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July 26, 2024
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With the norm of social distancing discouraging customers to shop on-site and pay with cash, purchasing behaviour has shifted toward eCommerce tremendously. With most people turning to digital payments as a way to shop directly from their smartphones during COVID-19, it’s important for you to review the options out there. In this article we take a look at the 3 preferred methods of payment for customers in the United States, providing you with highlights of their set up and how they help you optimize your customer experience.
PayPal is easy to set up, popular among the young adult US audience, and offers many payment options. It also has no set-up fees and comes with a detailed integration manual. You can opt to integrate a Check out with PayPal, where customers are taken to log in to their PayPal account and authorize payment for their purchase. Upon payment acceptance, the user is taken back to your site where you can have a confirmation page waiting. You also have the option to integrate an express checkout button that will prompt customers through a faster checkout.
During the COVID-19, an increase in orders through PayPal brought the company to a record breaking second quarter in sales. The company reported their second quarter of 2020 as their best ever due to “an acceleration in the use of digital payments that it believes is irreversible.” However, it is important to note that using PayPal can become expensive for some sites. Even though there is no set up fee, PayPal does charge a 2.4% to 3.4% commission rate on the volume of each sale plus a $0.30 fee per transaction.
A Stand out customer feature with PayPal you are able to set up several payment methods, including most recent installments. The ability to buy now and pay later has proven to be a huge draw for customers, especially in times of crisis.
Google Pay is free to set up for both you and your customer. It uses contactless payment technology (Near Field Communication) to allow customers to purchase on your site through a Tap & Pay feature on their smartphone or pay via credit/debit cards they have saved to their google account. It allows for secure payment as merchants operate by tokens, transactions are processed via individual random account numbers, rather than using real credit or debit card account numbers.
It is one of the cheapest options out there because it does not charge additional transaction fees when purchasing within an Android app, payments are simply considered car-not-present transactions. However, you will need development hours to set this up on your app or site. Integration is outlined by google in four simple steps, including a free documentation guide and API access for your site or app; they estimate a timeline of less than a week to get this digital payment up and running. They also partner with many payment gateways to help you get set up in a couple of days.
A stand out feature with Google Pay is their catalogue of linked offers through APIs that allow you to manage and promote gift cards, special offers, loyalty programs and QR codes for your brand. If you don’t have the bandwidth to roll out a loyalty program of your own, google pay offers you simple features to build one out!
Apple pay works in pretty much the same way that Google Pay does, by accepting payment via a contactless payment terminal. Customers are able to use their iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad or Mac to seamlessly process credit card payments from Touch ID and Face ID. When the customer biometrics are taken Apple Pay generates a token into a card for checkout which submits a payment request that is then verified. It is also a secure payment method to offer your customers.
To set up Apple Pay for your business, you must meet these environment requirements. If you are working with an eCommerce provider like Shopify or Magento you can activate the use of this digital payment through their own payment settings. This will also require development hours for setting up and integration will depend on your environment and section for your credit card processor.
A stand out feature of Apple Pay is the Apple Card, the credit card created by the company for digital payments. It offers a great deal of benefits chief among them a percentage cashback on immediate transactions and monthly installment plans. Enabling this payment method is one benefit package, allowing you to create an indirect loyalty reward program with customers also looking to buy now and pay later. The downside is not every customer is eligible to be grated this card.
Digital payments have become the norm to avoid unsafe inconveniences of cash-based transactions today. They help businesses cut cost by increasing their fulfillment efficiency and speed, while also providing more transparency, security and participation to their customers. Overall these services are great at what they do, and while one might seem to have more advantages than others, you can’t really go wrong with any of them — or all of them. Nonetheless, knowing what your clients want to pay with will get you further than you think, so it is important to look at your niche of profitable customers if it comes time to make a decision. If you need help with your decision or are unsure about how to optimize your check out process in general, reach out to us for a free one-on-one consultation today.
