Offering multiple payment methods isn’t just an option for businesses—it’s a necessity. Why?
Customers expect flexibility and convenience in payment options. So, if you don’t meet their needs, they’ll turn to your competitors. And this isn’t something any business would be proud of.
This is why you need to offer multiple payment options for your business.
In this post, you’ll discover the numerous benefits your business can reap by adding multiple payment options. These include increased customer satisfaction, higher sales, and a competitive edge among others.
You’ll also learn how to seamlessly make payment processing more efficient with the BizKit business management solution, giving you the confidence to implement these changes.
Let’s dive in!
What are the Payment Options Available to Customers?
Are you considering implementing various payment methods for your business?
Before we discuss the benefits of multiple payment options, let’s first examine what options are available for customers and businesses.
You can consider five options:
- Cash
- Mobile money
- Traditional payment options, such as cheques, debit and credit cards and bank transfers.
- Adapt to modern trends of digital methods such as digital wallets (e-wallets) and online transfer (SasaPay, PayPal, GooglePay, Apple Pay, JumiaPay, etc.)
- Explore modern, sophisticated methods such as cryptocurrency and blockchain.
Choosing the Right Payment Method for Your Business
No one payment option is best. The best one depends on the needs of your customers and the nature of your business.
Before you decide which multiple payment options to offer, understand how each method works before offering it to customers.
For instance, in Kenya, customers prefer mobile money and card payments (credit or debit card). These two payment options are quicker and more convenient at checkouts than cash or check and are also accepted almost everywhere.
The right payment method for your business will depend on several factors, such as:
- The demographic you’re targeting (for example, GenZ, millennials, or more senior customers)
- How much you value security over convenience – digital payment options are more secure and convenient
- The risks involved. A POS device is required to use cards, and you may have to pay part of the transaction fees. It also delays and takes time to reflect on your account.
Implementing payment methods that will not add value to your business is unnecessary.
The Benefits of Multiple Payment Options
Letting the customer decide which payment method to use at checkout from among the ones you offer is a huge competitive advantage with so many benefits to you and your customers. Here are the six key benefits:
1. Improved customer experience (CX)
As a business, you want your customers to have the best experience in your store. One way to do this is by accepting multiple payment options. This improves the overall customer experience by reducing payment challenges so customers can complete transactions quickly, easily, and with the satisfaction of their preferred methods.
So, integrating the most popular payment methods in your business can improve your customer experience. For example, in Kenya, while cash is King, M-Pesa is a largely preferred method, and more people are also beginning to prefer cards. Giving them these options will improve their experience and make them repeat customers.
If you operate an online store, statistics indicate that 9% of online shoppers abandon their carts at checkout if they can’t find their preferred payment options.
2. Maximise conversions
Imagine this type of customer experience: A customer comes to your store, sees three items they absolutely want, adds them to their basket, and at checkout, misses their preferred payment option.
What next?
At the very least, switching to their non-preferred payment method will take them longer. That is poor customer experience (CX).
The most likely option is to walk out. If it’s an online store, they’ll abandon the cart. Their next move is to find another store where they can pay comfortably and conveniently. That’s a lost conversion and a lost sale.
A broader selection of payment methods would mean the customer pays, you make the sale, and your business conversion rates would increase.
When integrating payment options, start with the most popular to ensure your clients can instantly find their preferred payment option. This can help you increase your conversion rates.
3. Appeal to a wider demographic
Different customers prefer different payment methods. Some customers prefer cash, others prefer mobile money (such as M-Pesa or Airtel Money), while some use credit or debit cards.
Increasingly, more customers, especially the younger demographic, want digital wallets (such as SasaPay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal).
With many payment option predispositions, offering one or two payment methods may be enough for most of your customer base. But if you want to reach a wider customer demographic and even new customers, you should offer more payment options.
Make your store very easy at checkout.
4. Increase customer loyalty
This is as straightforward as it sounds.
When customers know they can pay at your store however they like, they’ll likely shop with you again.
They’ll feel that shopping at your store is simpler, quicker, and more convenient, increasing the chance of stronger customer loyalty for you.
This happens for both physical and online shops.
For example, Safaricom-Mpesa now offers three options for mobile payments: Till Number, Paybill, Kopokopo and even STK Push. You can consider having all so that customers will choose their preferred option to pay.
A hassle-free purchase process improves customer experience and encourages them to return and buy again.
5. Reduce abandoned carts
Here is the logic: if you can maximize conversion rates, you’ll definitely reduce abandoned carts.
If customers can come to your store, shop, and pay conveniently, you’ll have fewer abandoned carts, which are not related to payment options.
You can make this further easier in your online store by introducing instant payments. This is where customers can Click to Pay. This expedites customer experience and reduces their chance of looking for products elsewhere.
It’s an easy checkout for customers, with little effort.
6. Enhance brand perception
Every business wants its brand to be instantly recognized. It’s better if the brand is recognized positively and warmly.
Brand perception is how customers and other stakeholders feel about your brand.
For instance, compare your feelings about your local Kiosk, the estate store and large retail stores like Naivas, Chandarana, or Carrefour. What are the payment options? How do you view them?
Of course, large retail stores offer you multiple payment options, which the Kiosk or local estate stores don’t. This is what customers want.
Offering customers multiple payment options enhances their perception of your brand.
Process multiple payment options with BizKit
There is a big risk in not offering multiple payment methods in your store.
Your customers will switch elsewhere, which means you lose sales. Worse, they may never return, and they could share their bad experience with friends, family or in reviews. You may end up losing out on other potential customers going forward.
Use Bizkit business management solution to streamline payment processing and offer multiple payment options. With Bizkit, BizKit, you can effortlessly process various payment methods and automatically update your accounts. Whether it’s cash, credit cards, mobile wallets, or other popular payment options, BizKit handles it all on one platform.
