Dec 22, 2020
While everyone is talking about how capital letters of innovation – AR, AI and IoT – turned our lives into online adventure, I’d like to discuss a bit more prosaic but still promising sphere – it’s e-Commerce. If you still think that going online will cost you a bundle, let me revise some numbers and show you statistics.
According to online-shopping research, the number of online customers will grow to 2.14 billion by 2021.
Statista and BigCommerce researchers say, “eCommerce will make up 22% of global retail sales by 2023”. For you to understand the whole picture, it was 14.1% in 2019. The market itself will amount to $4.8 trillion by 2021.
As for the current worldwide situation and COVID impact on online shopping, the data shows that in comparison with January 2020 and 12.81 billion visitors, their number grew to 14.34 billion in March.
Aren’t these numbers not enough to drive you forward online retail? All in all, creating a website and a product catalog is a child’s play, integrating a payment API – a five-minute task. And generally, you’re all set and can expand horizons of the business, increase margins.
But wait a little. What if to approach the issue of integrating the API a bit more creatively? For example, develop a loyalty program that allows you to earn bonuses and use them for paying goods, give the clients a chance to pay for things either online or offline, etc. Most likely, the question “why do I need to devote energy if the solution is already there, and it works?” will arise. The page does not hang, payment is not delayed, consumers present, and business grows. Everything is fine.
The answer is simple: increase audience loyalty, profitability, and expand the circle of customers.
So what can you do for yourself and the clients to further develop the business as a result?
Then, having created a more advanced system you can save on processing fees. How? A team of engineers can analyze the first 6 first BINs of a credit card. The numbers will give you information about a payment system, an issuing bank, and a card type. These data can be used for payment routing and sending the payment request to a bank with the most preferred terms. This solution, however, requires compliance with PCI DSS. It’s a certificate for the protection of customer payment data (card numbers, CVV, etc.). With PCI DSS you can work with banks directly via payment interfaces of a bank.
Another feature that you can add is data analysis. Moreover, you can provide such information to customers in their personal accounts. The set of criteria can be diverse. The most purchased types of products, the amount of money spent by month, you can add graphs and filters for clarity and easy search. In turn, you will collect business analytics on customers’ behavior, profits, the most popular types of products, and lucrative periods.
I’d like to finish this article in keeping with the best traditions of self-improvement literature – once you look at a problem from a broader perspective, you’ll find a range of options on how to improve things. So, you can get a hosted or integrated customized payment page with a user-friendly interface that offers quick, simple, and secure transactions. The solution will allow payment routing, provide broad options of payment methods, and increase conversion rate, connecting all your sales channels to unify the customer experience. And, at last, it will lead to increased profitability of your online business, which is extremely important in a highly competitive online segment.