Whether you have a great website idea or simply want to build a web presence, you will need a platform to create a website from scratch. While technologies evolve, users may pick software depending on their technical background and goals.

Each platform is different in terms of ease of use, customization, and the website building process itself. So, to select the right one, you need to define the site objectives first. So, here are some core issues to consider before you start choosing the website building instrument.

Issues to Consider When Choosing a Platform

The web industry is full of automated systems and platforms designed for both newbies and professional web designers, programmers, or coders. Some products are designed to meet users’ specific needs such as eCommerce website builders, landing page generators, etc.

Depending on what you need, consider the following:

Is The Platform Easy to Use?

The majority of modern SaaS platforms feature drag-and-drop or WYSIWYG technology. It was designed for newbies who do not know how to code. It usually takes a couple of hours to create a ready-to-go project with all the necessary features in the pack.

But if you have coding or web designing experience, you would probably crave for more customization freedom. This is where you might need access to source code and editing instruments to develop some of the functions yourself.

Widgets and Add-Ons

Using a baseline template is not enough. Depending on the website type, you will need additional apps and services to interact with the target audience. This is where a custom App Store or marketplace can make a difference. Opt for the platform that offers a range of add-ons to be integrated with a click. They may include image galleries and sliders, custom page blocks, or elements, contact and user acquisition forms.

Third-Party Integration

Let’s say, you have a digital store and want to track your visitors, sales channels, and traffic sources. With so many various analytic tools, they should be seamlessly integrated with a chosen platform. Some systems offer their custom dashboards to manage orders, ad campaigns, and more. However, you may require extra service for email marketing, online payment processing, etc.

Free Trial or Plan

Jumping to the first platform you come across is not reasonable. If you select the one, you will have to stick to it in order to prevent additional costs on website migration. A free trial or plane comes as a great chance to test the system under real-life conditions. Of course, it will not let you build a ready-to-go site due to limited features. At least, you will understand if the platform suits you fine.

Customer Support

Make sure this software comes with comprehensive support. It includes not only instant ways to get in touch such as phone, email, or Live Chat. We are talking of video tutorials, guides, blog posts, social community, forums, Help Centers, so on. The more resources a website builder has the better.

Self-Hosted or SaaS

Do you need an all-in-one solution with hosting, domain, and all features in the pack? Or do you want to dive deep into the development process and bring to life your exclusive website idea? The answer will define the choice. To make it easier for our readers, let’s have a look at how self-hosted platforms differ from SaaS website builders.

Self-Hosted Platforms: Pros & Cons

The terms “self-hosted” means that to build a website, you will need three major components. They include:

1. The CMS — content management system to create new pages and categories as well as edit them.
2. Hosting — a place to host your website files.
3. A Domain — an address where potential users may access your website within the Global Web.

As a rule, a self-hosted platform delivers full customization and web design freedom thanks to access to the source code. On the other hand, they require technical knowledge and skills.

Pros:

• HTML/CSS Editing — if you know how to code, CMS is a great option. You develop and integrate any page element, function, or feature of your own.
• Numerous Templates — as a rule, templates for self-hosted platforms are designed by third-party teams. It means thousands of themes to choose from.
• Flexibility — open-source platforms make it easy to integrate any third-party service. Besides, users will be able to add various widgets, plugins, or add-ins compatible with a chosen software.
• Free to Use — the core advantage here is that most CMS are free. You can build a site at no cost. However, to go live, you will need to pay for a domain and hosting separately.

Cons:

• Technical Background — self-hosted platforms do not work for newbies. They require solid technical skills or at least baseline HTML/CSS knowledge.
• Maintenance and Support — prepare for regular system and plugin updates, website backups, hosting and domain renewals, so on.

SaaS Website Builders

SaaS software was initially designed with a focus on users who want to create sites without coding. Drag-and-drop technologies have evolved bringing simpler and faster tools to go live with ready-made projects in minutes. Some platforms successfully implement AI-based technologies and let you create websites of any type despite the complexity.

Pros:

• All-In-One Software — no need to manage hosting and domain separately. You buy all the necessary features with a plan.
• Ease of Use — designed for newbies with zero technical skills. Ready-to-go projects in minutes.
• Responsive Themes — each template is 100% mobile-friendly. Moreover, all themes come with pre-installed add-ons and widgets.

Cons:

• Limited Customization — unlike self-hosted platforms, SaaS website builders do not provide access to the source code though some have an HTML editing function.
• Pricy Plans — some website builders cost a lot especially when it comes to niche-oriented platforms.

The Verdict

The choice of the right platform depends on various factors. You need to identify the website type and the most appropriate building tools to ring your idea to life. While SaaS software comes with a focus on non-technicians, self-hosted deliver a bit more flexibility in terms of customization for more experienced users with coding skills.

Your reliable payment partner — exactly.com

Self-Hosted Platforms vs SaaS Website Builders was originally published in exactly.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

SaaS companies may differ from each other but they all have one thing in common — the necessity to pick up the right pricing model. This is where many SaaS startups make their first and the most crucial mistake. They do not understand their pricing.

You and your team try your best to create a worthy product and deliver it to the target audience. The bad news is that a few companies realize their worth. Besides, the fail to select the right tool that ensures effective communication and interaction with the customer.

In other words, if you do not have a suitable SaaS pricing model, you lose money. It is not just about knowing your buyer persona. It is about evaluating your SaaS product potential, scalability, further growth, and development. Our guide will show some of the most popular and effective SaaS pricing models that will suit any company. Look at all pros and cons to decide, which one suits you the most.

1. Flat Rate Pricing Model

If you look for a fast and simple way to sell SaaS products to potential customers, flat rate model is the one you need. The idea is pretty simple. We have a single product offer with a single set of baseline features available at a single price. No complex fees or charges. Everything is crystal clear for the business owner and the buyer.

