Many companies still don’t view the payment experience as an essential part of the customer’s journey — it’s merely the final, necessary step that every shopper needs to take. But it’s time that retailers reframe this because, if they don’t, they’re leaving a lot of money on the table.
To put it in perspective, a customer has spent a considerable amount of time reviewing various products, promotions and sales, and finally, they decide to buy from you, only to find that the final step, the payment process, is difficult, slow and, well, annoying. You’ve now potentially lost that customer for an unknown amount of time (possibly forever), all because your payment experience was clunky and outdated.
Personally, I can’t stand it when the payment process is slow and unreliable. With how fast technology is advancing, we can buy products using our smart watches, phones and even our virtual assistants like Alexa. There is no excuse for not giving customers the power to buy how they want and when they want.
A great example of a business that has streamlined the payment experience is GSN (Gem Shopping Network). GSN conducts business via television and streaming platforms, so they knew how critical it was to streamline payments. They partnered with SplitIt to ensure consumers had a frictionless experience when purchasing their luxury jewelry items, which are typically more expensive than most consumers’ credit card limits.
Since launching the partnership in 2021, GSN has processed about 9,000 transactions using SplitIt, totaling more than $30 million in sales, proving that creating a hassle-free payment experience can lead to greater sales. Removing barriers at the time of transaction is essential to the customer journey and cannot be overlooked.
Another key part of GSN’s partnership with SplitIt is the consistency that SplitIt offers across channels. Because GSN is so immersed in both new and established media channels, its payment experiences needed to scale across multiple platforms. GSN has a traditional ecommerce experience and checkout flow with SplitIt embedded into the journey, but the technology also can be used via phone and chat. By offering consistency across channels and transactional flexibility, GSN provides its customers with the confidence they need to buy whenever and however they want — whether they’re shopping through a streaming platform like YouTube, through ecommerce or even via phone. Bravo, GSN! (If you want to dig deeper into this incredible case study, check out the full article on Retail TouchPoints!)
As we’re carefully curating the content and topics for the Retail Innovation Conference & Expo, scheduled for June 4-6, 2024, we’ll be pursuing the payment experience as a key topic for attendees to discuss. Interested in speaking on our stage and have new learnings to share? Submit your speaking proposal here!
