The New Apple Pay Plugin

Author

Abdullah Abdelkafi

Date

28 Jan 2020

Read time

7 Minutes

Payments

– Introducing the new payment plug-in from Total Processing – offering an alternative customer journey that optimises the customer checkout and increases conversions sitewide. –

Cart abandonment is one of the main obstacles to navigate in e-commerce for retailers and other merchants alike. However, no matter the amount of variables that businesses are tackling, the fact is, the global cart abandonment rate stands at 72.86% at the desktop. With an increased abandonment rate across mobile and tablets of 85.65% and 80.4% respectively, there is one key variable to overcome; and that is in the call to optimise the checkout flow.

With a point of friction that is identified through the shrinking down of checkouts to the smaller screens and differing shapes of a phone or iPad; there is a clear call to action to adopt payment solutions that are are also omnichannel solutions when we’re discussing how to optimise the checkout flow.

One point of resolve for the optimisation of the checkout flow lies in APMs. Otherwise known as an alternative payment method, the new Apple Pay plug-in from Total Processing for WooCommerce via WordPress is not just easy to integrate but is tactically robust for the data it leverages on behalf of its merchant.

What is Apple Pay?

Apple Pay is a digital wallet that enables payments without requiring its users to fill in unnecessary forms, or manually add card details.

Whilst Apple Pay is most notably known for its use at NFC terminals such as the Point of Sale via iPhone, it has more recently made a name of being used both at the desktop in e-commerce sales.

Users of Apple Pay have access to choice at the POS and online within one walletless interface with a touch or a look. Apple Pay can be used via iPhone, Apple watch, iPad or via MacBook with a safari browser and completed with touch and facial ID in order to meet 2FA compliance standards.

With no £30 limit at contactless, Apple Pay truly helps customers succeed limitless payment preferences whilst catering to the 71% of consumers who prefer to use credit and debit via the medium of a smartphone device over other APMs.

An Omnichannel Solution

As 61% of consumers believe that smartphones will take over the function of physical cards within the next 5 years, Apple Pay has already taken leaps to revolutionize payment solutions in its use as an omnichannel payment method.

The Total Processing Apple Pay plugin for WooCommerce further extends the capabilities and features of Apple Pay by also enhancing the merchant experience and streamline the checkout flow on all ends of the transaction.

Is it Safe?

Apple uses device-specific numbers, tokenization and unique transaction codes to ensure that no data is stored or shared with each purchase. Whilst Apple Pay is usually integrated into checkout flows via a software developer kit there is no need to do so with our plugin, as we facilitate the integration for you via the plugin’s basic operational function; saving you a £79 developer account fee.

In what would take other options up to a week to set up, the Total Processing plugin takes mere minutes, with a checkout process that is instantaneous and optimised for customers on both desktop and mobile.

To use Apple Pay via mobile at the POS:

With Apple Pay’s native iPhone function, users must first upload a payment debit or credit card via camera scan in the Apple Pay app. From there, they can use Apple Pay without opening the environment, using their default payment method with NFC capabilities by hovering their device near a POS reader. 2FA is completed when the customer unlocks their phone via touch or face ID. Other Security methods that can be enabled are pin and password.

To use Apple Pay via Desktop:

Apple Pay is available at the Desktop via any Mac operating system that supports Sierra OS or higher. Usable via the safari internet browser, Apple in this medium, replaces hosted payment pages via the integration of its pre filled forms that hold the necessary information such as payment and billing details.

To use, the consumer chooses to checkout with Apple Pay and after reviewing their payment information is redirected to their iPhone or other Apple devices to confirm with touch or Face ID in an omnichannel shopping experience. In newer MacBook models, customers can also confirm a purchase directly with the touch ID enabled touch-bar.

Plugging-in:

Integrating ‘pay with Apple Pay’ is as simple as downloading our plugin via the WooCommerce store by WordPress.
Easy to configure and enable in the WooCommerce backend environment in WordPress, users can manage the plugin via the WooCommerce environment.

By selecting the payments tab, users can configure the plugin via an on/off button, as well as access management settings.

