Whether you want to improve conversion in your domestic market or expand internationally, offering the right payment methods to your customers is essential.
Customers have become more reliant on their preferred payment method. And not being able to check out the way they’re used to is one of the main reasons to abandon their shopping cart.1 This is something merchants can easily avoid by tailoring the checkout to appeal to different audiences, enhancing customer experiences, and improving your brand image and conversion rate - especially on global sales days like Black Friday.
The opportunities of offering multiple payment methods
A few years ago, offering a credit card or a debit card option was enough for most online stores. This changed quite a bit over the last few years. Ecommerce today has overcome geographical barriers. With the right strategies, businesses can sell everywhere and to everyone.
Below are 5 top reasons for adding multiple payment methods:
1. Increase geographic coverage.
How customers prefer to pay online drastically depends on their location. If you don’t create a familiar and trustworthy payment experience, you risk cutting off entire countries from your addressable market. While in the Netherlands, for example, 90% of online shoppers in 2020 used iDEAL as their payment method, the local payment method Bancontact takes up two-thirds of online payments in Belgium. In Germany, buy now, pay later (BNPL) options such as Klarna are particularly popular, and in Spain and Italy credit cards still rule. Chinese customers, for example, are best addressed with local Chinese options such as WeChat Pay.
To find out more about local European preferences and customer behaviors, check out our dedicated payment guides for the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and Italy and our payment method page for other local European payment methods.
2. Attract a wider audience.
Besides local preferences, different generations and demographics of customers prefer using different payment methods. For example, millennials and Gen Z are more likely to use digital wallets than older generations.2 Take a look at session #8 of our Black Friday series to read more about optimizing your checkout with digital wallets.
3. Increase trust in your shop.
Trust issues can lead to shopping cart abandonment. Multiple payment methods signal a sense of security and trust. 17% of customers abandon their cart because they don’t trust the site with their payment details, and 7% because their preferred payment methods are unavailable.3 Locally known and commonly used options or popular names, such as PayPal, have trust value, which translates to your shop by association.4
4. Improve user experience.
Not accepting payments in a way that different target markets demand will damage the user experience for your store.5 Being provided with their preferred and trusted payment method offers users a smooth checkout process which increases customer loyalty and brings customers back to your shop for future purchases.
5. Increase conversion rate
Offering the top three payment methods in any country improves the conversion rate on your online shop by up to 30%.6 More payment methods mean more features and services, like one-click checkouts or buy now and pay later, increasing conversion rates. Adding to a better user experience, offering multiple payment methods helps decrease shopping cart abandonment and convert shoppers into buying customers.
Offer the right payment mix with MultiSafepay
MultiSafepay offers more than 30 national and international payment methods, including alternative payment options such as digital wallets and 'buy now, pay later' options, as well as a whole range of local and cross-border payment methods to reach customers all over Europe.
MultiSafepay is an acquirer and processor for credit card schemes such as Visa and Mastercard, which lets us integrate the whole payment flow end-to-end and rely on our own infrastructure instead of using third parties. That means we avoid redirects and handle your transactions when the customer completes payments to the settlement in your MultiSafepay balance - ensuring higher availability, resilience, and security.
Which payment methods should you offer? Contact us to find out
Our payments experts are happy to help you identify which payment methods will offer the most value for your business. With Multi-Currency and a mix of national and international payment methods, MultiSafepay helps you reach customers in the market you want to operate in. With expertise in different European markets, we provide profound advice to make sure you always deliver the right payment methods to the right audience all over Europe.
Which payment methods should be included in your checkout?
1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2021/05/26/four-tricks-to-help-reduce-cart-abandonment-rates/?sh=22c9f1d35e7a
2 https://www.business.com/articles/kristen-gramigna-customer-payments/
3 https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate
4 https://techjury.net/blog/shopping-cart-abandonment-stats/
5 https://techjury.net/blog/shopping-cart-abandonment-stats/
6 https://blog.varstreetinc.com/top-5-benefits-of-multiple-payment-gateways/
