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Today’s consumers are very demanding when it comes to a hassle-free checkout experience, especially in a highly competitive market, you want your customers to check out fast. As a business owner, you spent quite some time perfecting your website and then marketing your products, but your sales remain low. Unfortunately, the reality is that business failure is common – often, new new businesses fail within the first 90 days if they do not know how to quickly increase conversion while keeping costs low.

Any eCommerce business during the sale season will spend a hefty sum to invest in paid advertising for your product or service. Many businesses work on perfecting their discounts and advertising, but they fail to master the process of creating simple and exceptional customer shopping experiences. Do you even know how many customers have abandoned their orders because their preferred method of payment was not accepted?

Table of Contents

• Appealing to a wider demographic
• Let customers pay their way
• Offering Payment Methods Online
• What is SHOPLINE Payment
• Many people think 3% transaction fee is a lot… but are you really paying for 3% fee?
• Perfecting your payment options

Appealing to a wider demographic

Accepting credit cards and other popular payment methods with a trusted payment provider would be essential to appeal to a wider demographic. Digitalisation and the pandemic have changed how we shop, and how we pay online. Although digital payments are fast becoming the preferred payment in the world, hard currency is still an important part of global payments. According to Visa, Singaporean’s growing preference for cashless payments is also influencing the way they shop. 

Notably, Singaporeans are extremely tech-savvy when it comes to using digital payment, and we are seeing more digital commerce experiences transforming within the payments ecosystem. 

In a 2022 survey, 89 percent of Singapore consumers paid for online purchases using a credit or debit card, compared to 11 percent who made online purchases through bank transfer and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services.

Separately, when it comes to expensive payment, consumers are drawn to buy now, pay later payment plans. This way, users can split a purchase into three interest-free payments – allowing consumers to purchase more and more frequently.

 

Let customers pay their way

Boost conversions when you simplify the checkout process with their preferred payment methods:

• Minimise cart abandonment

If your business is experiencing a significant amount of abandoned carts. According to statistics 9% of consumers abandoned their cart due to the limited amount of online payment methods.

• Maximise conversion

The biggest reason for offering multiple payment options is that it will help maximise your conversion rate. Multiple payment methods can help increase the average basket value (ABV). 

• Simplify checkout process

Providing multiple payment options also makes the checkout process easy for your customers. They might have their card details stored to use for payments and can easily transact with it in seconds which reduces the rate of cart abandonment.

• Appeal to a wider audience

Different types of customers have different preferences for purchasing something online. It is critical for every business to maximise its chance of conversion by catering for all different customer preferences.

 

Offering Payment Methods Online

From the past till now, the number of ways people can make payments online has diversified as well. In the past, technology was not advanced and to offer payments, businesses used methods like Cash On Delivery (COD) and bank transfer to receive money for their goods and services offered. These methods do not need a payment gateway as an intermediary, and businesses would have to track them manually. 

With time, online payment methods have evolved to be able to integrate with your order management system so that when payment is processed, the orders are updated accordingly. To cater to various business needs, SHOPLINE allows you the flexibility to enable both integrated and traditional payment methods.

Integrated Payment methods: SHOPLINE Payment Atome (Buy Now, Pay Later) GrabPay Credit Card PayNow PayPal Stripe Omise PayNow Traditional, non-integrated payment methods: Cash on delivery Manual Bank Transfer

Although manual bank transfers do not charge transaction or processing fees, businesses will have to ensure every payment has been made and reconcile payments manually every month and this comes at a cost to businesses.

When a business only relies on non-integrated payment, they run the risk of payment fraud. When running any online business, having the security of transaction data should be the uppermost priority. In 2021, approximately $20 billion in eCommerce losses were reported to be online payment fraud. Countries in Asia-Pacific were the most vulnerable to e-commerce fraud, with lost revenue totalling 4% of a brand’s revenue.

Benefits of integrated payment: Avoid payment fraud Create a convenient, speedy checkout process Collect data with the customer’s consent Create high levels of trust and brand recognition among consumers Save time and money from manual labour

What is SHOPLINE Payment?

SHOPLINE Payment is the simplest way to accept payments online for your SHOPLINE store. It allows businesses to accept most of the popular payment methods, including Atome (BNPL), GrabPay, FavePay (coming soon), Apple Pay (coming soon), Google Pay (coming soon) and major credit cards. 

Different plans enjoy different transaction fees when you use SHOPLINE Payments. 

Transaction Fees:

	Starter	Essential	Standard	Premium
Credit Card	3.2% + 0.5 SGD	3% + 0.5 SGD	2.9% + 0.5 SGD	2.8% + 0.5 SGD
PayNow	0.80%	0.70%	0.70%	0.70%
Atome BNPL	4.8%	4.8%	4.8%	4.8%
GrabPay	3.0%	3.0%	3.0%	3.0%

Source: SHOPLINE

Many merchants are concerned about transaction fees adding to their costs but many are unaware that they are losing out on much more if integrated payment options are not provided. 

Consider this example. Two friends, James and Aaron, decide to purchase a luxury watch from your store at $300. James decides to make full payment via credit card for the item he intends to purchase. Aaron decides to purchase the item but wishes to make a split payment.

If a preferred payment option is not offered, they will choose to abandon the purchase altogether. 

 

Many people think 3% transaction fee is a lot… but are you really paying for 3% fee?

After activating SHOPLINE Payment, assuming your business receives 10 orders assuming each product is $10. – 70% of orders via PayNow, 30% of orders via credit card and revenue of $100. 

($10 x 7 orders) x 0.7% = $0.49

($10 x 3 orders) x 3.0% = $0.90

For allowing multiple payment methods in your store, you will be paying $1.39 for every $100 earned ($0.49 + $0.90), which is at a blended transaction rate of 1.39% ($1.39 / $100 x 100%= 1.39%).

Essentially, a blended rate is the effective transaction fee incurred. With multiple payment methods, businesses do not actually pay the full 3% transaction fee, plus you would not be missing out on another 30% of your revenue.

Click here to download Blended Transaction Rate Calculator

Perfecting your payment options

Overall, having multiple payment options for shoppers provides positive outcomes for both businesses and their customers. Allowing your customers to pay via their preferred payment option can improve shopping experience, reduce cart abandonment and increase store conversion. 

Furthermore, for any business selling online, it is critical to replicate the retail shopping experience and accept multiple payment options. When you present your customers with more than one payment option, it offers them convenience, affordability and security.  

Remember, it is not just the product that keeps the customers coming back but the experience they had when buying it.

Start activating SHOPLINE Payments today!