For instance, you may sell software license at a fixed price tag. Although that model might seem to be a bit out-of-date, it may still be useful in case you sell downloadable software versions or lifetime licenses.

Pros:

• Ease of Use — the model is very easy to implement and use. You do not need to work out complex billing policy instead of focusing on the prior business objectives.
• Simple Interaction — Flat Rate SaaS pricing model is simple not only for the business owner but also for a customer. It means improved communication and increased customers loyalty.

Cons:

• Difficult to Customize — the model certainly lacks flexibility in terms of extracting value from various customer’s categories. For instance, you may sell your product to both B2B and B2C clients. You will to think over some ways to adopt the product to different client groups.
• Limited Flexibility — once a product got some new features or updates, you can either sell it at the same price or increase the price tag for the product but not a specific feature.

2. Usage-Based SaaS Pricing Model

A simple concept considers a starting price for the SaaS product or service that can be used over a specific period of time. If you need it for a longer timeframe, the cost will increase as well. If you need less of the product or service, the price will go down as well.

As a rule, hosting providers use this particular model when offering customizable hosting plans. For instance, you have a small business site that does not require much of bandwidth or storage. So, you can benefit from a cheaper pan. And if your business grows, you have a chance to add more hosting facilities or resources along with increased usage — based cost.

Pros:

• Scalable Pricing — the concept lets your price scale along with the product. If a user does not need a product at its full capacity right now, why he or she should overpay?
• Good to Get Started — you do not need to establish huge price tags right at once. Start with the entry offer to attract customers and show them the ability to scale the service.
• Consistent Usage — while fixed price does not provide enough flexibility when it comes to “heavy users”, this concept makes it easy for the business owner to compensate the product usage in different ways.

Cons:

• Hard to Predict — while financial planning might be of a great concern, a usage-based pricing model makes it hard to predict the revenue. You do not know what capacity users require.
• Disconnected Product Value — with such concept, users may not even understand the real value of the product you provide. It may have a psychological influence in case you decide to increase entry rice. They should always know what they pay for,

3. Tired SaaS Pricing Model

This one is the most popular pricing model used by the majority of SaaS companies. The main benefit is in the flexibility delivered by the model. Product providers have a chance to offer multiple packages or version depending on the clients’ expectations.

The idea is to come up with a bend of features to meet specific customers needs. Another benefit is the ability to offer various types pf packages.

Pros:

• Suits Several Buyer Personas — the model ensures bigger coverage if compared to previous ones. SaaS companies can meet the requirements of various customers’ categories by offering an individually tailored set of features they look for.
• Maximum Return — tired pricing concept makes it easier to increase revenue and prevents SaaS companies from leaving their money on the table. The real value of the product and each feature is reflected in the price per package.
• Upselling Capabilities — the advantage certainly makes the difference when establishing a clearer route for upselling. The idea is to let your customers expand their packages with new features and boost sales.

Cons:

• Potentially Daunting — some customers can be overwhelmed with the variety of options. They may start feeling confused especially when it comes to newbies. It results in users leaving carts though there are some easy ways to improve the situation and enable cart abandonment recovery.
• Too Many Customers to Consider — you will have to develop a wider range of packages and offers to meet every customer needs. It might require increased flexibility and more time.

Final Word

A proper SaaS pricing model will defne the future success for your product or service. So, make sure you use the right SaaS strategy to consider all potential customers to focus on, growing capabilities in case of a scalable services, real product value, and more. If you do everything right, you will prevent your business from leaving money on the table.

Your reliable payment partner — exactly.com

Introduction into SaaS Pricing Models was originally published in exactly.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With modern SaaS technologies, creating a site from scratch does not require special skills. Up-to-date software powered by Artificial Intelligence and advanced technologies makes it possible to come up with a fully-featured store in minutes. All you need is to upload products, add descriptions, connect domain, and go live.

Of course, website builder platforms do not guarantee success for each and every merchant. On the other hand, they deliver various tools to create responsive, engaging, and user-friendly digital stores with no coding. We have sorted out and reviewed the top 3 options. They are great for users despite the shop size or the number of goods they want to sell online. Here we go!

1. Magento — eCommerce-Oriented CMS

Magento is one of the most powerful and robust CMS platforms developed with a focus on digital commerce. It is one of the longest-running website builders. Launched back in 2007 the system delivers a rich feature set to create, configure, and launch a fully-featured online shop.

The key Magento features include:

• Simple Product Management — the platform comes with an intuitive editor that makes it simple to add new products, edit item info (titles, descriptions, etc.), configure core SEO settings (meta tags, URL editing, and more), dividing products into specific categories, adding item attributes, son on.
• WYSIWYG Functionality — a feature is to simplify the website building process make it easy for newbies and non-technicians. With Magento, you can create a ready-to-go store without coding. Simply choose a page block, section, or element from the list inside the dashboard and put it wherever you need.
• Marketing Options — from wish lists, promo codes, and coupons to persistent shopping cart features, product reviews, and comparisons the system delivers all necessary tools to boost sales.
• Integrated Payment Gateways — create a website and accept payments online right at once thanks to built-in payment options that include Exactly, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and some others.

Plans & pricing: like most open-source web platforms, Magento is initially free to use. But you will still have to pay for extra extensions that are vital to selling online. Besides, the platform does not have its custom theme store. You will need to purchase it from third-party developers. Last but not least, make sure you already have a suitable hosting plan and a domain name to go live.

2. PrestaShop — Free Downloadable Shop Builder

Unlike SaaS platforms, PrestaShop is a downloadable software developed to create online stores from scratch with minimum technical skills. The product is initially free to use and install. Besides, users may benefit from a rich set of customization instruments in addition to comprehensive support and growing PrestaShop community.

