Tag: payments

5 Ways to Build Customer Trust With Your Online Store

Posted on by chargeafterdev

Building customer trust is crucial for the success of your online store. Consumers who trust brands are far more likely to purchase. Furthermore, trusting customers are far more likely to return to make their second, third, and fourth purchases, and so on. Return customers that are loyal form one of the cornerstones of profitable online selling. They are valuable assets, and in this article, we discuss how to develop them. We showcase five ways to build consumer trust with your online store and turn once-off consumers into long-term shoppers.

1. Introduce Consumer Financing Features

Consumer financing features, or buy now pay later (BNPL) services, are integrations that enable shoppers to access loans from the websites that they shop. Instead of having to find financial aid elsewhere, consumers can use the integrated consumer lending platforms to secure financial support during the checkout process. This creates shopping efficiency and increases the likelihood of making a sale. The consumer-facing benefits of BNPL solutions build customer trust. The easy, affordable, and quick access to shopping financing empowers them, and they perceive this added value as an opportunity to connect with the brands that offer consumer financing. 

2. Improve Your Customer Service

Customer service is critical to building customer trust. A great customer service strategy will drive positive interactions with your brand community, showcasing the value to your existing consumers and those that stumble upon your online store for the first time. You should consider ways to improve all aspects of your customer service, from your time to first response to your time taken to resolve consumer problems. An assessment of these key performance indicators (KPIs) will provide you with insights to make improvements to your customer service strategy. This consistent approach to optimizing internal organization will enable you to build stronger and more trustworthy relationships with your shoppers. 

3. Highlight Your Achievements

Online stores should be proud of and showcase their achievements via their marketing channels. From social media posts to embedding Trustpilot reviews into your website pages, you can start making your most recent successes known to the public. This not only attracts new customers but showcases to your existing customers that you are consistently delivering on your brand promises. Highlighting your achievements is a great way to build customer trust and leverage the positive brand associations and perceptions that you have developed over time.

4. Take Accountability for Your Failures

In the same way that it is important to highlight your successes, you should also take accountability for your failures. There is no such thing as a perfect brand, and owning up to your mistakes is the nature of online selling. Instead of disregarding negative comments and letting uncomfortable leads from falling by the wayside, you should actively manage the negative information about your online store online. You should have a person or team of people, typically the marketing team, engaged with consumers online to answer their problems and provide support when failures occur. This transparency will win the trust of your customers.

5. Ensure You Are Always Reachable

Online stores should ensure that they are always reachable to build trust with customers. The modern consumer is searching for the most efficient services, and your store should deliver efficiency in your communications. You can install live chats or seek the aid of a call center to answer your consumers as quickly as possible. You should aim to reduce the time that it takes to respond to consumers, and deliver 24/7 communication support if you run an online store to successfully build customer trust.

Building trust with your customers is important for developing a successful online store. From introducing consumer financing to highlighting your successes and taking accountability for your failures, you can start building a sustainable and profitable brand community built on loyalty.

 

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Visa Embraces ChargeAfter’s BNPL Fintech Solution to Fuel eCommerce Growth

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Buy now pay later (BNPL) solutions are becoming a mainstay feature for successful eCommerce, so much so that Visa has recognized the significance of the solution. ChargeAfter is a leading BNPL fintech company that, among others, has caught the attention of the American multinational financial services corporation for its convenient, consumer-centric service that enables efficient and effective online shopping. Visa and companies like ChargeAfter continue to offer seamless shopping experiences for consumers around the world thanks to the integration of novel online financing technologies with eCommerce businesses across the globe.  

What Working With Visa Means for BNPL

The adoption of Visa into the BNPL framework enables Visa cardholders to utilize the features of the online financing solution. Consumers can input their card details through integration at checkout to receive consumer financing from networks of reliable lenders. ChargeAfter’s partnership with Visa ensures that businesses can access a wider audience, facilitating profitable growth through broader market share. Working with Visa means that BNPL financing companies like ChargeAfter can fulfill eCommerce customers browsing the various competitive online stores for their favorite products. Visa’s plans to leverage the existing BNPL platform with in-store shopping should ensure that online businesses are more capable of facilitating traditional brick-and-mortar operations as physical retail rises. This could ensure further market penetration for brands as profitable in-store solutions can provide a reason to open up a physical store. The future of BNPL with Visa looks promising for eCommerce stores big and small that wish to expand their operations.

