Though online and mobile commerce has exploded in recent years, merchants still have trouble getting customers to seal the deal online. According to one study, during the regular retail season only 26 percent of online carts result in an actual purchase among desktop shoppers. On smartphones, the conversion rate is an astonishingly low 16 percent.1
As merchants look for ways to solve this problem, they face an ever increasingly crowded landscape of new products. So, what’s a merchant to do?
Visa Checkout, which stores customers’ payment information and enables enrolled users the ability to checkout in just a few clicks, who choose to stay signed in, isn’t the only answer to the conversion problem, but it is a great option. Unlike some companies that have rolled out digital wallets, payments are not just a side business for us. It’s not a casual foray into a hot new space. It’s our core business.
Visa Checkout currently has more than 20 million enrolled accounts, and that number continues to rise steadily. More importantly, we have actually demonstrated the ability to solve the conversion problem. According to a 2015 study, Visa Checkout customers completed 86 percent of the transactions they began from the shopping cart that’s 51 percent better than traditional online checkout.2
Ultimately, security will play a major role in determining the success of payment platforms in the long term. This is a point of emphasis for Visa Checkout. For instance, a recent study showed that Visa Checkout’s fraud volume as percentage of sales was 63% lower than non-Visa Checkout volume at top Visa Checkout merchants.3
Another thing that will drive the digital wallet space—continuous innovation. At Visa, we are not content to continue existing as a traditional wallet. We have transformed Visa Checkout into a platform that will allow users to log in and authenticate their identities with other participating wallets, such as Android Pay and Samsung Pay, using a fingerprint. Partnering with a platform, rather than a specific wallet, allows merchants to integrate multiple payment options into one button, which in turn streamlines and simplifies the customer experience.
Finding new ways to make it easier for people to pay for what they need, helping merchants convert consumer interest into sales, and doing it all in a safe, secure fashion. That’s what Visa Checkout is all about, and that’s why we’ll still be here when other digital wallets start to fade away.
