5 common issues with your payment platform
To help you streamline the payment process and enhance margins, we examine 5 common problems with payment systems and how you can mitigate them when you integrate PayPal into your website.
Problem #1: Lack of payment options and poor authorisation rates
The needs of consumers are changing rapidly. From consideration to purchase, consumers now expect lightning-fast loading times and a seamless customer experience. In fact, more than 30% of shoppers have abandoned a virtual shopping cart because their payment method of choice wasn’t available.1
High decline rates can hurt your revenue and customer satisfaction. Do you recall the last time you reviewed payment authorisation rates? Authorisation rates which fall below industry standards can erode your customers’ trust. Improving these rates are vital in gaining new customers and retaining existing ones.
Solution: Offer your customers more choices and better authorisation rates
What your customers want is a fast and easy checkout, paid by their preferred payment method. Studies indicate that almost 60% of U.S. consumers tend to trust new merchants more when they offer PayPal.2 When it comes to coverage, our payment system covers PayPal Chekout, credit/debit cards, as well as digital wallets – all integrated into a single payment platform.
PayPal improves reliability, processing speed and payment authorisation rates to enhance your customer experience. We achieve these through cloud-based processing, industry-leading uptime and real-time payment updates. Our authorisation rates are over 90% – more than 300 basis points over industry standards.3 In addition, more authorised transactions also help to improve customer trust and encourage repeat business. Research suggests that 48% of consumers with a positive payment experience are more likely to return to a business.4
Problem #2: Your payment system isn’t designed to weather change
Is your payment system keeping up with your company’s growth? Does it require multiple integrations to function with your tech stack? Using different integrations can introduce bottlenecks at the worst times, such as when you need to pivot to keep up with customers’ evolving preferences and risk tolerances.
Being agile is critical in establishing customer trust and maintaining security during economic uncertainty. In other words, is your payment platform flexible enough to support your enterprise through changing circumstances?
Solution: Integrate a flexible and future-proof payment platform
A flexible payment system within your commerce network should permit you to enable or disable functionalities, systems and partnerships as required. PayPal is a customisable payment platform which adapts to your changing needs and evolves with your brand through your business life cycle. With the ability to anticipate customer needs and provide relevant solutions, you have the power to position your business to weather economic, political and cultural shifts which influence the buying behaviours of consumers.
Problem #3: Too many integrations can increase your overheads
Excessive integrations can impact your operating costs. The shopping cart, for instance, is a feature commonly ridden with too many integrations. Within the cart, you might find a checkout button, another for instalment options, one for credit card processing and perhaps another for fraud monitoring. When a problem arises, it may take you hours to determine the cause. A single integration, however, allows you resolve issues faster and at a reduced cost instead of having to coordinate with different vendors for different purposes.
If you are not using the latest tech, you may also be losing money. Does your payment system help you to obtain data-based insights and establish all potential efficiencies? More technically, does it utilise webhooks, tokenisation, data reporting and analytics? A Forrester report suggests that insights-driven businesses are growing at an average of 30% annually and will earn US$1.8 trillion by 2021.5 Simply put, now is the time to leverage payment data to increase your revenue.
Solution: A payment specialist with the insights to help you lower costs
The best online payment platforms do more than process eCommerce transactions. They incorporate efficient tools to help your business take control of your data and discover areas for improvement. PayPal offers detailed reports which identify vital trends in transactions, settlement batches and declines. We utilise webhooks to retrieve real-time information about key events taking place on your gateway and respond to them effectively. PayPal also uses network tokenisation to enhance authorisation rates and minimise declines due to fraud or invalid credentials.
Problem #4: A critical lack of security and fraud protection
A staggering US$14.7 billion was lost to credit card fraud in 2018.6 Profit loss due to fraud, compliance matters, lost sales and financial damage are all too real, and they demand serious consideration.
If you are running an enterprise-level business, it’s likely you are dealing with large amounts of customer data and high-value transactions on a daily basis. Your business requires more than just PCI compliance. It needs the latest online fraud prevention and security tools to keep your transactions and accounts safe.
Solution: Advanced and customisable fraud protection tools
You need a payments partner who is familiar with security, such as PayPal. Not every platform is able to provide the latest solutions for fraud protection, third-party integrations and data storage. Using advanced machine-learning tools like Simility, we can test and deploy fraud-protection rules in real-time which adapt to changing patterns. Furthermore, our 3D Secure authentication feature helps to prevent costly card fraud and keep transactions safe through the use of network tokenisation.
Problem #5: Difficult to scale into new markets
Growth is a common goal across all businesses. As the commercial landscape develops, new data regulations and security requirements which are country unique can make scaling into global markets seem complicated, risky and possibly overwhelming. Nevertheless, navigating these challenges is vital to business expansion.
Enterprises operating in the worldwide marketplace often rely on complex systems to cater to different regulatory requirements. However, managing different systems across multiple time zones isn’t ideal. This is where a global partner comes in, one capable of integrating various payment types and currencies into a single solution.
Solution: Expert support to navigate global markets
Your business growth should not be limited by a country’s borders. PayPal’s network of over 400 million active users provides global reach, and our relationships with local banks offers expertise in different markets. With PayPal’s global and local knowledge, you can expand into new markets with confidence, such as harnessing growth opportunities like cross-border transactions and local payment methods.
Sources:
1 Online study commissioned by PayPal and conducted by Ipsos MORI Conjoint Research in October 2018. Survey conducted across seven markets (UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, US, Australia, Brazil) with 1,500 respondents per market/10,500 total respondents, including 6,930 PayPal users.
2 IPSOS study commissioned by PayPal, July–August 2018. Online survey of 888 U.S. PayPal users.
3 PayPal commissioned study. Authorization rates benchmarked against major payment networks in US, UK, Australia, France, Spain over 3 months (April–June 2019). Based on first presentment.
4 IPSOS study commissioned by PayPal, July–August 2018. Online survey of 1,500 U.S. respondents including 888 PayPal users.
5 Forrester, Insights-Driven Businesses Set the Pace for Global Growth, October 2018.
6 Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2018, February 2019.
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