Here are some great features to look for:

• Free to Download — get the latest software version at zero cost and edit your future website no matter if you have the Internet connection or not.
• Open-Source Platform — make the most of customization capabilities thanks to full access to the template’s source- code. Develop your own design features and add new functions to the website.
• General eCommerce Features — manage your goods, create unlimited product lists, manage inventory, and more with PrestaShop.
• Checkout Functionality — synchronize your shop with a particular shipping carrier, implement automated tax rules and calculations, opt for built-in payment gateways, or connect third-party options for increased flexibility.
• Extra Perks — PrestaShop comes with some extra features that include instruments for cart abandonment recovery, automated email campaigns, tools for special deals, and promotion.

Plans and pricing: the platform is free to use. However, you will need to pay for add-ons, widgets, or extra modules to have on your website. Besides, you may crave for a more stylish eCommerce theme that is 100% responsive. Prepare to pay somewhere around $50-$200 depending on the template. The good news is that the platform has a demo version to check how the system works from the inside.

3. WooCommerce — A Free WordPress Plugin

With millions of WordPress fans, WooCommerce comes as an ultimate solution to lunch and run an online shop. The great news is that the plugin is initially free. So, you may start selling products on the web at no cost. However, it is not as easy to set up and implement, while using WordPress also requires some baseline skills like with any other self-hosted CMS platform.

The key advantages are as follows:

• Free to Use — WooCommerce is a plugin that is available at no initial cost. However, you are supposed to have an existing WordPress site, install the plugin, and manage settings manually. But if you crave for more customization tools, you will need to pay for premium extensions.
• Ready-Made Solution — the tool comes with integrated payment options and product management system. It looks the same as the WP editor. So, you will hardly find it difficult to add new products featuring titles, descriptions, and images.
• Thousands of Themes — while WooCommecre works with WordPress, users may benefit from an endless selection of free and paid templates. Besides, experienced users will be able to create a unique design to stand out thanks to the source code access.

Plans and pricing: the plugin is free to use, although you will need to pay for hosting and domain name registration.

Summing Up

To choose the platform that suits you the most, you are supposed to define the website goals, future structure, and the way it will engage with visitors. Complex solutions with multiple goods require professional eCommerce solutions while small stores are simpler to launch from the start.

Best eCommerce Website Builder for Newbies was originally published in exactly.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A proper payment system appears to be one of the core phases of your business plan. Choosing the right one is vital, especially if you are planning to sell software on the subscription-based model. Besides, customers look for a safe and secure way to make purchases when trusting your project with their billing data.

It is not only about subscribes who call for a fast and simple way to buy the software. It is also about the SaaS business owner who is likely to crave for a payment process that runs smoothly without stumbling blocks. Either you represent B2B or B2C niche, having a suitable payment gateway may have an enormous impact on the overall customers’ experience and satisfaction.

The main challenge is to choose the right platform. Is it better to develop an in-house payment solution for scratch or opt for third-party services that come with all the needed features in the pack? We are here to figure that out.

Why Do You Need a Billing System for SaaS?

Before we dive deep into technicalities, special terms, and specs let’s clarify why your SaaS business actually needs a billing system. The main idea is to connect the end-buyer with your particular product. In other words, the payment gateway is the intermediary between your business or software you sell and the purchaser.

For this reason, you need a flexible platform that lets you handle various tasks at the same time:

• A Different-Tier Solution — SaaS products regularly come with various tiers. So, you need a payment gateway that is able to accommodate them offering various billing models.
• Simple Payment Processing — the faster transactions are processed the better for you and your customers. The billing system must be easy to navigate and use to ensure a hassle-free checkout process.
• Scalable Solution — you will probably want to grow your business while the SaaS product evolves. Make sure a chosen platform is scalable to offer enough flexibility and grow together with your project.

Either you have a complicated eCommerce project or a simple SaaS startup, opting for a proper billing system is the #1 priority. All users are divided into two camps depending on the type of payment method they choose: in-house and third-party platforms.

In-House vs Ready-to-Use Payment Options

The first issue you will need to resolve is whether to develop an in-house payment gateway from the blank to opt for a ready-to-go solution delivered by third parties. What is the best option to meet your particular business needs?

In-house Payment Method

If you look for maximum functionality and customization freedom, this option will certainly work out, as you will have a self-tailored platform with all options you might need. The bad news is that developing a new payment gateway from scratch can be extremely time-consuming and expensive.

Besides, the solution will require testing as well as further maintenance and support. Each and every new modification will cost you a fortune. So, the in-house billing solution is hardly a good idea for small SaaS startups and independent entrepreneurs.

Pros:

• A fully customizable solution developed with your SaaS product in mind.
• Lower transaction fees if compared to third-party services.

Cons:

• Too expensive and time-consuming,
• Requires maintenance and support.
• Calls for extra third-party services to be integrated.
• Additional costs to develop secure and safe infrastructure.

Third-Party Services

Choosing a ready-made all-in-one solution to handle payments is a simpler, faster, and cheaper alternative to in-house billing gateways. It is fast to integrate even for non-technicians. It comes with all necessary features in the pack to work great for small and medium development teams with their SaaS products to sell.

Pros:

• Super easy integration process. Perfect for newbies.
• No need to hire third-party developers or build a platform from scratch by yourself.
• Built-in security infrastructure and one-click integrations.
• Compatibility with any product.

Cons:

• Higher transaction fee.
• Expensive plans with advanced features.
• Less customization freedom.

The verdict: the choice will totally depend on the project complexity and requirements. If you look for a simple and fast-to-integrate payment option with the required functionality, third-party services are the best bet. If your SaaS business needs a more flexible platform in terms of configuration and customization, you will probably need to develop it from the ground.

Features to Consider when Choosing Payment Options for SaaS Business

No matter what you type of payment option you choose, keep an eye on the core features to look for when selecting a billing system.

Security

While more and more people go online to do shopping, you still need to earn their trust. It appears that most users have doubts when sharing billing info or credit card number with a company they do not know. B2B customers have proved to be even more suspicious than individuals.

