Checkout is a key moment in e-commerce. Retailers invest a lot of resources in getting a customer to fill their shopping cart: online marketing, technology infrastructure, user experience design, etc. And once the customer is ready to pay, it is key that there is no friction in the process.
We all like to shop, but we like to pay even less, which is why payment platforms are a key component of e-commerce. They ensure that consumers make payments as conveniently and securely as possible.
Javier Moreno, Sales Director of Checkout, explained in a very interesting interview how payment platforms work and why they directly influence the sales volume of an e-commerce.
How do the different payment platforms differ?
There are global payment platforms or specific payment platforms for certain countries or regions. There are also payment gateways specialized in certain industries, verticals or company sizes. And finally, there are payment providers that focus only on one of the steps in the payment process (processing, gateway, etc.).
Checkout.com is a global digital payments platform whose mission is to help businesses thrive in the digital economy. With more than 20 offices in 5 continents we work with large online retailers such as Glovo or Freshly Cosmetics, with major players in the Fintech industry such as Klarna or Wise and with the best operators in the crypto industry such as Coinbase or Crypto.com.
Can a payment platform directly influence a company's sales volume? Why?
No doubt about it. A payment platform directly influences the sales of an e-commerce business. For example, a recent study by Checkout.com stated that 56% of consumers who do not pay with their favorite payment methods are likely to abandon the purchase process.
are likely to abandon the checkout process. Therefore, it is critical for the payment service provider to offer a wide range of payment methods to their merchants. And in another report, we show how 76% of consumers in Southern Europe say that two-factor authentication makes them feel that their payments are safer and better protected. If the payment platform does not offer security options to your merchants, consumers will abandon shopping carts without paying.
If we talk about payment acceptance rates, why do some platforms have a higher acceptance rate than others? What does this rate depend on?
Acceptance rate is one of the key indicators for e-commerce. It indicates what percentage of consumers are able to complete the payment process once initiated. A few percentage points difference can make the difference between success and failure. At Checkout.com, we work with our clients to increase acceptance rates to the maximum possible. Our platform offers maximum granularity at the transaction level by offering more than 200 response codes for each payment. Our optimization team advises our customers on the type of actions to take for each of these codes to ensure that the transaction is accepted without, of course, compromising the security of the consumer or the merchant.
How is Checkout different from its competitors?
One of Checkout.com's differentiating factors is that we manage payments from start to finish by managing each stage of a transaction: gateway, processing, acquiring and fraud and risk management. This allows us to have all the information about each transaction and to increase the maximum acceptance rate.
Would you like to share with us briefly a success story of your company?
Locally we have a very interesting success story with Freshly Cosmetics, a leader in natural, healthy and sustainable cosmetics. Freshly Cosmetics redesigned its payment system last year with Checkout.com. With the change, the Spanish firm managed to increase its payment acceptance rate to 98.5%, compared to 89% with its previous provider.
The process capped off a pre-audit work that identified optimization opportunities that could help Freshly Cosmetics increase transactions during the biggest sales season of the year. "To achieve such a large increase in sales in such a short space of time is extraordinary and a testament to the value of Checkout.com's technology and professionals," says Miquel Antolin Civil, co-founder and CEO of Freshly Cosmetics. "There is no other sales, marketing or operational initiative that can have such a significant and immediate impact on our bottom line."
Having recorded a significant increase in sales in the run-up to Black Friday, Freshly Cosmetics decided that the highest priority was to optimize the authorization rate, as the peak season was a critical time for their business and they intended to achieve optimal payment performance.
The strategy designed by Checkout.com succeeded in optimizing Freshly Cosmetics' payment retry process and adjusting transactions going through the 3DS protocol. With this, the cosmetics firm was able to leverage the security benefits of strong customer authentication and create a frictionless checkout experience for Freshly Fans. In addition, the agreement with Checkout.com has enabled the startup to reduce fraudulent payments and, at the same time, provided it with all the necessary information to reclaim them in the event of non-payment.