What Sets BNPL Apart From Other Financing

BNPL is one of the most on-demand financing solutions on the market as it provides consumers with the most online shopping benefits. In a nutshell, BNPL solutions like those offered by leading company ChargeAfter provide consumer financing options that are split into monthly installments at no additional costs and without credit checks. This means that consumer shopping decisions are not stifled by hefty interest on monthly installments and more consumers can purchase products from online stores. For the business, eCommerce stores see an increase in sales as these benefits are tremendously appealing to the modern, skeptical, and tech-savvy online consumer. 

How Easy is it to Integrate BNPL?

With the help of Visa and companies like ChargeAfter, all eCommerce stores can quickly integrate BNPL solutions that will attract consumers and encourage business growth. The integration process is seamless, requiring owners or marketing teams to contact ChargeAfter for pricing and plans. Once an agreement is arranged and payment made, the BNPL checkout plug-in is installed on one’s behalf and available to consumers in no time. The integration is then managed and monitored by ChargeAfter to ensure that your consumers enjoy a seamless online shopping experience when utilizing the consumer financing feature. Other benefits of partnering with ChargeAfter’s trusted Visa BNPL solution include reporting and analytics from the ChargeAfter team. This data reveals ways to improve an online store’s functionality to improve the consumer experience, further promoting sales and better eCommerce. BNPL solutions from ChargeAfter can be integrated on all major eCommerce platforms including Shopify, Magento, Bigcommerce, WooCommerce, and Hybris. Therefore, all online stores can utilize the integration and reap the rewards of consumer financing functionality at checkout.

The partnership between Visa and ChargeAfter provides eCommerce owners with a reliable and profitable fintech solution that enables greater eCommerce growth. The consumer financing model provides shoppers with affordable, efficient, and effective financing options at the push of a button and without having to pay costly interest or process credit checks. The benefits to both consumer and business ensure that companies partnering with ChargeAfter see a profitable return on their investment and greater sales on their online retail platforms. 

 

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How to Reach More Millennial and Gen Z Shoppers This Year With Buy Now Pay Later

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This year, more millennial and gen z shoppers have entered the world of digital retail as mobile shopping has become more convenient than ever. The modern online shopping experience is extremely appealing to younger shoppers as it saves them time and money, that they would otherwise spend on having to travel to brick-and-mortar stores. Furthermore, millennial and gen z shoppers enjoy sourcing their favorite products from eCommerce platforms that align with their interests. This is more possible through online selling as millennials and gen z shoppers have few shopping restrictions in the digital space. In this article, we provide tips and tricks on how to reach more millennial and gen z shoppers this year to capitalize on their growing purchasing power. 

Integrate BNPL Options at Checkout

According to authoritative sources, buy now, pay later (BNPL) services are incredibly appealing to millennials and gen z shoppers. This is linked to the fact that BNPL services provide the most affordable financing on the market and require very little time investment traditionally required to take out loans from a financial service provider. Furthermore, these options do not require credit checks. Most of the shoppers within this category do not have credit cards or may have low credit scores as a result of foregoing the use of credit cards as traditionally done by older shoppers. BNPL options at checkout attract this consumer category as they solve several key pain points, and eCommerce businesses would be wise to partner with the best BNPL service providers to increase their sales to this shopping segment. 

Create Interactive Content

Beyond providing an affordable and seamless shopping experience at checkout through the integration of BNPL services, eCommerce brands should create interactive content that appeals to this younger demographic to win their attention. Dynamic content like quizzes and animated graphics are extremely appealing to millennials and gen z shoppers as they are more interactive than traditional forms of media. Furthermore, the use of these types of interactive content can help brands cut through the clutter on social feeds and Google.

