How to create a frictionless payment process: Four tips from two banking experts

The checkout experience has moved from an afterthought to a key differentiator for eCommerce. The pandemic has changed how merchants prioritize their digital experience and accelerated the need to give customers choices when it comes to the payment process.

Our recent panel on How to Create a Frictionless Payment Process discussed how brands can upgrade their digital experience to include an exceptional customer payment process. Two industry experts, Tyler Heun, Director of Global Accounts, PayPal, and Jim Choi, Executive Director, Merchant Services, J.P. Morgan, gave us a wealth of tips and advice—here are a few of the key takeaways.

Localize your payment options

It’s all about customer choice. It’s important to have a strong understanding of how you do business locally and how those customers prefer to pay. Otherwise, no matter how good the service or product is, they physically cannot pay.

Building a website that has a smart capability, like tracking IP addresses, and only offers relevant methods of payment for each market will ensure customers have the right available options.

Offer multiple purchasing options and payment formats

Purchasing options and payment forms have diversified significantly in recent years for eCommerce. Besides the traditional credit card payment method, there are merchant credit programs, third-party payment options, digital wallets, and more. There are also a lot of new purchasing options such as purchasing through social apps, buy now and pay later (BNPL), purchasing stable coin (USDT) buy online and pickup in store (BOPIS), and more.

Make return and cancellation policies transparent and easy to find

Being fully transparent and informative at the time of purchase can have a huge positive impact. Having things like shipping timeframes, subscription payments and cancellation policies, and return policies readily available will build trust with your customers  about the products they are purchasing.

Be willing to test and learn

Don’t be complacent, run tests and work towards really understanding who your audience is and their buying behaviors. For example, millennials are the most likely to prefer and use the buy now pay later (BNPL) option, so if you are trying to cater towards a millennial audience it may be worth offering this alongside your other payment options. Customer preferences can change quickly, so being complacent can leave your site outdated.

These are just a few of the useful tips discussed in the panel. To get more insights and information watch the session on-demand.