How To Use Ecommerce Payment Processing For Mobile Shopping
Setting up your mobile ecommerce payment processing system is one of the most important ways to drive conversions for your business. With so many consumers becoming mobile shoppers, mobile payment should feel quick and seamless without any interruptions that can damage the customer experience.
There are many different types of mobile payments available nowadays. For one, mobile credit card processors like Square or Stripe have made it easier for small businesses to run pop ups or participate in retail markets without investing in pricey hardware. Secondly, digital wallets have made it easy to tap-and-pay using near field communication (NFC) technology. Customers can complete a transaction by simply tapping their phone at a POS station and using Google Pay, Apple Pay, or Amazon Pay. There is no longer a need to carry around cash or scramble around for loose change.
Mobile ecommerce payment processing has also made it more convenient for shoppers to purchase directly on their phones or tablets. These online transactions can happen anywhere and at any time. Users can purchase at any point of the day from your online store making mobile the most convenient and flexible form of online payment.
With mobile sales predicted to reach $6.3 trillion worldwide by the end of 2023, you don’t want to ignore your online customer’s shopping habits.
Below I will walk you through a step by step guide on how to get mobile payment processing started so your online business so you don’t lose out on any opportunities and potential sales.
Here’s a guide on how to accept and process mobile electronic payments with ease.
1. Study your customer base habits and preferred payment methods
Let’s deep dive into your website and customer base first. Some questions you can start asking yourself would be how is your mobile experience currently? Take a look at your Google Analytics to see how mobile visitors are flowing through your online store and how many are actually checking out successfully. Plus how long does it take them to checkout? Most ecommerce customers want to be able to check out in 4 minutes or less. For those shopping via mobile, that number is most likely even less.
If your customers find that your website is lagging, or too glitchy, impatient buyers may leave and abandon their shopping cart altogether. Instead, they will search elsewhere for a similar product and a site that can process their online transactions faster. For mobile customers, speed is key.
Ask family and friends to check out on your website using their mobile phones to see if there are any tweaks you need to make to your site speed or checkout page. On a small screen, each design element is valuable real estate. Make sure your design layout makes sense and is easy to use. Your checkout page should accommodate your target audience’s needs and also be accessible to people with disabilities.
What existing payment methods are customers using the most? Do they prefer to pay by credit card or do most use their debit cards instead? Getting a sense of the types of payments your customers prefer can also help you decide which payment processing platform to partner up with later on.
Learn more about the different types of mobile payment solutions in this article.
2. Get referrals or recommendations from other ecommerce owners
Getting first-hand referrals from other business owners will give you a better sense of which mobile payment processing solutions to use and which to avoid. Ask ecommerce owners in your existing network or take a look at forums or Facebook groups to get the dirt on which ecommerce payment processing solutions are worth investing in.
Processing mobile payments means keeping sensitive customer information private. Having a secure payment method should be the main priority.
Some questions you can ask a payment service provider can be what secure network they use during ecommerce payment processing, how is customer data used and stored like their credit card information and payment information, and if there have been breaches or incidents in the past and what they have done to resolve them.
3. Find a payment processor that works with your needs
That being said, every business has individual needs, so find a system that works best for you, not just for ecommerce owners in your niche. They may rave about a solution but the monthly fees and transaction fees might be out of your price range. Take a look at your budget to see what you can realistically afford for the long term.
Also, take a look to see if it's compatible with all your other ecommerce integrations. You wouldn’t want to invest in a mobile payment processing platform only to find out later that it doesn’t sync up with your other apps!
During the initial talking phase, try to also get a better sense of the level of customer support you’ll be getting. If payments aren’t going through properly and customers are complaining, what’s the best way to contact them and how quickly will they be able to respond and fix the issue? You want a reliable partner rather than a “set it and forget it” platform that takes days to respond.
4. Set up a merchant account and connect your bank account
Once you’ve chosen a reliable ecommerce payment processing partner, it’s time to set up your merchant account (yay!). This account is where you will manage all of your payment processing needs. During the set up phase, your reliable partner will walk you through all the payment options your customers can use to checkout and complete their purchases. A payment gateway API can connect your checkout page to a payment network.
You will want to include some common forms of credit card payments. Credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard, and American Express are used by a majority of customers.
From here, you can also determine which currencies you want to accept. If your customers are mostly from North America, it may make more sense to only accept USD and Canadian currencies. However, if you have customers from all over the world, that list will be longer and you will need to understand the tax system for each region to set up electronic payments.
When a customer makes a purchase and hits the button to place an order, the transaction might seem simple and seamless but behind the scenes, there’s a lot of activity happening across many touchpoints. Not only is there communication between the customer and the merchant but there is also information sent to the payment processor, your merchant account, plus the customer’s bank account and your merchant’s bank account.
All of these platforms need to speak to each other to ensure there’s no fraudulent activity happening on the customer’s payment and that they have sufficient funds to purchase your product.
5. Analyze customer behavior and key metrics like online transaction speed and credit card preferences
Once you’re all set up, it’s time to analyze key metrics like your customer’s preferred form of payment (maybe you thought it was Paypal but it’s actually Venmo. What? That’s crazy! But the analytics don’t lie), what’s their least favorite form of payment, and how long it takes them to complete their online transaction. You also want to get a sense of how easy this mobile payment system was to adopt. Did customers intuitively understand how to checkout based on the changes you’ve made or is there a part of the mobile checkout flow they are struggling with? It’s best to do a trial run with family and friends to work out any kinks before testing this out on your customers.
Merchant services should also come with a reporting tab or analytics page that allows you to view important data about your customer’s mobile behavior. From here you can see payments getting processed in real-time and if you are getting any chargebacks.
Speedy Payments Equals More Return Customers
The last thing you want to do is increase your cart abandonment rate due to a poor mobile payment processing experience. As you grow and scale your online store, study and try to get your transaction speed down, build an optimal checkout experience, and find reliable forms of payment processors. These will be the key to your success for capturing more sales and retaining customers on mobile.
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