E-Commerce Technology

How to Lower Your Abandoned Cart Rate and Increase Sales with the Latest Payment Gateways

How to Lower Your Abandoned Cart Rate and Increase Sales with the Latest Payment Gateways

What are you doing about shopping cart abandonment on your site?

Brand owners, let’s get honest. How easy is it for someone to navigate your checkout page? When I look at businesses big and small across the industry, I see a huge disconnect between adding items to shopping carts (super easy) and going through the checkout process (usually pretty confusing).

According to Statista, 16% of digital shoppers in the U.S. primarily abandoned shopping carts in 2017 due to bad site navigation, while 21% did so because of long checkout processes. There’s clearly room for improvement here but we love low-hanging fruit at Scaling Retail and this is just the type of opportunity you can take action on to improve your sales today!

Payment Gateways We Love

Thankfully, the tech giants have taken notice – Apple and Google included – and they’ve handed us a couple of great options that really streamline the shopping experience in brick-and-mortar stores as well as online (decreasing instances of abandoned carts). For example, Harrod’s recently introduced WeChat Pay to its airport retail locations on time for recent Lunar New Year celebrations and Barneys New York announced they now accept Apple Pay.

Apple Pay

Though most of them work pretty similarly, Google Pay is the best so far because you can actually check out from the product page! Shoppers that have already set up payment methods with their Google Accounts can take advantage of this awesome one-click checkout system that makes it quick and easy to shop. Mall brands like one-time Scaling Retail client, Sofia Fima, already have the system in place and the Google Pay API can be used in Android apps or any mobile websites in Google Chrome.

Google Pay 1

Google Pay 2

Google Pay 3

Of course these aren’t the only options out there. There are systems like Alipay, Amazon Pay, Bancontact, Bitcoin, Giropay, iDEAL, SEPA Direct Debit and SOFORT – phew! A real mouthful. Do your due diligence – see which option offers the best fit for your customers and business then get it integrated into your website today.

Simplifying the Checkout Process

Have you ever bought or sold an item through Instagram? Let’s walk through the steps. You see an image on Instagram, you click “Buy Now” which takes you to the link, you’re greeted with the product page, you manually add the item to the cart and finally begin the checkout process. The amount of time the whole process takes varies depending on how that last step is formatted on a site but let’s say it takes an average of 6-10 minutes to finalize a sale.

Instagram Ad - Buy Now

It may not seem like the biggest commitment of time, but imagine this – if shoppers could just click on that “Buy Now” link and they’ve instantly made the purchase – just like that. When we decrease the number of steps it takes to shop, we make it easier for shoppers and encourage them to complete the sale.

Maybe a pop-up page or two – one inviting you to join a newsletter for a percentage off and maybe another suggesting upsells.

How to Take Action

Ok, let’s get down to business…

  • Go to your e-commerce site and take all of the necessary steps as if you’re ordering one of your products. How many steps did it take? Was any part of the process confusing or cumbersome? What can be done to streamline and shorten the process?
  • Now that you’ve given your website some thought, think about your customer base and target market.
  • Finally, dive deep into research about the different payment gateway options in the market.
  • Once you’ve made a decision, upgrade your website to be current with the latest and greatest in e-commerce and mobile sales. Integrate your new payment gateway and tell your customers about it through your website, newsletter and social media.

Seamless shopping experiences equate to lower instances of abandoned carts. A lot of people aren’t thinking about cart abandonment but it definitely represents potentially lucrative low hanging fruit!

Looking for customized strategies to boost e-commerce sales? Contact us at Scaling Retail – we can even support you with the execution. Give us a call today at 310-957-5264 or shoot an email over to hello@scalingretail.com.