How customer experience is driving today’s payment trends

Connect with your customers anytime, anywhere

Location matters—and merchants know that they should “be” where their  consumers are.

These days, businesses are supporting their web presence more often than their brick-and-mortar mortar location. And, they’re supporting mobile apps and mobile web channels as much as brick-&-mortar locations, showing that online and web presences are equally, if not more important, to the customer experience with your brand.

This focus of web- and mobile-based channels has been driven by consumer demand. Compared to last year, consumers are 24 percent less likely to make in store purchases, and 53 percent of all consumers used a mobile device for their most recent purchases.²

The importance of accepting new payment methods

Nearly as important as “where” your customers shop, is what types of payments you accept. This ensures your customers can actually make purchases using the payment types they prefer. While cards are still the most accepted payment method, nearly half of global merchants surveyed added a digital wallet or eWallet in the last 12 months. Today’s consumers want to pay in new ways, and they want to shop with merchants that support these experiences.

From our study, we know that 60 percent of merchants added new payment methods in order to meet consumer demands. This reason topped others such as providing access to new markets, or even avoiding checkout abandonment. Embracing new payment methods has become one and the same as improving the customer experience.  If we combine how consumer demand for new channels and payment types are changing, and how merchants are serving those needs, we’ll find an excellent payment experience.

Increased demand for omnichannel customer experiences

New retail approaches are needed to meet the customer where they are, drive repeat purchases, and create brand loyalty. According to our payment study before the pandemic shut down nearly all foot traffic to retail stores, approximately four in 10 merchants offered some sort of buy online, pickup in store type option.

At the beginning of 2020, merchants may have thought this trend would continue to accelerate and evolve, but no one could have known what the year had in store with a global pandemic affecting economies and merchants more sharply than any recent recession. In fact, since shelter-in-place and quarantine orders have been enacted around the world, one in four consumers tried curbside pickup for the first time.³

Installment payments: Give customers the flexibility they need

When it comes to installment payments, at the time of our survey, just under 40 percent of merchants were using these options. Now, with a global economy trending downward⁴, consumers and companies around the world are increasingly turning to installment options. Examples include Visa launching installment pilots in the US and PayPal launching “Pay in 4,” as well as other popular buy now, pay later options including Klarna and Affirm.

To entice customers, providing flexible payment arrangements may be the difference between them shopping with you or not.

All of these findings and more are available in Cybersource’s 2020 Payments Report, a biennial global report on the payments landscape.

Get more information on how Cybersource can help you with new commerce channels or payment acceptance.