Payment Management Strategies of Forward-Thinking Global Merchants See How Your Ecommerce Payment Management Strategies Measure Up
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2018 MRC GLOBAL PAYMENTS SURVEY in partnership with CyberSource Payment Management Strategies of Forward-Thinking Global Merchants See how your eCommerce payment management strategies measure up Survey conducted by independent market research firm GfK Table Of Contents About This Report 3 Executive Summary 4 Strategic Payment Management 5 Addressing Customer Preferences 7 Overcoming Payments-Related Hurdles 12 Realizing Benefits 17 Conclusions 23 2 About This Report This report highlights findings from the 2018 MRC Global Payments Survey in partnership with CyberSource. Now in its third year, this survey goes to the next level in scale, scope and expertise, capturing a robust and representative global sample. Using the expertise of world-class market research firm GfK, we captured the views of 484 eCommerce payment specialists at mid-market and enterprise-level organizations—a substantial increase from previous efforts. Along with securing a range of vertical representation, we provided richer content and comparative trends at both the global and regional levels. This year, we expanded the geographic coverage to include interviews in 12 countries across four regions, including merchants in Latin America and Asia Pacific, in addition to North America and the United Kingdom/European Union. Additionally, we designed the sample to get views of both MRC members and non-members, as well as enterprise and mid-market organizations. We put great effort into rethinking previous questions and adding a number of new ones. We set out to quantify a wide range of attitudes about the importance, efficiencies and challenges associated with eCommerce payment management. We also aimed to distill best practices regarding key performance indicators (KPIs) and payment methods supported now and planned for the future. We also collected data about using 3-D Secure and planning for the European Union’s Payment Services Directive (PSD2). Lastly, as part of our increased rigor, we enlisted GfK to help design and conduct the study. 3 Executive Summary As payment management rapidly becomes more complex, eCommerce merchants risk falling behind. To help your organization keep up and even capitalize on current trends, we’re sharing valuable information about the strategies of those leaders that we’ve identified as “forward-thinking” merchants. A consistent pattern emerged in the survey results: the payment professionals who called eCommerce payment management “extremely important” to overall strategy also performed better in the various aspects of payment management that we measured. As a result, we decided to call these merchants, “forward-thinking.” These leading global companies have developed a powerful set of payment management strategies that enable them to meet the challenges of the eCommerce landscape and reap a large share of benefits. Through the 2018 MRC Global Payments Survey, CyberSource and the Merchant Risk Council (MRC) gathered information from hundreds of merchants around the world about the challenges and best practices of today’s payment management landscape. The majority of the merchants reported that eCommerce payment management is becoming increasingly challenging, costly, complex, and sometimes, inefficient. The forward- thinking companies are assessing and managing those challenges differently, and seeing better results. In the following pages, you’ll get a look inside the payment management toolkits of these forward- thinking merchants, including how they: • See a clear correlation between treating eCommerce payment management as strategic and experiencing positive payment management results • Are proactive with the lineup of payment methods they accept, and most have added payment methods in the past 12 months • Are more active in their use of 3-D Secure • Have been actively planning for PSD2 • Emphasize different KPIs and see stronger results because of it We at CyberSource and the Merchant Risk Council hope this report provides you with a valuable set of comparison benchmarks to assess internal processes, identify challenges and develop a robust payment management strategy to help optimize your eCommerce business. 4 Strategic Payment Management 5 Forward-thinking merchants make payment management central to business strategy A majority of merchants say payment management is important to their strategic decision-making. Among those, 62% say it is “extremely” important. These forward-thinking merchants make payment management central to how they operate their businesses. That enables them to remain agile in today’s marketplace, increasing competitive advantage and maximizing eCommerce revenue. How merchants receive and handle payments was once an after-thought. No longer. Payment management has evolved from a back-office process into a key aspect of strategic planning. How important is eCommerce payment management to your organization’s business strategy? 1% 8% Merchant segments stating payment as extremely important to strategy • MRC members • Enterprise • Travel, services, physical goods and retail 29% • Asia Pacific and Latin America 62% Extremely important Important Very important Not too important Merchant Action For eCommerce businesses to grow and thrive, merchants should make payment management an integral part of strategic decision-making. Help your executive team understand the strategic value of payments in fueling business growth, improving customer experiences and reducing risk. 6 Addressing Customer Preferences 7 Customer experience drives eCommerce payment management Merchants across the globe know that making customer experience a top priority is a key to maximizing eCommerce revenue. Overall, 64% of merchants say the reason they add payment methods is to improve customer experience. Merchants in Latin America, the travel industry, enterprise-level businesses and members of the MRC are significantly more likely to name this as a driving factor. Customer experience also affects merchants’ decisions about the options they offer on their checkout pages. Nearly two-thirds cite improving customer experience as the primary reason for adding payment options over the past year. The second top reason—adopting mobile payment methods—goes hand-in-hand with improving the customer experience for mobile users. Merchants that removed payment methods from their checkout pages cited simplifying payment management as the reason. Improving customer experience is the strategic underpinning to effective payment management. Forward- thinking merchants who strive to improve the eCommerce checkout experience know that formulating the right mix of payment options should be dictated by the needs of individual customers. Reason for adding payment methods in the last 12 months 80 70 60 64% 50 51% 40 43% 42% 30 34% 20 10 0 Improve customer Adopt mobile Work toward Add new payment Avoid checkout experience payment methods more integrated method(s) according to abandonment commerce systems regional requirements Merchant Action Understand your various global customer personas and the payment preferences of each. Do a gap analysis comparing their preferred payment preferences to the ones that you support, and consider adding any that consumers identify as preferred. Making it easier for your customers to pay will help increase sales conversions and customer satisfaction. 8 Cards and eWallets widely accepted, while other methods vary per segment For now, cards remain the most common form of payment globally, with higher acceptance rates than digital payment methods. But forward-thinking merchants striving to satisfy mobile consumers’ appetite for digital payment options like eWallets and Digital Pays (e.g., PayPal®, Visa Checkout and Samsung Pay) have added alternative payment methods to their portfolio mix. While the eCommerce regions of Latin America and Asia Pacific (APAC) are less mature than North America, they are also faster growing and offer digital options, such as mobile apps, at much higher rates. Meanwhile, North American merchants benefiting from the vast majority of U.S. consumers with access to a credit or debit card, are behind their regional counterparts in adopting Digital Pay and eWallets. The enormous rise in mobile device ownership and usage over the past decade has dramatically impacted how eCommerce businesses approach payment management. Merchants have added alternative payment methods to their portfolio mix in large numbers to meet the increased demand for digital. But this does not mean that merchants should arbitrarily add digital options simply to increase the variety of payment solutions they offer. By understanding the drivers behind consumer demand for digital (real-time, seamless, convenient and on-demand transactions), merchants can choose the right digital payment methods. Payment methods accepted for different eCommerce market segments TYPE North Latin Asia MRC Mid- Goods/ UK/EU Enterprise Travel Services ACCEPTED America America Pacific Members Market Retail CARDS eWALLETS DIGITAL PAY BANK/CASH PAYMENTS MOBILE APPS ≥ 75% 50-75% 25-50% ≤ 25% Merchant Action Keep abreast of new technologies and customer preferences for the markets that you serve. Proactively identify popular and emerging payment methods, and adjust your payment acceptance offerings to align to your target audience. 9 Mobile is a crucial channel that less than 50% of merchants offer The ubiquity of smartphones has made mobile-friendly channels very important. While consumers are still spending more of their mobile device time shopping and reading