Payment Methods: Make it Easy on your Customers
Successful eCommerce businesses know that the more variety of payment options they provide their customers the more opportunity there is to sealing the deal. It is not necessarily the number of options your customers have, but the right payment options to complete the process.
The payment is considered the final hurdle in the sales process, and quite often this is where customers get lost because the website is not supporting the payment form they need. The easier that the merchant makes it on the customer the more likely is they are going to complete the transaction.
Payment Cards
If your website doesn’t have the ability to take credit cards, you might as well call up the Flintstones and see if there is space available in the stone ages. Supporting all major credit cards and debit cards is now considered mandatory. Many sites offer two different types of payment options, for example Amazon Pay and Credit Cards.
There are some credit cards, like American Express, that may charge more per sale to merchants, however we recommend offering those payment options as well. It is better to offer all payment options than losing a sale.
Third-party Payments
Third-party checkouts are payment services that offer your customers to pay for your products through another service without having a merchant account of your own. It is important to inform your customers that they will have to setup an account with the third party payment option. Popular third party payment platforms are Paypal or Paypal Express, eBillme, or Amazon Payments. What is great about using a third party merchant is that they process, verify, and accept or decline payments for you.
Bill Later
One simple thing that merchants do for larger orders is that they bill their customers later. This is mostly used for Business to Business transactions and not for consumers. But if your eCommerce business focuses on B2B this could be the perfect way to keep track of your accounting and bill your customers.
QuickBooks is the best system to bill your customers later, and if you have reoccurring charges you can have those go out automatically as well. QuickBooks will keep track of your customers and let you know how much money is outstanding for each customer you have. What is neat about QuickBooks is that you can provide your accountant with a user permission to work on your accounting remotely. Also you can send out as many reminder statements as you would like.
Key Points to Remember
One of the key points to remember is that you shouldn’t assume anything about your customer. On that note don’t set a default payment option for your customer, make sure to let them decide which method of payment is right for them. Furthermore, don’t try to sway your customers to use one payment option over another, and then once they have made a choice honor their selection.
To double check whether a customer entered the correct payment option offer the possibility to accept the payment option and selection in a confirmation page. Making it as easy as possible for your customers help ensure that they will be back for repeat business and just even complete the sale.
