How Your Payment Gateway Impacts the Customer Experience and Sales

We live in a hyperconnected world. More people seek a seamless experience from a brand. In turn, e-commerce businesses are offering an interconnected experience to make the shopper’s online journey smooth, secure, and enjoyable. Good products, a clean design, easy-to-use navigation, and simplified payments are some of the core aspects of a good customer experience (CX) for an e-commerce business. As such, the payment gateway on your website plays a big role in delivering the best experience to your customers.

Customer Experience, Payments, and Sales

Nearly 20% of shoppers in the US abandon their shopping cart due to long and complex checkout processes. In Europe, one in five online shoppers do so because of a long checkout process.

Making things easier for the customer helps drive conversions and prevents shopping cart abandonment and potential loss of revenue. For instance, by offering a wide range of payment methods (including local payments), reducing the number of page redirects, and limiting the amount of information shoppers need to share, you can greatly improve the checkout experience.
That’s where the right payment gateway helps.

What is a Payment Gateway?

A payment gateway is a service (offered by a payment services provider, like Novalnet) that allows your business to accept and process all types of online payments from customers, including cards and mobile wallets.

It acts as an intermediary between your website and the acquiring bank. This means that for every transaction, the payment gateway that transfers info related to the purchase from the merchant to the bank, authenticates the details, and authorizes the transaction.

Payment gateways use encryption and tokenization to protect sensitive customer data and ensure a secure exchange of info between all participants.

Know more: How to Add a Payment Gateway to Your Online Store

How a Payment Gateway Impacts the Customer Experience?

Customers seek ease of use, security, and flexibility when paying online. They prefer if e-commerce sites allow them to pay easily across different channels and devices. For a business, this means offering fast, flexible, and secure payment options. Having the right payment gateway helps merchants smoothly process payments without the hassle of extra costs and hidden charges.
Here’s a quick look at some of the ways how the payment gateway impacts the CX:

1. Simplifies the Payment Process

Payment gateways make payment processing faster and easier. All transactions are processed in an encrypted and fully-secure PCI-DSS-compliant environment to protect both merchants and customers from fraud. Also, it reduces the rate of payment declines.

Data captured from a payment gateway can also be analyzed to help you gauge a customer’s shopping and payment behaviour. This helps your business to build a seamless payment flow that adds minimal friction to the entire process – from choosing a product to completing the payment for it.

2. Accept Multiple Payment Methods

Today’s customers prefer to pay digitally because it is fast, simple, and secure. They also like to have the choice to pay with any method they like. Because every customer is different they will have different payment preferences. Hence, offering them multiple payment options gives them more choice and increases the chances of improving their buying experience. With a good payment gateway, you can offer a wide range of payment options without incurring any additional processing costs. This gives more flexibility to your buyers and increases the chances of them completing a purchase.

3. Offer Local Payment Options

Different countries in the EU use different payment methods. So, businesses that trade overseas need to offer both global and local payment options. Plus, they need to work with a local acquirer, and also comply with local laws. This is to ensure full data security and prevent any type of payment fraud.

A good PCI-compliant gateway lets you offer the right mix of payment methods based on the markets you operate in. This helps you widen your reach and acquire new customers. At the same time, it also lets you create a sense of familiarity, and in turn, more trust amongst shoppers. For example, Novalnet’s payment gateway allows you to accept payments in 125+ currencies in 150+ payment methods from across the world.

4. Secure and Seamless Checkout

Fraud protection is top priority when it comes to payments. Most reliable payment gateways are compliant with necessary laws and regulations, (including PCI-DSS and PSD2) ensuring payments are processed in a fully secure environment.

Your payment gateway also performs tokenization, which allows a customer to pay securely with just one single click. This is one way how a payment gateway encrypts and protects sensitive customer data and also delivers a unified checkout experience to the customer.

Moreover, reliable payment gateways offer different risk detection and risk assessment features. This allows a merchant to better understand the risks associated with certain transactions and act accordingly to prevent payment fraud and false purchases.

Learn more: 5 Payment Tips to Improve Your Checkout Process

Final Thoughts

In a world where consumers prefer speed and efficiency, businesses must offer the right payment experience. Choosing a payment gateway that aligns with your business needs will help you avoid large expenses, unnecessary risks, and even the potential loss of sales. Working with a reliable payment services provider (PSP) will enable you to explore the best payment gateways and pick one that helps to optimize your payment strategies.

How Can Novalnet Help?

We can help you create a unified and seamless payment experience that will enable you to offer a robust CX as a brand. We are a global PSP with decades of experience in helping Europe’s leading brands process their payments. With our technology, you can accept payments globally in 125+ currencies in 150+ automated country-specific payment methods. Plus, our AI-based risk management solutions and advanced analytics solutions help you design the best payment experiences for your customers, all in a fully secure PCI DSS-certified environment. Reach out to us today to know more.

Jose Augustine

Jose Augustine is the Chief Business Development Officer at Novalnet with extensive experience in European payment industry and a knowledge powerhouse.