Right now, many of us are hurrying to finish the last of our Christmas shopping – and, for that reason, the online marketplace is an obvious one to turn to. Naturally, then, you don’t want to held up by the need to register an account or fill in lots of payment details before you can even hit “buy”.
The all-too-common friction of the checkout stage could help to explain why mobile payment services have taken off – and accepting them on your ecommerce site can mean big gains for you.
Mobile payments: more than just a novelty these days
The days when services like Apple Pay, Google Pay and Amazon Pay were just intriguing, albeit technologically impressive, curiosities are fading into the distant past. According to research by Worldpay, 41% of Gen Xers and 46% of millennials now use mobile payments.
In fact, 22% of the latter group use them regularly. So, you don’t have to worry too much about a millennial shopper seeing a particular mobile payment service’s badge on your ecommerce site’s checkout page and wondering what they are supposed to do next; they probably already know.
Which mobile payment services should your online store accept?
There’s sense in being choosy regarding which services it does take. Apple Pay, for example, would be an obvious candidate if many of your shoppers seem to be visiting from Apple devices, and your webmaster tools could provide an insight into this.
However, Apple Pay is still a relatively new kid on the block – and, if your customer base is relatively old, it may be hanging onto a longer-established service. Consider, say, the revelation from Verto Analytics that 22% of PayPal users, at least among the research sample, are aged 55 or older.
The technical side of implementing a mobile payment solution
The essential appeal of mobile payment services is that, as the user has already registered an account – payment details and all – with that service, they don’t need to do it all again with the online store. You can leave out the “sign up” link to let shoppers complete a purchase with just a few taps.
It’s ironic, then, that you could feel rather daunted by the technical aspects of integrating that solution in the first place. Feel free to visit the service provider’s site for guidance; Apple’s Developer website, for example, shows how Apple Pay can be built into a website.
However, if you still see a few off-putting hurdles, give our ecommerce experts a call on 01325 582112. We can even rebuild your site from the ground up to further foster mobile payment usage.
Build your marketing campaigns around the service
If you’ve only recently started accepting a new mobile payment service, you could celebrate by running a campaign along the lines of “15% when you buy with Apple Pay”. Keep it a limited-time thing, though; people preferring alternative methods shouldn’t be made to feel unfairly penalised. Why not advertise the promotion with a blog post written by our copywriting team?
