With e-commerce ingrained into everyday life, friction during online checkout remains challenging for the industry. Security and convenience are top of mind for consumers, which makes these features priorities for retailers. Baymard Institute found that 17% of U.S. online shoppers abandon their orders due to a long and complicated checkout processes. Retailers must address these persisting online checkout friction issues by exploring new and innovative digital payment technologies that could ultimately help build brand loyalty.

Convenience Is Key 

According to shoppers in a survey by PYMNTS, 91% of consumers say a satisfying checkout experience significantly influences their chances of returning to the retailer. Part of this requires retailers to empower shoppers with the flexibility to pay with their preferred method of credit or debit cards  without the hassles of manually entering card information. This is vital to ensuring a smooth checkout experience and potentially decreasing the risk of cart abandonment.

Addressing Security Concerns

According to a recent McKinsey study, consumers prefer banks more than any other providers to provide digital payment solutions. Baymard Institute also found that nearly 1-in-5 (18%) don’t trust sites with their credit card information, which also leads to cart abandonment. We must also put the days of manually entering long card numbers into a browser during the checkout process behind us.  

More and more, retailers are adopting tokenization payment methods to exchange payment card information for a payment token to protect the actual card number from being exposed. The token utilizes one-time use, unique data specific to that transaction. The token, provided at checkout, protects the consumer’s payment card information in these transactions. Studies suggest that tokenized transactions can lead to better conversions and lower fraud rates.

Some wallets don’t offer the ability for retailers to store card-on-file information to better facilitate their customer relationships.

For retailers to build and cultivate relationships with consumers and avoid online checkout friction, they must lean on technology that helps consumers pay when and how they want. The future of e-commerce depends on prioritizing a convenient and secure payments checkout space for everyone involved and ensuring a collective effort between retailers, consumers, and financial institutions to solve online checkout issues.

Claude Clausing is a 25-year veteran of the e-commerce payments space. He brings experience and expertise from a rich background spanning leadership roles in product, business development, and sales. As the VP and head of Merchant Acceptance for Paze, his team leads efforts for merchant sales, expanding distribution, and working with technical integrators to simplify merchant engagement.