Make sure the payment option you choose is compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. As a rule, trusted service providers boast additional awards and certificates that may let you establish a good online reputation.

Transaction Fees

Each payment gateway is available in three major payment categories. They include:

• Transaction Fees — you are charged for every purchase made.
• Monthly Fees –a typical subscription model with monthly billing for a chosen plan.
• Setup Fees — extra charges that may arise for configuring merchant’s account, connect add-ons, etc.

Flexibility

Having a solution that delivers flexible payment for any type of Commerce is good especially in reference to a scalable SaaS project. Baseline features might not be enough whenever you need to grow your product. You may require additional functionality in the face of card failure support, integrated analytics and reporting, tax and invoice handling, mobile friendliness, multilingual support, and more.

Final Word

The smooth and clear transaction process will take your SaaS business to the new level. You will be able to benefit from improved customers’ loyalty and satisfaction, a well-established web presence, and a solid online reputation. What’s more important, you will be able to sell products effortlessly and accept payments online. Just make sure a chosen platform meets your business needs.

How to Choose a Payment System for SaaS was originally published in exactly.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Here they are:

1. Merchant’s Financial Errors: duplicate or incorrectly calculated payments billed by your store

2. Merchant’s Service Errors: a poorly designed and/or communicated return policy, misrepresentations about the product/services delivered

3. Friendly Fraud by Customer: buyer’s remorse or failure to recognise your store’s descriptors in the statement

4. Criminal Fraud by Perpetrators: hacking/identity theft seeking to use stolen cards for purchases

In this article, we want to take an in-depth look into Section 2. It’s in this area that your actions might have the biggest impact in the fight against the friendly chargeback fraud. It directly influences your efforts on building out a superb buying journey and helps optimize the checkout path with the use of a fully integrated payment gateway at your store.

Here are some of the main measures your team can take in order to start mitigating errors and imperfections in your services provision.

#1. Shipping policy and strategy

Friendly chargebacks (“friendly” means that customers recognise that the purchase was made by a duly authorized person without identity theft) occur most often due to incorrectly communicated information between merchants and customers. And shipping-related disputes are among the biggest contributors to the overall chargeback ratio.

As the PracticalEcommerce blog points out, merchants should provide much more detailed commentary as compared to just stating the available payment options and pricing terms for each of them. It’s recommended to dedicate a special page to the shipping policy and provide the must-have notes within the main customer route through your checkout.

Certain customers will be looking for answers to rare and specific questions. If they fail to locate the respective information and still decide to move on with their purchase, the lack of information might turn into a cause for a friendly chargeback in the future.

Here are some of the major points your detailed shipping policy should cover:

1. Covered territories (specify the states and countries where you deliver and where you don’t)

2. Available delivery methods (home delivery, BOPIS, curbside delivery, etc.)

3. Tracking and insurance (what tracking methods you use with regard to specific shippers, what insurance you advise buyers to purchase for the returns)

4. Free shipping (you need to identify any exclusions where customers will lose their right for free delivery and disclose all the conditions so that there’s absolute clarity and no cause for misunderstanding)

5. Shipping time (it’s always a good idea to offer both standard and quick delivery options as some customers might find it accomodating to pay a bit more for faster dispatchment)

As you can see, offering detailed information and perfecting your shipping policy will bolster your checkout journey and prevent many potential friendly chargebacks down the road.

#2. Return policy and strategy

Another great way to cut down on chargebacks is by improving your existing return policy and strategy so that they better suit both your business goals and customer needs.

Below are some of the major recommendations we’ve seen as impactful for our customers’ ecommerce businesses:

1. Start doing in-depth analysis into root causes for returns

You should start off by categorizing all return requests into groups and sub-groups. It’s important to identify the exact root causes behind the biggest contributors so that you can immediately go after the low-hanging-fruit improvements. A robust reporting system like the one we deliver to our customers at exactly.com payment processor is a must-have for any ecommerce team who is serious about tracking their data.

2. Rewrite your return policy based on gained insights

Now that you’ve identified the exact reasons behind the majority of your returns, it’s time to rework the return policy (and potentially also the shipping policy) so that they are more in sync with your current conditions.

Clarity in your wording is very important. You might think that creating a hard-to-understand return policy will result in users deciding against taking any measures and just leaving you alone. In reality, in the majority of cases those disgruntled buyers turn to the chargeback mechanism.

After you’ve reworked the return policy, sit down with a number of potential buyers and have them read though it and navigate around your site. Ask them questions and make sure they completely understand your policies. Whenever you see that you have used too many legal terms or failed to clearly communicate your message, rewrite the policy. Eventually, you will arrive at a polished document that reads easily and serves to convince users that your business actually cares about their satisfaction and not only about revenues.

As the blog post from websitepolicies.com advises, your return policy should cover at least these 3 major points:

a. the period, during which you accept return items

b. type of refund you offer (be it cash refunds, store credits or exchanges)

c. shipping costs coverage (clearly specify who pays the shipping costs, and identify any conditions for the cases when you are ready to offer frees shipping for returns)

After you’ve provided clear information on these points, you can continue elaborating with additional commentary for your users. Don’t be afraid to write too much information since the return policy isn’t a component within your main checkout route for everybody to read through. Thus, only those users who really need information about your returns policy will end up on this page. In particular, this is important if you want to build up loyalty and promote recurring payments.

#3. Communications strategy

We see that those brands who enable easy and fast communications with the Customer Support deflect a large number of chargebacks. Your customers might be much more willing to settle disputes directly through the talks with your team without actually committing the friendly fraud.

That’s why it makes sense to preemptively follow up with emails so that you can engage customers in providing your feedback. Though getting emails with negative feedback can feel demotivating for your team, this is a much better option as compared to being dragged into time-consuming representment procedures with your acquirer.

