options
According to Cardswitcher CEO Stephen Hart, there are of estimates that there are hundreds of ‘alternative’ payment options out there.
“In the UK, there are about 200 alternative payment methods. Think direct debits, digital wallets, cryptocurrencies and so on. If a customer can’t pay with their preferred form of payment, it’s likely that they’re going to leave and go elsewhere.”
An alternative payment option is simply anything that isn’t a debit or credit card. And according to a survey from ClickandBuy, over half your potential customers will leave your site if you don’t offer the payment option they want.
Thankfully, you don’t need to offer all 200 payment methods. Instead, ask your customers how they want to pay then integrate those payment methods into your website.
3. Poor Security
Over the last two or three years, the news has been full of stories about high-profile hacking scandals. That has led to consumers becoming more and more careful with their personal data, especially when they’re online.
While all eCommerce businesses should have security at the top of their priority lists, that’s not the mistake I want to talk about. Where eCommerce websites go wrong is not telling their customers how secure their site is.
One of the easiest ways to do this is through trust badges. Trust badges are accreditations issued by payment and internet security companies to sites that exhibit a minimum level of security.
Here is a note of some of the most popular trust badges.
- PayPal Verified
- McAfee Secure
- TRUSTe Certified Privacy
- Norton Secured