Ralph Dangelmaier, CEO, BlueSnap
In 2018, consumers spent $517.36 billion online, demonstrating just how fast the ecommerce industry is growing. In addition, online B2B sales increased 11 percent in 2018, reaching $1.08 trillion. In order for businesses to keep up with this demand, new trends and strategies are developing just as rapidly.
If you’re selling online, you’re probably well-versed on the latest goings-on in the industry. But have you been keeping an eye on potential future happenings? It’s equally important to know what might be coming down the line so you can be prepared.
Read on for some insights about payment trends and payment technology trends as we enter the second half of 2019.
1. Shoppers will be offered an increasing variety of experiences.
For a long time, there were just two primary payment experiences—you either went to a store and handed your payment to a cashier, or you shopped online and entered your information on a checkout page.
In recent years, payments have begun to diverge from those familiar paths—a trend likely to pick up through the rest of 2019. For one thing, digital and in-store experiences are increasingly converging. For example, you can order a meal from Panera on your phone and pay for it there, then pick it up in-store. You might even visit a restaurant and order and pay on an iPad.
The continued emphasis on seamless payments will also contribute to this trend. Some app experiences are already making the payment process so invisible you don’t even think about it. Uber, for instance, keeps its entire experience focused on getting a ride—not paying for it—by keeping customers’ information on file and charging them automatically. An even greater variety of payment experiences will likely emerge in the next six months.
2. More retailers will look for ways to simplify their payment stack.
On average, businesses have five gateway processors and four acquiring banks. Maybe their original gateway didn’t have a particular payment method, so they added another. Then, neither of the first two offered cross-border support, so they added another, and so on.
This multiplicity of payment solutions happens almost inadvertently in the name of improving the payment process. But instead of improving the process, it causes businesses to struggle with managing accounts, integrations, payment data and payouts.
Simplification is a payment-processing industry trend that’s just on the horizon. All-in-one payment solutions are available that provide extensive and flexible coverage for just about anything a merchant wants to offer. More merchants will likely take advantage of these solutions in the upcoming months to make payments easier.
3. Account takeover attempts will increase.
Account takeover used to be an issue primarily for banks and financial services companies, but not so much for ecommerce merchants. That’s been changing in 2019, with an increase in account takeover attempts likely to happen in the ecommerce realm through the end of the year. Two factors are contributing to this projected increase:
- More consumers are storing payment, billing, and shipping information with specific ecommerce stores—and using the same user names and passwords at all of them. The information a hacker would gain just by accessing your Amazon account would, in many cases, be enough to architect successful social engineering attacks on your friends and family.
- Many merchants’ fraud prevention solutions focus solely on evaluating transactions as they happen, not on protecting account information.
As the number of attacks increases, we’ll see more merchants picking up on the impact of account takeover fraud and putting more emphasis on protecting the entire customer journey from beginning to end.
4. There will be an increasing need for strong customer authentication that is user-friendly.
The deadline for European businesses to ensure they’re compliant with new PSD2 regulations is approaching quickly, and companies need to act now to ensure that their payment-processing system meets the requirements in time.
In the second half of 2019, businesses should implement 3-D Secure 2.0 to comply with the new regulations. The new updates to 3-D Secure 1.0 make for a better user experience. The original version required shoppers to remember a specific security code to authenticate their identity during checkout. Additionally, 3-D Secure 1.0 did not work on mobile, so businesses that used it were experiencing high levels of cart abandonment.
3D Secure 2.0 has solved those issues. The most recent upgrades include filling a number of functionality gaps, including the addition of mobile support; offering significant improvements to the user experience, which could lower shopping cart abandonment; allowing for a more seamless integration with businesses’ existing e-commerce solutions; and creating better transaction fraud protection.
5. The number of cross-border ecommerce transactions will increase.
The number of outlets last year that reported on the popularity of digital cross-border buying is staggering. Accenture predicts that more than 200 million Chinese will be cross-border shopping by 2020, generating a total transactional value of $245 billion. In a survey conducted by BlueSnap in February, 37 percent of North American consumers reported making an international purchase at least once a month. If you haven’t already positioned your business for success in this area, now is the time.
All in all, it promises to be an exciting six months for ecommerce businesses—get prepared now so you can stay ahead!
BlueSnap is an ecommerce payment service provider.
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