Retailers with obsolete online and mobile payment services face abandoned sales worth £18bn a year, despite consumers yearn for the latest technology, find a new study.
Some 72% of retailers surveyed report they haven’t introduced any new payment technology to their ecommerce and mcommerce sites over the last two years. Even so, 86% of them say they are aiming to increase the number of online transactions over the next 12 month, reveals the research conducted by Opinium for Barclaycard.
The study surveyed more than 2,000 adults, with the same sample of shoppers who have abandoned an item online as well as 314 senior retailer managers of companies with an online presence.
Overall, retailers aren’t providing the best possible ecommerce experience for their customers. Keeping payment technology up-to-date facilitates retailers to deliver a fast and seamless experience at the online point of sale, thus driving the revenue by reducing an online abandonment rate.
Retailers insensitivity towards clienteles’ shopping desires is detrimental towards sales conversion, resulting in lost sales worth almost £30 a month, warns the same body of research.
In fact, 15% of shoppers surveyed say they have aborted an online and mobile transaction because they couldn’t pay with ’one-click’ ordering, with 16% of consumers revealing that lengthy checkout processes are their biggest frustration when purchasing online.
Less than a quarter (22%) reveal that they would like to see more retailers incorporate faster payment services into the website to speed up the check-out process.
Meanwhile, retailers who buck the trend and have introduced new payment gateway to their website – a new payment service, which provides a secure online link between a merchant and bank-are reaping the rewards. The majority (96%) report this has enhanced the online experience for their clientele, with 64% of those disclosing their payment process is speedier.
These insights serve as a useful guide for retailers to identify the most appropriate tactics for re-engaging shoppers who have abandoned a digital basket. Yet, more than a half (59%) of interviewed retailers are unaware of the average drop-out rate on their website, in comparison to a mere 27% of those who analyse the browsing behaviour of shoppers who abandon digital basket.
Meeting expectations for a quick and easy payment experience will be crucial if merchants are to meet their ambition to increase online sales over the next year.
Barclaycard’s Smartpay gateway – a service merchants can use to capture ecommerce payments – offers retailers an easy-to-integrate solution that makes the payment process fast and secure for customers and merchants alike.
Barclaycard Smartpay helps to boost sales and customer loyalty by enabling features such as one-click ordering and provides merchants with rich data and insight into customer behaviour across all sales channels.
“Today’s customers are increasingly time-poor and expect the online shopping experience to be as hassle-free as possible. Retailers spend time and money to develop engaging ecommerce sites, but they could still miss out on revenue if the customer drops out of the purchase because of disappointment with the payment process, says George Allardice, the head of the strategy at Barclaycard Payment Solutions.
“Upgrading to a modern payment platform, such as Barclaycard’s Smartpay gateway, means merchants can offer their customers the seamless check-out experience they now expect. This could, in turn, reduce basket abandonment and increase sales.”