Conclusion

At exactly.com payment system, we strive to develop and implement fully integrated solutions for payment processing. In addition, we frequently consult ecommerce teams about the ways for them to accelerate their growth and connect with more loyal customers. We clearly see that improving your return and shipping policies serves well in the fight against friendly chargeback fraud. Reach out to us right now and learn how we can help you optimize your checkout journey and turn chargebacks into a powerful tool for building trust and loyalty.

Friendly Chargeback Fraud: What Merchants Can Do to Prevent It was originally published in exactly.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Stages of customer checkout journey

Irrespective of the niche or type of products your business sells, your checkout sequence generally includes the following major steps.

#1. Checkout Initiation

A customer clicks the button with the call to action in the vein of “Buy Now”, “Proceed to checkout” or “Checkout”. Once the customer activates the button, they launch the checkout journey.

#2. Signup stage (optional)

Some stores require users to sign up at this stage. Others don’t. We believe that it makes most sense to eliminate this additional hurdle for your leads and enable them to pay as a guest. Stop asking leads to sign and see your cart abandonment rate go down (see other ways to tackle the dreaded abandonment rate here).

#3. Billing information

Customers pick a payment method and fill out their billing details in the form. Offering a higher number of payment methods always pays off.

#4. Shipping information

Make sure that all fields are intuitive in the form for shipping details. The simpler the process is, the more users will go through it till the end. A checkbox “Shipping address same as billing address” will save your users time and effort.

#5. Shipping method

It’s always a good idea to give your buyers a number of shipping methods to choose from. Curbside pickup, home delivery, BOPIS (buy online pick up in store), shipment from your other locations — consider implementing some of the additional fulfillment methods in order to better serve your customers.

#6. Order preview

After the customer has filled out all the forms, it’s a good idea to enable them to preview the order. You’d want to display the subtotals, taxes, delivery fees and detailed information on the items in the cart.

#7. Order confirmation

By clicking a button like “Place order” the customers finalize the deal. The button should be displayed prominently, standing out from the surrounding UI.

It’s important to partner up with the payment processor who will enable you to effectively manage all of these stages. Our payment system exactly.com is just what you need. Our personalized approach and a versatile range of services help customers find their voice and differentiate from competition.

Best practices for checkout customer journey

As we’ve said above, the checkout journey is the final stage of the overall buying experience with your store. Just as with other stages, you’d want to entice customers to continue with the buying process. To do that, you need to provide them with the tools they need and eliminate any distractions.

Though it sounds easy on paper, it takes a lot of effort to develop a high-converting checkout process. Here are the insights we’ve garnered while optimizing carts for your customers.

#1. Simplify, simplify and simplify

Your inner marketer might be yearning for that last piece of information from your target audience. Resist the urge. Ecommerce is about smooth and easy-to-do processes. Axe out anything that’s not absolutely necessary for your lead to successfully complete the checkout journey.

#2. Don’t require the signup

As with the previous tip, you shouldn’t make your leads sign up with your ecommerce business. When shoppers visit offline stores, there’s no need to sign up or register anywhere. Online stores are not different. You should always enable visitors to take one of the paths: registration or buy as a guest.

This infographics from Column Five ranks versatility in payment methods as the highest impact factor at the checkout. Our payment gateway easily embeds within your store, be it a completely customized build or a popular constructor, and empowers your shop with 100+ currencies, digital wallets and bank transfers.

Admittedly, this results in higher complexity for your visitors, but the trade-off is worth taking the effort. Credit card networks, digital wallets and other payments stakeholders are constantly vying for users with their own loyalty campaigns and branding initiatives. It’s the reason behind a high level of fragmentation at the payment market. Capitalizing on this pays off.

Our team at exactly.com offers in-depth consultations and teardowns on your checkout journey. A/B testing and empowering your store with novel functionalities such as payment links and recurring payments form the core of our value proposition. We invite ecommerce teams to launch the dialog about the ways which we can use to grow sales through technical and UX improvements at your site.

Customer checkout journey: Beginner’s Guide was originally published in exactly.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The impact of the lockdowns has been changing the ecommerce landscape fast. In this article, we share about the emerging trends we see in providing payment processing services to our customers at exactly.com payment system. Just like many experts, we believe that this crisis will accelerate an ongoing process for customer migration from offline to online channels. And we are happy to be among those companies who not only witness but also serve to shape the future of the ecommerce industry.

#1 Overall growth in traffic and sales

With many brick-and-mortar stores closed due to the lockdown, ecommerce is seeing more traffic across the globe. Deloitte Consulting Company is convinced that it’s this very time that will make or break the next generation of ecommerce leaders.

As was seen during a similarly tumultuous time of the SARS epidemics in China in 2003, then-emerging Alibaba and JD.com were taking the first tentative steps with the epidemics acting as a powerful catalyst for their growth. With people stuck at home and unable to shop in the traditional manner, a new influx of buyers flocked to the stores and subsequently coalesced into a highly loyal base.

Deloitte believes that those companies who are brave enough to invest in their digital presence right now in the heat of the COVID-19 lockdowns will see their efforts pay off with tremendous RoI in the years to come. It’s vital to kick off or sustain the digital transformation across all facets of your ecommerce business, be it payment processing, supply chain and fulfillment, on-site CX or socials-driven outreach.

#2 Curbside picking

BOPIS (“Buy Online Pick Up In Store’’) was gradually gathering steam before the lockdowns became a new norm, but this practice was deployed only sporadically. And now it’s the new “law of the land” with restaurants, supermarkets and other businesses obligated to hamper contact between customers and employees as much as they can.

The effects we observe now will probably stay around after the crisis is gone. That’s why it makes sense to start doing BOPIS as soon as you can, irrespective of whether your underlying business is more or less receptive to it.

Entrepreneur.com online magazine gives some useful tips on how to roll out this approach.

