The online retailer allows shoppers to pay for eyewear in installments, which is boosting GlassesUSA’s average order value.

GlassesUSA.com has a new prescription to fight cart abandonment: payment installments.

The online eyeglass retailer, No. 362 in the Internet Retailer 2016 Top 500 Guide, installed an option six months ago on its checkout page that allows shoppers to pay the cost of their order in installments. In the half year the retailer has had the feature, GlassesUSA’s cart abandonment rate has fallen 10%, says GlassesUSA CEO and co-founder Daniel Rothman.

GlassesUSA uses technology vendor Splitit, formerly known as PayItSimpleUSA Inc., for this feature, which works with Visa and Mastercard credit cards. The payment installments are free for shoppers; GlassesUSA pays a fee to Splitit per installment, plus a fee based on the percentage of the entire sale, Rothman says, though he declines to reveal specifics.

Paying in interest-free installments allows a shopper to purchase a higher-priced product than she may have otherwise bought, Rothman says. In fact, the retailer only displays payment installments as an option to shoppers who have more than $120 worth of product in their cart. The retailer also uses an algorithm that factors in whether a shopper is sensitive to price, however Rothman declined detail what metrics factor into that algorithm. Product price is the main determinant if a shopper will see the Splitit feature, he says.

“Thousands” of shoppers each day see the installment option, Rothman says. On average, 66,632 consumers visit GlassesUsa.com each day, according to data from digital analytics firm SimilarWeb Ltd. for the past 28 days.

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The installment payment feature also increased the retailer’s average order value by 12% for consumers spending more than $120 in products, Rothman says without revealing specifics. Internet Retailer estimates GlassesUSA’s average ticket value at $128, according to Top500Guide.com.

After a consumer adds frames to her cart and selects the lenses she needs, she sees a total price. For example, if the cost is $573, under this total she will see “or 3 x $191 interest-free payments.”  If she clicks on the text, a message pops up giving her more information about the service and telling her she will must choose “Pay With Splitit” at checkout. After a shopper types in her credit card and billing information, she then selects the Pay With Splitit option. Splitit processes the payment, but the shopper does not leave the GlassesUSA page during  checkout, Rothman says.

The payment is broken into three, or five installments, and GlassesUSA receives payment in installments as well.

The payment feature required a few days to integrate onto the retailer’s site, Rothman says. GlassesUSA also wants to expand Splitit so it will show up as an option before a shopper lands on the checkout page—for example, on the product page. This way, the shopper may be more inclined to put a more expensive pair of frames in her cart, Rothman says.

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