Choose Better Advertising Placements

Hand in hand with creating content is distributing that content via the right platforms and at the right time. eCommerce marketing teams need to understand the platforms that millennials and gen z shoppers use, especially when browsing for products within specific industries. These consumers categories are particularly active on platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, and Reddit, making these channels ideal areas for advertising placements. That said, you should analyze your key metrics to determine the best areas to approach your younger shoppers. 

Offer Better Deals Than the Competition

Younger shoppers love a good deal, so eCommerce businesses should attract their attention with specials or discounts that are superior to that of the competitors. There are many ways to distribute deals, from coupon codes to influencer referrals, so consider all avenues while developing your promotion strategy. 

Take Advantage of Email Marketing

Be sure to take advantage of email marketing to distribute any and all of your most significant pieces of content. Email marketing is one of the biggest trends in digital marketing, and it applies to millennials and gen z shoppers. You should deliver promotions and other content via an email database that you can collect using powerful email magnets. 

By integrating BNPL services at checkout, creating interactive content, choosing better advertising placements, offering better deals than competitors, and taking advantage of email marketing, eCommerce marketing teams can reach more millennials and gen z shoppers this year to improve sales and grow profit margins. 

 

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What is Upselling and How Waterfall Consumer Financing Can Help

Posted on by chargeafterdev

Running a successful online store requires business owners to adopt several strategies and integrate them into their eCommerce operations. There are an array of interesting tools to use to increase sales and one of the most influential modern tactics is upselling. Upselling is a marketing strategy that we will share more detail about in this guide, and we will also discuss how waterfall consumer financing can help support your upselling tactics. 

What is Upselling?

Upselling is a sales strategy that eCommerce stores implement to encourage consumers to purchase more expensive items when browsing online stores. Upselling is a technique that businesses use to increase the average sales values of their consumers. Upselling is also incredibly beneficial when it comes to selling to existing customers, who are far more likely to invest in expensive items than new customers. By promoting more frequent sales of costly products, upselling also has the potential to raise customer lifetime values. Customer lifetime values refer to the total spend of a customer on an online store for the duration of their buying cycle with that store. Increasing this value can have significant benefits for your profit margins.

Difference Between Upselling and Cross-selling

Upselling differs from cross-selling in the way that it encourages the purchase of more expensive or premium items. Take, for example, a paid subscription plan. Most sellers will encourage customers to purchase their more exclusive plans by promoting several benefits of these premium packages that the more basic options do not deliver. Cross-selling differs in the way that it does not promote more expensive items but items that pair well with a customer’s chosen product. For example, a customer buying shoes may be interested in purchasing a new set of laces or socks with those shoes. Cross-selling helps customers find those related products quickly.

Best Upselling Strategies

Upselling is an effective sales strategy that can generate greater revenue than other tactics, such as cross-selling. Below, we share some of the best upselling strategies to consider for your online store:

  • Display recommendations at the bottom of a product page pointing towards more expensive items or premium products to encourage consumers to purchase these products.
  • Utilize pop-ups as recommendations that appear during the checkout process of the consumer journey. These can be a great way to encourage consumers to change their minds after they have landed on a specific product.
  • Follow-up emails can be sent to customers after a purchase to encourage them to shop again. You can personalize this form of marketing, offering products that may provide additional value to their lives based on their order history.
  • You can incentivize customers to take advantage of your upselling offers by sharing discounts or rewards with them for doing so.
  • You can allude to the potential downsides of not taking advantage of the upsell offers.

How Waterfall Consumer Financing Supports Upselling

Waterfall consumer financing can support your upselling strategies. Waterfall consumer financings as a service is an integration that enables customers to access financial support at checkout. They can apply for loans without having to undergo credit checks or leave your online store. One of the main benefits of waterfall consumer financing is that it encourages customers to purchase more expensive items. It enables them to easily access the financing necessary to order premium products. 

