Appeal to the highest number of potential customers by offering credit card, PayPal and check/other payment methods at checkout.
This post covers our Add Ons that extend the checkout payment options and allow you to offer up to three unique payment methods.
Why should you offer multiple payment methods?
Ask five friends how comfortable they are making purchases online and I promise you will receive a variety of responses:
- the 100% “no fear” online shopper,
- those that are “slightly concerned” buying things online, and finally…
- the “highly reluctant to enter my credit card number anywhere” customer.
We know that this variety of comfort levels exist, so what can you do as an online merchant to appeal to the largest array of buyers?
You can offer multiple payment methods.
Offering PayPal as a Payment Method at Checkout
PayPal offers peace of mind to buyers that have concerns paying you directly.
PayPal gives consumers a layer of protection when making purchases online. They are a well known merchant with industry-leading security features beyond anything you can put in place for your own website. In addition, PayPal offers simple tools to allow consumers to manage who they have paid, communicate with issues about their purchases, cancel subscription payments linked to their account, and report fraudulent or unauthorized activity.
Our Add PayPal Express Add On adds PayPal as a payment method in addition to the primary payment gateway.
Note: To add the credit card and PayPal logos, follow the steps in this tutorial.
Add Check/Other Direct Payment Method at Checkout
When a majority of your target members fall into the “highly uncomfortable making purchases online” group, offering an offline payment method, such as mailing a check, can greatly improve conversions.
The “Pay by Check” option is particularly important for “offline” membership groups or associations that are just getting started with an online system. In this case, some percentage of your members are already comfortable making payment by mail and wish to continue doing so. Moving to an online-only system can alienate the members who prefer the status quo (unless the overhead to do so is prohibitively expensive or labor-intensive).
Our Pay by Check Add On adds a “Pay by Check” method in addition to your primary gateway — and it doesn’t have to be a traditional “check” payment. Some sites use this Add On to provide bank transfer instructions or to directly invoice members after checkout via other invoicing systems.
Offer Credit Card, PayPal and Check Payment Methods
These Add Ons are all compatible, so you can activate and configure both the Add PayPal Express Add On and the Pay by Check Add On to offer three payment methods at checkout.
Note that if you are already using PayPal Website Payments Pro as the primary gateway, you will need to install and activate the Add PayPal Express to Checkout Add On and Pay by Check Add On to offer all three payment methods.
Now go give it a try!
These Add Ons are both simple to set up and will hopefully lead to a higher conversion rate (more $$$) for your membership program. Here are the links to the Add On documentation pages for reference:
As always, if you are experiencing any issues with your payment methods or checkout page behavior, please post a topic on our members support forum.
