Billing Services Group

In June 2010, financial services giant Goldman Sachs released some interesting figures on online shopping.  According to their analysis, online retail is growing five times as fast as bricks and mortar sales.  Online sales today are hovering around $135 billion; by 2020,they estimate sales by e-retailers will be close to $624 billion.

So, how will your website capture a larger share of the market?  You’ve got to give your potential customers what they want.  Every online merchant is looking for ways to reach new customers and provide them with a satisfying shopping experience, so that they convert site visitors into customers and drive sales.  We’ve been in the payment industry a long time – more than 24 years – so we like to think we have a good sense of what consumers want.   What we’ve found is that – when shopping online – consumers like merchants who give them options in the “checkout line.”  Among the options many shoppers are looking for:

• A checkout process that is secure.  This day in age security is everything and identity theft and fraud are big concerns.
• A checkout process that is easy.  We’ve found many shoppers simply don’t like the hassle of having to remember account numbers, log in information and passwords.  If the checkout process becomes too cumbersome, too much of a hassle, merchants can lose the sale.
• A checkout process that is fast.  We all know that if there are too many hoops and hurdles to go through, consumers will abandon ship before the purchase is processed
• A checkout process that doesn’t result in interest charges or added fees.
• And consumers want options at checkout for how they can pay for their purchases.  Online payment alternative, Bill2Phone (link to bill2phone.com), for example, allows shoppers to charge their purchases to their phone bill without the hassles — no credit cards, logins, interest charges or added fees.

Bottom line, consumers want choices.  Merchants that offer a fast, secure, hassle free shopping experience that offers shoppers a good variety of payment options at checkout, are ahead of the game when it comes time to converting a shopper into a buyer.