Upselling is a strategy to implement in your online store. It is a great way to increase customer lifetime values and generate more profit. With the addition of waterfall consumer financing, you can see improvements to your average order values and enjoy a greater return on marketing investment.

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5 Stages of the Consumer Journey and Where Online Financing Drives Sales

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eCommerce stores and their owners can benefit greatly from a deeper understanding of their customers. From the ways in which customers interact with an online store to how they filter through the sales funnel, developing a clear roadmap of the shopping experience generates insights for optimization and online store improvements. Understanding the five stages of the consumer journey allows businesses to map out the behavior of their customers. Furthermore, it pinpoints areas to focus on and how the integration of new tools like online financing can drive sales at particular points of the consumer journey.

1. Awareness Stage

The awareness stage refers to the first step that consumers take to become aware of a particular brand and the products that they sell online. In this stage, the consumer has a problem that they wish to resolve in their lives by acquiring products that can remedy their pain points. This is what we call a navigational stage as consumers begin to search Google for answers to their problems. They may, for example, search ‘how to fix my television set’. Through the creation of targeted blogs and landing pages, you can provide content to answer this search intent. This brings consumer awareness to your brand and the ability to resolve their problems. 

2. Consideration Stage

Once consumers are aware of your brand and the products that you sell, they move into the consideration stage. In this stage, they show an active interest in your products and compare them to similar products sold by other eCommerce stores. For example, they may arrive at your blog on how to fix their television set and see promotional material advertising the new televisions that you sell. This promotional material can entice them to purchase a new television or electronics from your store as opposed to trying to fix their old television set. They will, at this stage, compare the televisions and electronics that you sell with those that other stores sell. They will be looking at the prices of your products, online reviews from other people who have purchased your products, FAQs, and delivery information to make their decision.

3. Purchase Stage

The purchase stage, or decision stage, is where the consumer makes the final call whether or not to buy products from your store. They may choose to buy, moving through to the next stage of the consumer journey or they may still look for added value to entice a purchase. For example, the integration of online financing can support the purchase stage. This added value offering provides consumers with cost-effective financing enabling them to purchase expensive products, such as a new television. If your competitors do not offer online financing, then you are likely to land the sale. 

4. Retention Stage 

Once customers have purchased from your store, they move into the retention stage. During the checkout process, you will have likely asked them for their email address or other contact information to facilitate the fulfillment of their order. They then become part of your email list and you can keep consumers interested through a customer retention strategy. You may, for example, ask for feedback, send discounts, or offer VIP programs to retain consumers and convert them to return customers. 

5. Advocacy Stage

Customers that are particularly satisfied with your products and service delivery move into the advocacy stage. These customers become brand advocates that share their positive experiences with other customers online as well as with their friends and family. They will actively leave positive reviews and join your brand community as they positively associate your brand with the values that you represent. 

Customers move through five stages of the consumer journey when shopping with eCommerce platforms; the awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy stages. Assessing each consumer’s movement through these stages and integrating tools to facilitate a seamless consumer journey, such as partnering with a leading online financing company, will help you drive sales and generate revenue.

 

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5 Modern Marketing Strategies for eCommerce Success With Consumer Financing in 2022

Posted on by chargeafterdev

Grow your eCommerce business and enjoy a profitable business year by adopting the latest marketing strategies for online stores. Evolving strategies to incorporate modern marketing strategies can set your store apart. Furthermore, the integration of consumer financing to support modern marketing will yield successful results. In this article, we outline five modern marketing strategies for eCommerce success that you can use to guide your activities. Backed with consumer financing, these tips should help you convert more customers this calendar year. 

1. Geotargeting

eCommerce is incredibly competitive as anyone can create an online store. Platforms like Shopify have made the store set up incredibly easy, and SEO allows businesses to reach audiences around the world. But, when it comes to securing more business, one should consider the geotargeting strategies this year. Geotargeting involves developing marketing material and localized SEO that attracts specific buyers from specific locations. This goes against the more traditional approach to SEO by driving numbers to one’s website. Instead, you want to drive a select few valuable users to your website for greater conversion rates. Instead of opting for broad marketing, this process involves creating niche segments based on location to yield profitable traffic to your website. 

2. Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing refers to the cohesive marketing approach via multiple sales channels to deliver a clear, concise, and consistent brand message to consumers. This approach involves supporting consumers at every step of the sales funnel, from advertising online stores to ensuring seamless delivery and securing consumer buy-in with great packaging and continued communications. Omnichannel marketing ensures that businesses stay front of mind with consumers, encouraging and promoting customer retention as a result. 

3. Live Video

Video content remains the most popular among consumers as it is immersive, engaging, and informative. This year, you can take your video marketing efforts to the next level by integrating live video content into your social calendar. Live video content personalizes your brand and gives consumers a reason to buy into your eCommerce platform. By providing a face behind your brand, you can develop closer connections with your community and increase customer lifetime values. Live video content can come in the forms of social media live videos, webinars, training sessions, and streams to leverage the array of consumers accessing video content via various platforms and channels. 

4. Voice Search

Voice search is an incredibly powerful channel to take advantage of this year as more and more people are shopping via the functionality. By optimizing your eCommerce store for voice search and investigating advertising avenues through the functionality, you can target a new customer segment to drive more sales. Leveraging voice search is a viable and reliable strategy for eCommerce success this year and beyond.

5. Consumer Financing

Consumer financing works hand in hand with the strategies mentioned above as it supports the sales funnel, particularly during the checkout stage. ChargeAfter is a leading consumer financing partner that provides seamless integration for eCommerce stores. The solution invites consumers to take advantage of on-demand financing at the push of a button. This gives them access to financing necessary to make a purchase, encouraging them to filter through the final step in the sales funnel. The addition of consumer financing can benefit one’s business by increasing conversion rates and driving the sale of larger orders. 

As businesses continue to compete this year, it is time to integrate new marketing strategies that can set your eCommerce store apart. From geotargeting to omnichannel marketing, providing video content, optimizing for voice search, and integrating consumer financing, we ensure profitable success through the implementation of these five modern marketing strategies.

 

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How Waterfall Consumer Financing Can Support Your Multichannel Selling

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Long gone are the days of brands using one sales channel to drive conversions. In the modern world of eCommerce, having multiple sales channels is critical as brands hope to attract customers from all over the world. From websites to social media platforms and so much more, driving traffic and conversions through multiple sales funnels is imperative to business success. In this article, we discuss multichannel selling in more detail and share how you can leverage waterfall consumer financing to guarantee success.

What is Multichannel Selling?

Multichannel selling refers to the process of using multiple sales channels to drive online traffic and makes sales. It may not be necessary to have a brick-and-mortar store but it is absolutely essential to have an online space for shopping. Then, it would be ideal to serve consumers through various sales channels to broaden your reach and targettable audience. Doing so can help your business attract more consumer interest as you tailor it to specific consumer segments across the diverse digital playground.

Multichannel selling can involve selling products on an online store, marketing those products through platforms like Facebook, optimizing your digital storefronts for mobile, taking advantage of third-party sales platforms like Amazon, and utilizing Google Shopping functionality. A combination of these activities will ensure that you are approaching customers that use a range of methods to shop. 

The Benefits of Multichannel Selling

Multichannel selling is incredibly powerful, and we discuss the key benefits of incorporating a multichannel selling strategy into your online business.

Multichannel selling enables businesses to reach customers where they shop most. Some shoppers prefer to click through Facebook Ads to view websites, others make sales when arriving at online stores from Google Search. Some consumers prefer to order through Amazon and others browse purely on their mobile devices. Multichannel selling ensures that you cater to all types of shoppers.

Multichannel selling facilitates a seamless shopping journey. No matter where your customers arrive from, they are directed to landing pages and along a customer journey that is curated to their consumer profile. You can strategize the best sales funnel possible for each consumer, developing a stronger chance to land a sale.

