Which Forms Of Payments Should You Accept?
Many store owners ask me this question all the time.
-Should I accept American Express?
-Should I accept Discover?
-Should I accept PayPal if I am already accepting the 4 major credit cards?
There is a very simple answer to these questions.
NEVER give your customers a reason NOT to buy from you.
Simple concept right?
Shoppers want the convenience of using a payment method that they prefer, not what you prefer to accept. If you want to increase your conversion rates, then you must be willing to accept the forms of payments your customers want to use.
So let's discuss one form of payment, using PayPal.
With credit card fraud increasing every day, more shoppers are using PayPal to shop online in order to avoid giving out their credit card information. Yet, some store owners state that they do not want to accept PayPal on top of credit cards because of the added cost.
How many sales are you losing because you do not accept PayPal?
If you are not accepting PayPal as a form of payment, you have given your visitor a reason not to purchase the item from you.
Do you sell big ticket items?
Consider offering BillMeLater or some type of Layaway Plan on your website.
Just keep in mind the #1 goal, which is to NEVER give your customers a reason not to buy from you.
Written by Shawna Fennell, President of 1 Choice4 Your Store
This post is filed under Developers' Corner and has the following keyword tags: conversion.
6 Comments
frdxon23s says:
The only downfall with billmelater is they only want to deal with large retailers
gibraltar says:
Whom do you suggest using for a gateway? Who has the lowest merchant charges and "TCO"? Who is the best to work with?
Thanks!
Shawna Fennell says:
To Gibraltar: Personally, we use Emerchantdiscount.com and recommend them to our customers. Their rates are low, you get the money in 2 business days, and they keep lowering the rates the more business we do automatically. Great customer service and we are VERY happy with them :)
To Frdxon23s Yes, they do work with bigger retailers, but if you offer big ticket items...you could also look into offering payment plans by partnering with a loan company.
PetsRight says:
Thanks for putting me on to Emerchantdiscount.com
Leore Jacobs says:
"NEVER give your customers a reason NOT to buy from you" is right on.
I currently work for Plimus and our strategy, as the article mentions, is to provide as many payment options as possible. We believe that any limitation may result in a lost customer. This is why we provide more currencies and transaction languages than you ever thought possible, several types of payments including wire-transfers, credit cards, checks, local currency bank transfers, Paypal and even phone orders.
Miles_Technologies says:
Great advice on how to make the payment process as simplified as possible in order to generate more revenue from your website! Miles Technologies builds custom ecommerce sites that are not only easy to use, but offer full integration with Google Checkout and Authorize.net.