First, invest effort into thinking through the overall procedure. Set up and clearly mark the spot for people to park at. Use legible signs and make sure that you don’t create congestion within the area.

Second, communicate with your customers about the steps you need them to take. It’s a common practice to ask customers to text or call a phone number when they arrive at your location. If this doesn’t suit your specific set-up, you can station an employee with a list of orders so that they can be quickly crossed off as they go.

Third, elaborate on the actions the customers are to take when the products are being transferred. Do you want them to stay in the car and open the trunk automatically, or do you want them to quickly roll down the window and grab the products?

All of these decisions are dependent on your business model, but whatever you do, it’s time to go cashless. Our payment gateway is ready to give your business a lending hand right now, enabling you to quickly set up the merchant account and start receiving payments online, with no need for the cash to change hands.

#3 Rise of one-person service providers

Social distancing and lockdowns prevent in-person meet-ups. This has left many employees and individual entrepreneurs scrambling to set up new practices and continue earning wages. And even though many providers are already accustomed to using online technologies to perform some of the activities, it can be hard to fully transform your business into a digitally native venture.

Our payment links facility seeks to solve for this specific use case. After an easy registration process, you sign into your account and create a payment link. You can send it via email or messenger of your choice and enable your customer to pay for your services.

There’s no need to set up a website or hire coding talent to integrate the payment gateway. We offer our payment links so that a budding entrepreneur can start charging with as little hassle as possible.

#4 Older generations are getting into the game

Baby boomers and older generations have been slow in turning to ecommerce. However, the crisis has created a strong impetus for them to consider buying online.

In contrast to generations X and Y, these new users might need a bit more assistance on your side. That’s why it may make sense to clearly display your telephone number and beef up your call center with additional staff so that you are ready to deal with an increase in calls. In addition, your team can act proactively and call on the buyers to offer clear instructions on the delivery time and hand-off process.

#5 Changes in revenues

It’s clear that tough conditions call for customers to focus on essential products and avoid splurging on luxury items. Foods and beverages, pharma, financial and PPE have been growing fastest. Ecommerce owners might find it beneficial to review their product matrices and consider reallocating investment and effort from those categories that don’t show a high potential at this point.

At the same time, an end to the lockdowns will bring a quick increase in demand for all those products and services that people had to live without. The ecommerce businesses should buckle up and sustain their business models. When the crisis is over, those who survived will have a huge advantage over the potential new entrants.

#6 Pivoting helps retain valuable business connections

Businesses should consider pivoting in order to retain their valuable connections with vendors and customers.

Airbnb has taken a strong move in this direction with its Online Experiences campaign. Hosts can give lessons in their field of expertise. Virtual tours can serve as a great way to expose future travelers to the marvels they’ll see once the lockdowns have been lifted.

In this way, Airbnb helps hosts retain at least a fraction of their revenues while also connecting them with interested viewers and keeping spirits high all around.

Another good example is filmmakers, orchestras and performers at large offering access to their work ahead of the actual release. This seems to be a perfect set-up for a business model driven by the recurrent payments.

exactly.com payment gateway has been helping businesses of all types and sizes to sustain in these tough times. We’ve been amazed at the resilience and fortitude of ecommerce teams in the face of the COVID-19 pandemics and lockdowns. We invite companies who are searching for novel ways to pivot and engage the target audience to consider our versatile suite of services in payment processing. Reach out to us right now and learn about the ways we can help you streamline your financial backend.

6 Trends in Commerce during COVID-19 Pandemics was originally published in exactly.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With more and more customers hanging out in social media and chatting on forums, payment links are gradually gathering steam. Businesses find it extremely easy to set them up, and customers love a personalized approach and informal communications with sales managers. exactly.com supports “social commerce”, enabling an intuitive process to issue and manage payment links. In this article, we discuss how payment links work and what benefits they offer to merchants and their customers.

How do payment links work?

There are various types of payment links. Merchants can send out payment buttons, invoices with embedded payment links or create bulk links for groups of people.

Irrespective of the type of payment links, all of them go through the overall process shown below.

1. Merchant generates the payment link in a provider’s portal

2. Merchant sends the link to the Customer

3. Customer clicks on the link

4. Customer is redirected to the payment window

5. Customer types in the card data and completes the purchase

6. Merchant receives the notification about the completed purchase

As you can see, payment links offer a much smoother payment experience as compared to the standard site-based checkout in the cart or paying at the brick-and-mortar POS. Both customers and merchants stand to win from the benefits this novel payment method offers.

Benefits for merchants

Always seeking to maximize their profits, the merchants constantly look for solutions that will streamline their business processes. Automation comes to the fore. AI-powered systems enable competitors to overpower rivals.

In this regard, payment links might seem as a step back since they are actually hard to automate. Sales managers need to maintain informal communications with customers, generate and send out links. In addition, customers might feel emboldened to follow up with new questions and requests. In a word, payment links seem to entangle the sales department into a very labor-intensive process.

This is just an illusion. Automation has always been expected to free up resources for more creative tasks. And the time has come to do just that. Rejigger your sales team from doing routine tasks that are easy to automate and unleash their expertise and skills on the social channel. In the end, your company will see a positive ROI. And this is what matters, isn’t it?

Here are some of the major benefits the merchants enjoy when leveraging the payment links:

• site-less: you can start charging your customers without a site; you can connect with customers in social media and start earning via payment links, right there in the messenger chat.
• low cost: most providers charge only transaction-based fees without any charges for maintenance or monthly service. In this way, you don’t have to plan for any expenditures and pay only when you make a sale, generating a profit for your business.
• capturing edge cases: every customer is unique, and every buying journey is unique too. While the majority of customers might be OK with paying at your site, some buyers might love you for offering a payment link to purchase with. Your sales team can test this new payment method and determine what sub-audiences are most receptive.
• security: all providers offer hosted payment pages where the customer is redirected upon clicking the link. This means that it’s your provider’s duty to assure security at the payment window. Make sure that you engage only those providers who assure full PCI compliance and embed 3D Secure and AI-powered anti-fraud systems. We’ve implemented all of these tools at exactly.com payment system for end-to-end security assurance.
• expenses reallocation: as we’ve said above, now is the perfect time to reallocate your sales staff to actually talk with individual buyers in social media. Of course, you can always direct customers to the stores “where they can service themselves”, but it makes such a difference when the customer’s personal manager pampers them in the chat window. This nascent labor center might start coalescing into a formidable profit driver before you know.

