I often see that a merchant ‘thoughtlessly’ follows the arguments for optimizing conversion by arguments of the existing payment providers. Often good, often not.
The interest of the payment provider is to increase their sales at the merchant. An increase in revenue is of course also in the merchant’s interest. Unfortunately, one is not always the result of the other.
A higher revenue is not always followed by a higher gross margin and expanding the number of payment methods does not simply mean more conversion.
In addition, additional conversion can also unnecessarily increase costs. Good for the payment provider, but relatively less good for the merchant.
There are payment method providers that are willing to sponsor a merchant to get a position in the checkout, or to improve their existing position. Compare it to the shelf position in a supermarket.
For most merchants I speak to, these subjects are not day-to-day top of mind. For EcomStream, it is daily practice.
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EcomStream offers flexible (interim) expertise in various focus areas. I list four focus areas below. These areas always involve specialist knowledge of payment solutions and this knowledge is always provided independently.
By having your own employee(s) actively participating in this process, their knowledge is also enriched, an important added value. They can then move forward on their own.
1. Vendor management
It is always worthwhile to obtain up-to-date market knowledge of the payment solutions externally. Why? The market is changing rapidly, rates and service levels are changing with it. As a merchant you can never keep up with all this and a provider “never shows the back of his tongue”. You get the best deal by using the most up-to-date knowledge of a specialist.
2. Payment optimizations at your payment provider
There are countless possibilities to improve the performance of your payment set-up. There is nothing more annoying than missed conversions due to a technical set-up that is sub optimal. Payment optimizations are determined on a case-by-case basis because the existing set-up, and the existing customer experience, are always the starting point. At no merchant this is exactly the same.
3. Conversion optimizations in the online checkout
The checkout process starts much earlier in a client journey than on the payment page. Realize that improvements can also be made in the checkout process that make it easier for your customer to pay. This does not affect the payment infrastructure, but it does affect the checkout process. This is because the majority of the checkout process takes place outside the domain of your payment provider, and a customer can drop off there too. Optimizations in the checkout are often quick wins, that means if you are willing to see them!
4. Implementation/Transformation
The payment infrastructure is often not the first priority in an e-commerce platform transformation project. In addition, substantive knowledge about the implementation of payment solutions is not available internally at every merchant. There is often knowledge about the current payment solution at a day-to-day operational level, but there is no knowledge about how to implement a modern payment solution. After all, the current payment solution was often implemented 10+ years ago! Without specialist knowledge, opportunities often remain untapped. EcomStream helps driving the business case internally. All merchant stakeholders gain insight into the added value of the scalability, conversion and cost optimization of a modern payment solution.
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Learning curve
Execution of optimizations and implementations in the four focus areas mentioned above all provide a wealth of knowledge for your own employees. Moving forward, employees can then use this knowledge themselves, in favor of the organization. The result of a valuable learning curve that EcomStream is happy to contribute to.