Multichannel selling is used by the biggest and best brands around the world. Adopting multichannel selling strategies from these companies lets you compete for their consumers and in their digital spaces. Healthy competition makes for better business, and you can see success by leveraging the success of other businesses. 

How Waterfall Consumer Financing Supports Multichannel Selling

Part of making a multichannel selling strategy work is to provide consumers with the best online functionalities possible. The most powerful integration to do this, especially during the checkout stage of the consumer journey is waterfall consumer financing. ChargeAfter’s powerful consumer financing platform gives consumers access to on-demand financing to complete their orders. The benefits of waterfall consumer financing lie in its ability to approve consumers that may have otherwise not qualified for traditional financing via traditional lenders. As a result, you can approve more customers than you had previously been able to with a single lender. This will lead to greater sales and larger orders, resulting in a more profitable business.

Waterfall consumer financing can support your multichannel selling strategy, ensuring you remain competitive in the digital shopping environment. So, what are you waiting for? Why not integrate a multichannel selling strategy with waterfall consumer financing today!

 

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4 Reasons Shoppers Abandon Their Carts and How to Stop It From Happening

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Online shopping interest continues to climb and stores need to adapt to reduce common risks of online retail. When looking at key performance indicators (KPIs), brands may find that shoppers continue to leave their stores after adding items to their carts without actually making a purchase. This is a concern as many brand owners do not know the reasons why their shoppers may be leaving before making a purchase. In this article, we shed light on the main reasons shoppers abandon their carts and offer a solution to ensure that you resolve these issues before they occur. 

What is Cart Abandonment

As mentioned, cart abandonment refers to the consumer act of adding items to their carts and leaving before actually making a purchase. Cart abandonment is incredibly challenging for the modern online store as mystery shrouds the decisions of consumers as to why they do so. But, we have insight into why based on industry sources as well as an answer to help you minimize the risks of cart abandonment. 

Why Consumers Abandon Their Carts

Below, we explore the main reasons consumers abandon their shopping carts before making a purchase.

1. Limited Payment Options

Consumers want variety and prefer to shop with businesses that can provide payment options tailored to their unique shopping behaviors. Every shopper is different, and brands can attract a wider audience by facilitating a seamless payment experience. Through partnering with Fintech companies like ChargeAfter, brands can also leverage additional payment options that involve comprehensive consumer financing coverage. Consumer financing is one of the most attractive payment options as it allows customers to receive zero-interest repayment plans without having to go through credit checks. The benefits for businesses are that more consumers can shop with their online stores, increasing their consumer base and leveraging greater sales in the process. 

2. High Costs

Consumers often choose to abandon their carts as they fear the high costs when reviewing their items. But, brands can eliminate these fears by integrating consumer financing features. Consumer financing connects consumers with lenders capable of covering the total expense without requiring any interest. This means that shoppers can not only pay for their carts on the fly but do not have to suffer from expensive monthly repayment packages. This is a key strategy for reducing abandonment rates.

3. Web Security Concerns

The modern shopper is skeptical and aware of shady marketing strategies that many brands deploy in the online retail industry. For these reasons, brands need to give consumers confidence in their purchases. Doing so can greatly reduce the risks of cart abandonment rates as building trust is critical to online eCommerce success. Ensuring that you have and clearly display web security coverage is important. From shopping guarantees to online ID protection, every security feature is noticed by the consumer. You can also build trust other ways, and the following resource provides suggestions on ways to build brand trust with your consumers beyond integrating stronger website security features. 

4. Account Creation

Many shoppers steer clear of websites where they have to create an account to shop. Instead, brands should offer guest shopping functionality and continue to make consumer financing available to shoppers that choose this option. Though the checkout process is longer, consumers sometimes prefer this route as it is a more private way to shop online. 

As mentioned, the integration of consumer financing can help brands reduce cart abandonment rates as shoppers are extremely attracted by the benefits that the feature offers them. Therefore, businesses should consider partnering with leading consumer financing platforms to minimize risk and improve sales, seeing long-term and profitable growth as a result. 

 

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