And now let’s look at what makes payment links so popular among customers.

Benefits for customers

Again, it’s all about personalization. Every customer wants to feel as an important patron for your business.

Leverage the links to satiate this yearning:

• personalization: connecting with sales managers, customers enjoy a highly personalized treatment. Chatting with the sales staff right in the messenger of their choice (be it WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram or anything else), they are free to ask any questions they have and voice their concerns and desires. They feel that your business will do what it takes in order to meet all of your needs and desires.
• ease of use: customers see that it’s extremely easy to pay with links. They want to shop with you more often since they enjoy a much easier buying experience compared to conventional online stores where registration/log-in is still required. Remove additional obstacles from the customer journey, deliver a more frictionless experience and see your sales grow.
• swiftness: with the ease of use, customers enjoy the ability to make purchases on the spur of the moment. Impulsive buys grant your users with a more fun and rewarding experience. Some customers enjoy the fact that they can pay for your products/services immediately and just be done with it.
• time of purchase is anytime: unlike brick-and-mortar outlets, payment links help your customers decide on the time when they want to shop with you. With more power in the customer’s hands comes empowerment and feeling in control. This surely reflects positively on your business and drives conversions.

Our payment system exactly.com helps small businesses roll out payment links in minimum time. All you need is a valid business registration. Our simplified verification process takes only several business days. The internal portal is highly intuitive and enables merchants to generate, distribute and manage links with ease.

We know that this is a pretty novel payment method and you might have many questions about the implementation and best practices in this niche (and contextual commerce overall). Talk to us right now and we’ll help you understand what your next moves should be.

Payment Links: Effective Payment Method for Small Business was originally published in exactly.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Surveys show that quite a lot of small businesses shy away from processing card payments online because they fret the hassle. However, even though accepting online payments will surely add a certain amount of work for your team, the positives far outweigh the negatives. Our payment system exactly.com helps small, medium and large businesses accept payments in a smart way, offering personalization and robust security. In this article, we want to speak about the benefits your business enjoys when you decide to accept payments online.

#1 More Sales

Every year, more and more customers start favoring plastic cards as their preferred method of payment. One survey showed that 33% of purchasers wish to pay with credit cards. In these circumstances, accepting online payments isn’t a “good-to-have” but a “must-have”.

Without this function, a customer might simply abandon the store, completely destroying your efforts to create an optimized payment journey.

Small businesses might be the least willing to process card payments due to various concerns, but you can’t argue with numbers: 83% of small businesses see growth in sales after launches the card payments at their sites.

#2 Higher Average Transaction Value (ATV)

In addition to growing the quantity of sales, online payments also help improve their quality.

Whenever paying in cash, customers would surely try to calculate and sum up all of the amounts, constantly trying to fit within the existing budget they have. In comparison, credit cards enable users to pay on credit. There’s no need to count every penny, and customers can splurge a bit. In many ways, it feels like you don’t actually pay with real money since you won’t have to worry about covering your debts long into the future.

Studies show that people demonstrate a huge increase in spending whenever they are offered both cash and cards as payment methods. One study saw this in action when business students were offered to make purchases either with and without cards.

Thus, your ecommerce business is expected to see a strong bump-up in the Average Transaction Value (ATV) whenever it starts accepting cards.

An important point to consider is letting go of the cash payment option overall. It’s known that users find it easier to make decisions whenever they have a lesser number of options to choose from.

Another great thing about online payments is that they can pave the way to completely new payment types as such.

#3 Recurring Payments

Recurring payments are slowly but consistently expanding into all the niches out there, enabling businesses to provide higher value in bite-size bits for their customers.

At the core, recurring payments are simply expenditures that are automatically charged from the customer’s card at set intervals (e.g. monthly). Without cards, you would end up with invoices, billing and checks. All three of these payment methods are valid and have been widely used for decades, but they are extremely annoying, onerous and time-consuming.

Recurring payments take the hassle out of payment processing and enable businesses to transform into monetizable SaaS ventures. Without invoices.

#4 Loyalty Campaigns

Another great way to leverage benefits from online payments is by establishing loyalty campaigns, rewards and affiliate marketing strategies. Everybody wants to feel attention and care when doing business. Don’t rob your clients of a unique experience they would derive from becoming a part of the community coalescing around your ecommerce venture.

An easy way to dip your toes would be providing a certain discount for all repeated purchases from your online store. Or you can calculate the scores based on the amounts of purchases made and enable customers to use those scored for the next buys. We are sure that you would find a nicely fitting loyalty campaign for your needs and aspirations.

As you can see, all of these activities require robust accounting capabilities. And online payments make accounting simple.

#5 Streamlined Accounting and Reporting

Cash-only businesses need to tediously record all transactions and constantly reconcile their books.

With online payments, all of these manual operations are safely done by automated systems. Your team has all the data at their fingertips. It’s easy to prepare tax documents, reports for higher management and dig through big data for valuable insights as to how you can improve your business.

In particular, reporting serves to better analyze your ecommerce business’ activities at the global level, so that you can shift your priorities and budgets accordingly.

#6 Global Trade Enabled

Online payments help businesses offer their products and services across the world. It doesn’t matter where your potential customer is based. As long as they use the card you accept, the payment takes just a couple of clicks.

