Is The Online Customer Always Right?

Most merchants would never think of consciously turning down sales, but the reality is that retailers who are not accepting myriad payment types are likely doing just that. Customers want to pay the way they want, and consumer preference, these days, is much thicker than their loyalty to businesses unwilling to adopt to ever-emerging options — especially when it comes to online shopping.

To stay in the game, especially with younger consumers, online retailers are generally accepting more payment methods to make sure the digital cha-ching keeps on cha-chinging (metaphorically, of course).

For the hot-off-the presses PYMNTS.com Checkout Conversion Report™, we took it upon ourselves to reverse-engineer the most popular retailer recipe and reflect on the overall checkout conversion trends that we’ve seen emerge from the first three issues of the Checkout Conversion Index™ from 2016. And, fortunately for consumers, our findings reveal that merchants are increasingly investing more in improving their eCommerce strategy.

For starters, just between the last three quarters, the average growth rate of total payment types accepted reached 27 percent, but it was even higher among larger merchants who saw a 36 percent average growth. Smaller merchants, on the other hand, while slower to adopt, still showed a 22 percent growth, which in itself is impressive.

Other key takeaways from the October 2016 Checkout Conversion Report™ include:

• The top merchant categories, including Sporting Goods, Apparel & Accessories and Mass Merchant Retailers, each increased their CCI score this quarter.
• Meanwhile, the bottom three categories, including Marketing, Subscription, Retail and Travel, each scored decreases.
• Merchants had the largest average CCI score growth based on merchant size, with a mean increase of 6.57 percent. Medium to large merchants still saw growth but had the smallest average growth rate, with an average increase of 2.44 percent.

About The Index

The PYMNTS Checkout Conversion Index™ provides a quarter-by-quarter look at what hurts conversion rates and creates friction in the shopping process — just how much money retailers are leaving on the table due to problems with friction and conversion and why customers are abandoning their online purchases.