How superfluous is your online store for your customers? If you are redirecting them to another payment portal – a third-party one, like a hosted payment gateway – is it really that synchronous?
Seamless Checkout Process
Studies show that shoppers want a seamless website experience, meaning that they want to shop and checkout from the same site. When added steps are involved during the checkout process, this can dissuade some shoppers and can lead to higher abandonment rates.
Overall, ecommerce stores suffer from a shocking 97% abandonment rate with their shopping carts. Key contributing factors include: too many steps involved in the checkout process, no guest checkout, shipping rates being too high or stated too late in the process, overall security concerns and no guest checkout.
Payment gateway integration into your site is an essential element to appeasing the customer desire for added security, a one-site shopping and checkout experience, and a simpler checkout process. For example, the Cloudbeds payment system for hoteliers is secure, seamless, and simple to use for payment experiences for your guests.
Builds Trust & Confidence with Your Shoppers
With unlimited options for online shopping, shoppers can easily navigate away from your website if they feel you are not offering a professional shopping experience. So if your checkout requires that they navigate away to a third-party payment page, instead of paying from your site, another step is added and your brand loses clout with the shopper.
Internal payment gateway integration assures that the shopper never leaves the site. It preserves your brand and keeps them at your store when they checkout. This reduces the necessary checkout steps, and builds confidence and trust with your target demographic.
Non-Hosted Keeps Customers at Your Site
Non-hosted payment gateway integration assures that you are relying upon your trusted processor and your website, and nothing else. While both hosted and non-hosted are secure options, many times a non-hosted option has added security layers. Being able to display these badges at your shopping cart will also help you keep customers at your site as opposed to navigating away to another store.
What’s more, being able to determine what steps you want involved in the checkout process, how you want those steps to look and how easy they will be for shoppers is critical in them completing the checkout process. Being able to offer guest checkouts, simple one-page checkout processes and more will serve to increase sales and boost retention.
More Secure Point-of-Entry Encryption
What about added security? Custom payment gateway integration can add another layer of protection to the checkout process. For example, payment gateway integration such as that which is offered by Base Commerce uses a special point-of-entry encryption method called Cypher Pay. This actually encrypts the data as the customer enters it. No data is ever stored on your website.
Customers can be even more confident in checking out and using your online store over another when they know you have taken added measures to secure their financial data. You can learn more about Cypher Pay by Clicking Here.