Any emerging small business with just a couple of offerings can easily launch their global expansion journey. Ability to localize the cart, intelligent payment routing and robust security are some of the key features you need to look into when choosing a payment system for your global-focused digital transformation.

Conclusion

Even though accepting online payments brings certain fees and concerns for ecommerce businesses, the positives are huge. Your online store or services agency will certainly see a significant increase in sales with users being more spendy paying on credit and willing to make on-the-spot decisions while browsing your site. In addition, you can start looking for customers globally — with online payments it’s possible to connect with anyone who has a card and Internet connection. exactly.com is a full-cycle payment system that helps businesses launch their online payments with low fees and utmost personalization.

Benefits of Processing Card Payments Online was originally published in exactly.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Our payment system exactly.com enables the end-to-end processing for international payments. We’ve already written about international ecommerce and the main features you should look for in a global acquirer. In this article, we want to take a broader look at the international payments overall and highlight how exactly.com works to enable them. We’ll talk about the main methods and benefits ecommerce teams stand to win from each of the methods. In the conclusion, we’ll determine the best method.

International Processing: Methods

At the highest level, there are two major methods for processing international payments:

1. Establishing business ventures at each of the geolocations your store operates in and connecting to the local payment gateway

2. Managing only one business venture at your main jurisdiction and collaborating with the single payment gateway that enables global coverage.

And now let’s look into the benefits for each of these methods.

Methods 1: Benefits

Method 1 used to work best for all kinds of businesses which were engaged in local sales.

Up to the start of 2010s, there were almost no payment processors who would be able to handle international payment transactions at large volumes without interacting with local subsidiaries.

Today, there exist some payment systems that offer highly scalable payment processing capabilities. exaclty.com is one of them. Thus, Method 1 might still be viable for transnational companies with billions of dollars in revenues on the annual basis. Meanwhile, small, medium and big businesses are advised to consider implementing Method 2 instead.

Method 2: Benefits

Method 2 presumes that the ecommerce business connects to a single payment system which is charged with facilitating processing in all of the geolocations where the company operates. Naturally, this route is much easier for companies to implement due to lower administrative costs and less red tape involved.

This method has become widely popular in the last years with the payment systems actively aggregating the services within their business model and enabling merchants to avoid creating local subsidiaries for each country of operation.

Let’s take a look at the benefits, enabled by such systems:

1. Network of Acquiring Banks

Global processors always have wide networks of acquiring banks across the world. Without such liaisons, it wouldn’t be possible for them to operate on a truly global scale.

Whenever a customer pays for the goods at the store, the payment information is channeled through the following sequence:

A. It’s furnished to the payment system where it’s immediately tokenized for utmost security.

B. Then, the system automatically determines the customer’s geolocation and furnishes the payment request to the local acquiring bank.

C. The acquiring bank either accepts or denies the request.

D. The payment information is sent to the issuing bank.

This is highly beneficial since the issuing banks hold much more trust in the acquiring banks located within the same jurisdiction, as opposed to foreign ones. Thus, this helps increase the probability that the issuing bank will approve the transaction.

2. Intelligent Routing System

The process, in which the payment requests are furnished to the local acquiring banks, is called “intelligent routing”. Though the two components — network of acquiring banks and intelligent routing system — are inseparable, it makes sense to review them one by one since payment systems leverage completely different payment routing systems.

For instance, exactly.com uses both machine learning and manual adjustments in order to constantly improve the performance within the routing system. We aggregate data across all of your geographies, gradually identifying patterns, bottlenecks and growth drivers. Importantly, a team of proficient analysts reviews the generated data, split-testing new payment scenarios for a smoother checkout experience. Personalization and customization in line with your unique business conditions are among those factors that bring variability and differentiation between competitors that might otherwise offer quite similar services.

In addition, such payment systems should pay particular attention to developing efficient failover mechanics. Under this process, the system sends the payment request to an acquiring bank and awaits the response. In the event that the bank denies the request, the system automatically resends the query to another bank. In this way, the payment processor helps grow conversions by increasing the acceptance rate.

3. Multi-Currency Merchant Account and Like-For-Like Payouts

Another important feature for the global payment system is the ability to pay out in various currencies. This serves to replace the mechanics that were previously available only when using a number of subsidiaries in specific countries. Ecommerce businesses can accumulate funds within their merchants accounts in specific currencies, awaiting the time when the expenditures would need to be made in the respective locations.

The “like-for-like” payments enable companies to avoid any conversions for the payments received from buyers and furnished to the merchant account. Even though the conversion costs might seem as a miniscule expense at the first glance, they quickly add up, posing a threat to long-term business viability.

Thus, these two features enable businesses to replace the subsidiaries with a single merchant account and empower ecommerce teams to win from lower maintenance costs and labor expenses.

4. Localization

Almost all global systems enable full localization throughout the checkout journey, helping your business to serve customers in their own language.

However, it’s not all of them that offer high-quality customer support in several major languages and dispute resolution solutions to help grow your business’ goodwill. It’s widely known that end-users almost never comment on their positive experiences, but whenever something goes wrong, they are quick to start posting on major review sites. A swift and efficient dispute resolution system helps mitigate this risk.

5. Versatility in payment methods

The range of currencies and alternative methods offered by the system is paramount when your business takes efforts to expand globally. For instance, exactly.com supports 100+ currencies. With this currency stack, your business can easily offer products and services globally, covering the majority of markets..

Conclusion

Today there are two methods for your business to start processing international payments. Method 1 provides for the establishment of local subsidiaries and collaborating with local payment gateways. Method 2 assumes that you’ll base your business in your main jurisdiction and engage a global payment system. Out of the two, Method 2 has been growing in popularity due to lower administrative costs and labor expenses. Our payment system exactly.com enables merchants to implement the Method-2 solutions, effectively expanding their business coverage globally. Reach to us to learn more.

International Payment Processing: Methods and Benefits was originally published in exactly.com on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.