Setting up a Solid Payment Foundation Quick Reference Guide 2 Setting up a Solid Payment Foundation
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SETTING UP A SOLID PAYMENT FOUNDATION QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE 2 SETTING UP A SOLID PAYMENT FOUNDATION INTRODUCTION Setting up a Solid Payment Foundation According to eMarketer, in Middle East and Africa (MEA), B2C eCommerce sales are expected to reach USD 51.4 billion by 20171 With a rapidly expanding internet audience, a mobile phone user base of 606 million2, continued creation of logistics infrastructures from the ground up and availability of numerous tools to quickly set up an online store (such as Magento, Hybris and more) the region is poised to become a larger player in the global eCommerce market as time progresses. While many of these tools improve the online shopping experience, payment becomes increasingly complex as businesses grow. Creating a seamless payment process is one of the factors that can help retain customer loyalty and increase spending. Here are a few key considerations that can help prepare an eCommerce business to take on a fast growing market. Merchants that start with the right payment foundation are in a good “ position to scale their businesses. ” REFERENCE 1 eMarketer, Worldwide Ecommerce Sales to Increase Nearly 20% in 2014 , 27 July 2014, http://www.emarketer.com/Article/ Worldwide-Ecommerce-Sales-Increase-Nearly-20-2014/1011039 2 http://www.pfsweb.com/blog/emerging-trends-in-middle-east-ecommerce/ 3 SETTING UP A SOLID PAYMENT FOUNDATION Key factors in payment success The customer journey to a sale begins when the customer discovers your online store, browses your catalogue, adds goods to the cart, and finally proceeds to checkout. After all that effort, the entire cart can be abandoned at the payment phase. In fact, shopping cart abandonment rates can average as high as 68.63%3. Typical reasons may include the lack of preferred payment options, unclear shipping and tax calculations, as well as a lack of confidence in the security of your payment system. With so much riding on the payment experience, it is vital for a merchant’s payment infrastructure to deliver the following core capabilities: An enjoyable user experience with fast load times and ease of navigation Does your checkout display a clear and visible progress indicator? Are you able to minimise site timeouts even during spikes in activity? Can they move back and forth through the process without resetting the transaction? Ability to accept and manage online transactions made from multiple devices Consumers spend more than half their time browsing online stores using tablets and smartphones4, often browsing on one channel and shopping on another. As such, accepting payments over multiple channels can result in a higher conversion rate. A proper payment tool that is flexible and robust will enable the integration of different payment channels. Ability to offer multiple payment options Besides offering credit card payments, what payment options do you cater to? Many consumers also expect support for popular third party wallets, such as PayPal or Visa Checkout. Confidence in the security of the transaction What constitutes a safe and secure transaction, and how do you identify fraudulent transactions quickly and accurately? Fraudulent transactions can significantly impact your revenue and also damage consumer loyalty and your brand. In addition, the time taken to screen suspicious orders may impact the customer experience. REFERENCE 3 Baymard Institute, 2433 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics, 6 Dec Confidence in the security of the data you hold 2013, http://baymard.com/lists/cart- As part of the payment process, sensitive payment data is captured. abandonment-rate How do you manage payment data safely? Does having a third party 4 Internet Retailer, It’s official: Mobile devices surpass PCs in online retail, provider capture the payment data mean that you lose valuable customer 1 Oct 2013, http://www.internetretailer. management information? com/2013/10/01/its-official-mobile- devices-surpass-pcs-online-retail 4 SETTING UP A SOLID PAYMENT FOUNDATION A guide to setting up your payment system Merchants that start out with the right payment foundation will put themselves in a good position to scale their operations. Whether they are expanding to accommodate more products and more users, or opening new stores across different countries, the right payment platform will make it easy to incorporate more payment options and devices in the future. Merchants should also consider the level of support provided by their payment partner, such as whether assistance is being offered in the local language of the markets they are expanding into. Before you can accept payments, you will require the services of a merchant 1 Get a account provider who will issue you a bank account where your payments will be deposited. Also known as the acquiring bank, merchant accounts can be obtained merchant from your local bank. Alternatively, some payment services providers that process account transactions on your behalf use their own merchant account. You will need the ability to accept multiple forms of payment, be it different credit 2 Connect to cards or digital wallets. Your payment system will need to send the transaction to a a payment payment gateway, which then routes it to the appropriate processor. gateway Payment gateways like those from CyberSource allow you to accept payments from over 190 countries and in more than 150 currencies, supporting a wide range of regional and international payment types. In addition, the payment gateway should work regardless of whether the buyer is using a desktop browser, smartphone, or tablet to place the order. Via one connection, payment processing solutions such “ as CyberSource Payment Management Platform lets you accept payments from over 190 countries and in more than 150 currencies, supporting a wide range of regional and international cards, even local payment methods common to your industry or region. ” 5 SETTING UP A SOLID PAYMENT FOUNDATION Many merchants now offer instant payment options where consumers don’t have 3 Minimise to re-enter credit card details every time they make a purchase. However, storing a consumer’s credit card information can pose a liability for businesses, like possible payment penalties for data breaches. security risk Merchants may be subject to penalties for a failure to protect credit card information from being exposed. One way to streamline the checkout process, while avoiding the need to store credit card details, is to use “embedded payments”, achieved through payment models such as digital wallets, card-on-file and stored values. To enable secure payment data storage and processing, CyberSource Payment Tokenisation and Secure Acceptance solutions allow you to embed a form at the checkout page for customers to input their payment details. These payment details never enter your system and are instead sent directly to CyberSource’s secure servers from a secure hosted payment form. As part of the payment tokenisation process, you will receive a uniquely generated token in return. This token replaces the sensitive cardholder data within the merchant environment and is not mathematically reversible. There are many ways that fraudsters can abuse your online store. To minimise losses, 4 Prevent merchants need to screen for fraudulent transactions. For example, stolen credit card details can be used to make purchases that are shipped to the fraudster’s location. fraud In such a case, the merchant is liable for the fraudulent purchase and makes a loss from the goods, as well as the chargeback to the customer. To minimise losses, merchants need to weed out fraudulent transactions by verifying them against certain validation rules, preferably before the transactions are finalised. For example, was the purchase made from a suspicious IP address? There are literally hundreds of checks that can be done, but performing all these on your own makes it difficult to scale your business, and slows down your processing times. Instead, merchants should consider deploying a fraud management solution such as CyberSource Decision Manager that: ›› Correlates your transactions against over 68 billion annual transactions processed by CyberSource and Visa ›› Offers over 260 global validation tests and services ›› Can be customised to suit your industry or regional markets (with vertical, regional and mobile risk models) ›› Offers expert help to fine-tune these tests if needed ›› Provides a Case Management Console for a more efficient order review process WORK WITH A PARTNER THAT WILL GROW WITH YOU More than just being able to accept and transact multiple payment types, merchants should look for a partner that can help them streamline fraud management and simplify payment security. Grow revenues while preventing losses due to fraud and security issues, or minimise complexities in adding new payment channels. Merchants that deploy their payment systems with these factors in mind will pave the way to steady growth in the future. To learn more about CyberSource payment solutions, visit www.cybersource.com/mea G/WPEC101/201606 About CyberSource CyberSource, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Visa Inc., is a payment management company. Over 400,000 businesses worldwide use CyberSource and Authorize.Net brand solutions to process online payments, streamline fraud management, and simplify payment security. The company is headquartered in Foster City, CA and maintains offices throughout the world, with regional headquarters in Singapore, Tokyo, Miami / Sao Paulo and Reading, U.K. CyberSource operates in Europe under