A new report from Ecommpay, the inclusive global payments platform, and IMRG has highlighted how much room for improvement there is within the payment experience.
‘eCommerce Checkouts: UK Retailers Reveal Their Checkout Strategy and Performance,’ found that the average conversion rate is just 58%, leaving plenty of room for improvement. And it was interesting to see the difference between multi-page and single-page checkouts, where average conversion rates are 56% and 61%, respectively. Clearly, simplicity and efficiency are key.
Checkout abandonment
On average, checkout abandonment occurs at nearly 90% of the typical time to complete a payment. A significant barrier that must be addressed when a customer has taken time to input their data and abandons the purchase at such a late stage. Conversions will only increase if focus is placed on improving the payment experience itself.
One simple but effective change is to add tools like ‘try again’, which can save consumers from restarting the checkout journey in the event of a declined transaction – this is known to increase conversion from 2% to 4%. Providing a range of payment options to improve conversions is also high on the list of priorities for e-commerce businesses. However it is not without complexities.
The wider the range of express checkout options, the greater the conversion rate. Merchants not offering express checkout report 52% conversions, increasing steadily with the addition of each express option, reaching 67% for those providing access to four express checkout options.
More options, more work?
Adding a wider range of payment and express checkout options to the customer journey does not have to increase merchants’ resource requirements or website complexity. Working with a payment service provider (PSP) that offers a full-stack solution and dynamic checkout to optimise the choice and flow of multiple payment methods removes the need for many partnerships. Open banking, subscriptions, payment orchestration, global payments, express checkout, and alternative payment methods can all be offered via one partnership, integration, and one account to manage.
This also allows the e-commerce business to scale globally with access to a huge range of payment methods, benefiting from increased authorisation rates and drastically decreased transaction costs.
To find out more and download the full report, click here.