Apple Pay buttons can be presented prior to the checkout flow so customers will have the option to bypass the regular payment journey with a ‘pay with Apple Pay’ option.

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Users of the plugin will be able to specifically configure:

Card Schemes used via Apple Pay

Display Area Placement

Button and Cart styles

Device-specific looks such as mobile optimisation which will help the 74% of customers who are likely to revisit a mobile-friendly site.

And be able to manage transactions made via Apple Pay directly in WooCommerce.

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The Alternative Customer Journey:

Offering an APM before a customer reaches a traditional checkout flow is integral due to the 21% of cart abandonments that were because of the lengthy, form field process. Whilst the typical checkout flow has 23.48 elements, and an ideal checkout flow should have 12.

In offering Apple Pay, merchants are onboarding customers that typically have already built-up a trust and loyalty for their Apple provider – at least in e-commerce. Having trusted Apple with their payment details via app stores, there’s no wondering why conversions at desktop are proven to increase by 15% and by 20% at mobile with Apple Pay, including a further boost in conversions with the reduction of unnecessary form fields to fill out.

A general consensus showed that a preference for e-wallets was due to a 59% favourability for speed, a 49% preference on optimised security capabilities and another 44% preference for how convenient they are to use.

Furthermore, these stats align with the 11% of cart abandonments that were due to payment concerns and 18% of which were due to excessive security checks that are automatically met within APMs such as Apple Pay.

The use of the Total Processing Plug-in also tackles the added concerns of human error that lead to an increase in payment declines and cart abandonments. With the ability to directly pull preconfigured data from Apple Pay via this payment method, the only way a customer is able to incorrectly input billing , contact, or shipping address information, is by doing so in their initial set-up on their Apple device – long before starting their customer journey.

Currently, £212bn of global cart abandonment revenue loss could be avoided by offering APMs to consumers.

Get More from Apple Pay:

Offering an APM such as Apple Pay is one of the reasons why top-ranking sites are 17% faster than those not listed in the top 10. Alongside other variables such as image optimisation, installing an Apple Pay checkout could increase the checkout flow and speed by 50% on average. The average loading speed for the top-ranking websites is 1.9 seconds, and the addition of Apple Pay is a harmless addition in meeting these ideal loading speeds in the reduction of payment flow elements. A slow loading site will decrease conversions by 75%. With the addition of Apple’s in-built universe, the fight against the deduction of site loyalty by 50% due to slow processes is just another added element to the general consensus on site optimisation for merchants.

The future of APMs:

By 2021 the value of all global online sales was set to be worth $4.85 trillion USD (£3.7 trillion GBP). This is a value estimated in light of the increasing percentage of purchases made with the easy-acceptance and checkout flow methods afforded by APMs. Currently, the global use of APMs stands to hold a 47% share of online payments methods across the globe.

Apple Pay, in particular, is currently integrated across 282, 711 sites worldwide – 17, 474 of which are based in the UK and included top traffic ranking sites such as Etsy and Wayfair.

By 2040 it is thought that 95% of all sales will be made via e-commerce, but with up to 24 million active e-commerce sites in the world, the m-commerce stake is estimated to make up 72.9% by 2021- calling for an omnichannel solution such as a mass-adoption of Apple Pay long before 2040’s figure is met.

Apple Pay is an APM with the ability to tackle omnichannel cart abandonment rates, whilst catering to a multi-medium e-commerce landscape with ease.

To get started, enquire about our plugin today.

Sources:

Jean-Michel Soopramanien – Technical Director at Total Processing

Dally Singh – Technical Executive at Total Processing

https://www.totalprocessing.com/blog/apple-google-web-pay

https://www.apple.com/uk/apple-pay/

https://other.media/five-ways-apple-pay-changes-ecommerce

https://designadvisor.net/blog/shopping-cart-abandonment-stats/

https://baymard.com/lists/cart-abandonment-rate

https://99firms.com/blog/ecommerce-statistics/#gref

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/04/increasing-mobile-checkout-conversions/