As the shift to digital accelerates, online merchants that fail to offer a strong payments experience face significant risk of losing customers to those that get it right, according to the latest findings from Plaid, an open finance data network and payments platform.
A positive payment experience is now an integral part of how customers view online merchants. Nearly two thirds (62%) of consumers would avoid merchants that offer a ‘poor’ payment experience and one in five (22%) would even avoid the merchant even if they needed their goods or services.
Inversely, less than a tenth (6%) of UK adults would continue to shop as normal with a company if they experience a poor payment experience with them.
It is not only the quality of the payment experience that matters. Four in five (81%) people feel it’s also important for companies to offer a wide variety of payment options, whether that be buy now pay later, or digital payments. Payment flexibility is so significant that a fifth (22%) of people see a lack of choice as a reason to abandon a transaction altogether.
Consumers also increasingly have clear payment preferences. Over a third of people (36%) cited methods that required customers to enter in their personal financial information – such as the long card number on a credit or debit card –Â as a reason they would abandon a purchase from an online business. Another third (30%) would abandon the purchase due to overly complex identity checks or verifications.
Younger generations, however, have even stronger views over their preferred payment methods. Of those aged 18 – 34, 32% would change their payment method to avoid having to repeatedly enter personal information; 37% for lower fees, 38% for faster transactions and 34% for fast refund times.
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