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Increase your revenue from existing customers

Increase your revenue from existing customers

Increase your revenue from existing customers

Strategies to boost sales from existing customers

Merchants are often faced with the problem of stagnant or worse, diminishing revenues from existing customers. Constantly reinventing and innovating one’s service offerings, cross selling and reducing the customers’ pain points are key strategies to enhance revenue realisation from existing clients. We shall look into some of the winning strategies that can help merchants improve sales conversion from their existing customer base:

  1. Customer engagement: Interactions with the e-commerce merchant influence client perceptions. Superior post purchase support and FAQs on the website about the products are some examples. It is also a good idea to have a payment gateway process that includes easy grievance redressal for chargebacks. The feature should ideally ensure that the customer can provide the necessary documentation and the complete transaction details available with the merchant are also accessible. This would facilitate transparency and improve the credibility of the merchant.
  2. Winning customers’ loyalty: Merchants often face declined payments in case the customer fails to update his/her card data, resulting in card expiration issues. The payment solutions company can ensure smooth transaction processing with automatic data updating facility.This would also go a long way in improving customer experience and reduce order cancellation.
  3. Omnichannel payment option: Merchants can allow multiple payment options including digital payments via mobile applications, thus enabling 24*7 transactions. Thus, time and space will no more be limiting factors in online purchases.
  4. Quick authentication: A BCG survey estimates that the average e-commerce website requires shoppers to click 23 times before a purchase is completed. Merchants need to revamp the shopping experience and enable a one-click checkout with secure online payment systems. This would drastically reduce cart abandonment and revenue losses.
  5. Local payment solutions: Some customers would prefer to pay with familiar, local payment modes. Thus, the merchant should integrate a payment platform that supports alternative payment methods in local currency as well. This would help retain local customers, who might not be aware of global digital payment trends.
  6. Product differentiation: Merchants and payment providers can offer personalised recommendations to customers based on the data repository of past transactions. For example, in case of multiple saved cards, the website could suggest one of them as the primary card option based on the historical usage. Further merchants could also enable better site selection options, so that the customer undergoes minimum navigation through the website before purchase completion.
  7. Cross selling: One can also offer innovative payment features like instant financing, and flexible payback terms to encourage big ticket and frequent purchases
  8. Rewarding customers’ loyalty: A loyalty program with item discounts or freebies would positively impact website visits and sales size. The merchants can promote the benefits program by sending targeted -mail campaigns to existing customers with details of customized rewards and points status.
  9. Low cost payment option: A charge for using the payment gateway is often a big put-off for customers. Thus, merchants should integrate a convenient ‘plug and use’ payment portal, which is free of charge for the customer.
  10. Secure payment option: This is a critical aspect to ensure return customers. Merchants must ensure that the payment gateway and the e-commerce portal can securely store card tokens and confidential customer information. This would speed up the transaction time as the customer would not have to re-enter all the details each time before a purchase transaction.
  11. Expert advice: To further enhance customer appeal, one may also consider the inclusion of a knowledge section or blog with practical information on the transaction steps and the payment process. An educated customer would be more willing to return again for additional purchases.
  12. Keeping one’s ear to the ground: It might be a good idea to include an optional pop-up survey or a quick questionnaire to extract customer opinions or reviews on the ease of online operations and the product experience. This way one could address any shortfalls and win customers’ confidence.

With growing competition in the digital space, it is imperative that along with new customer acquisition, merchants devise innovative and strong strategies to grow business from existing customers. Providing excellent quality of payment experience, fostering customer trust through improved ease of online purchases, and winning a higher share of the customers’ wallet with quality products and service offerings are crucial for higher sales conversion from repeat customers.

How to retrieve your money from a not-so friendly fraud

How to retrieve your money from a not-so friendly fraud

A friendly fraud is probably a misnomer. In reality, it can be a harrowing experience for the merchant, who completed the transaction. Friendly fraud occurs when a cardholder files a chargeback instead of requesting a refund from the merchant for a legitimate purchase. It can be filed by mistake by the customer or even intentionally in some cases. While such incidents of disputed transactions are on the rise with the predominance of digital transactions, the following are the ways in which the merchant can mitigate the risks:

  1. Switch to a fool proof secure payment solution: It would be prudent to adopt a secure payment processor, which offers a comprehensive, multi-level risk protection to detect any fraud incidents or outliers and red flags the issue in a timely manner. Incorporation of verification tools like fingerprint, facial or retina recognition to work on mobile applications would also go a long way to prevent fraud risks.
  2. Adopt a 3D Secure authentication: Under this online payment platform, the customer’s card is promptly validated by the issuing bank, prior to the transaction. Thus, it’s extremely difficult for the customer to later claim any unauthorized charges. Some merchants are reluctant to adopt this approach owing to the fear of reduced sales conversion or cancellation of the transaction due to the customer being kept waiting for the bank confirmation.
  3. Keep the communication channels open: It is advisable to offer 24*7 support to customers for post sales services. A good business rapport would help clear any potential differences or misunderstanding with the customer. The merchant could also negotiate a lower chargeback charge or its cancellation by the customer and reduce potential monetary losses. One should also regularly apprise the customer before charging for recurring payments.
  4. Establish a solid return policy and delivery tracking mechanism: It is a good practice to make the customer aware in prior of the return, cancellation and refund policies. This would reduce the chances of chargeback filed by mistake. The merchant could also have a software to track the delivery status of the product, with a signed customer confirmation upon receipt of the product by customer at the shipping address.
  5. Maintain adequate data trail: Documentary evidence is key when it comes to validation of online transactions. This should ideally capture details of product description, agreed pricing and the date of transaction. This is vital as in many cases the chargeback is claimed on frivolous or false grounds like non-delivery of the products, delivery of counterfeit or wrong items, non-cancellation of recurring charges by the merchant inspite of customer requests and the original transaction was unauthorized in the first place. Hence the need for retention of sufficient papers to support the online transaction.
  6. Distinguish between accidental and intentional fraud: This identification is crucial. While the former can be settled by talks with the customer, the latter, being malicious in intent is a different ball game. The merchant is not in a very advantageous position as far as the law goes with limited power to get the chargeback reversed. Similar to a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ situation. This is because in most cases, it is likely that the bank would side with the customer than the merchant.

To conclude, in case one does land in the soup and has to face monetary losses from chargeback charges, loss of shipping costs and transaction processing fees, it is best to hold one’s ground. In case, the quantum of money is huge, it is best to get professional, legal advice. Further, repeat transactions with such errant customers should be absolutely avoided as the adage goes “once bitten, twice shy.”

Women entrepreneurs making big strides in UAE

Women entrepreneurs making big strides in UAE

UAE presents a big business opportunity for women looking to launch their business. Women comprise a dominant 70% of the graduates that pass out of universities and 44% share of the workforce. Further, the gender gap in early stage entrepreneurship is already narrowing, with 7.6% women founders as against 11.8% men founders.

Leveraging the PayTabs advantage

PayTabs has always been in the forefront of embracing changes – be they technological innovations on the digital payments front or changing socio-economic equations of empowering women wanting to take the entrepreneurial plunge. Reinforcing this strategy, PayTabs is participating as a featured exhibitor in the Women Entrepreneurship Summit (WES) MENA, scheduled to be held on 22 April, 2019 in Dubai, UAE.

What is the significance of this event?

This invitation-only strategic summit aims to bring together established and aspiring women entrepreneurs across MENA region. It works on the profile sharing concept. It provides a platform to encourage and facilitate female-led entrepreneurship by enabling knowledge sharing and interaction between business women from women-centric organizations and SMEs. Despite the success of women-run businesses, there is still a lot of ground to cover. Women entrepreneurs face several challenges like access to finance, coaching and mentorship channels, networking opportunities and knowledge about the various aspects of running a business, like the changing regulatory regime and digital payment solutions, etc. While the former constraints would be deliberated upon in brainstorming sessions by the participants, PayTabs would effectively tackle the last with its innovative online payment solutions.

The PayTabs’ boost to female entrepreneurship in UAE

The shift from an oil-driven economy to a tech-enabled ecosystem is encouraging women entrepreneurs in diverse sectors. As per a recent survey, women in the GCC manage $385 bn worth of assets in SME businesses. Thus, women entrepreneurs ranging from cup cake owners, florists, financial service providers to fashion consultants, film makers, designers, etc are gradually making a name in the SME space. Being technology driven, these start-ups need digital access to global markets and the capability to accept online payments. This needs to be achieved without necessitating a physical presence in every geography to enable receipt of customer payments. This is where the adoption of PayTabs can prove to be a game changer for lady entrepreneurs. PayTabs, an award-winning digital payments company with strong roots in the MENA region boasts multi-integrated payment options via Visa, MasterCard, American Express, SADAD, Mada and more, using a single API. The PayTabs sales team would be ready and willing to answer all queries related to digital payments and how a payment gateway can be seamlessly integrated into the existing web portal.

PayTabs offers a suite of online payment solutions suited to the unique needs of SMEs and start-ups, supporting over 168 currencies. Further, with PCI-DSS certified, 3D secure authentication, 24*7 customer support and a dual-layer fraud protection system, PayTabs ensures that transactions are 100% safe and secure. Thus, business women can completely focus on running the business, and leave the worries about the payment processing and digital receipts to PayTabs.

If you are a female and entrepreneurship is your calling, UAE is the place to be in the MENA region. With PayTabs unlocking whole new possibilities in digital payments, a lady entrepreneur can conveniently accept online payments from across the globe. PayTabs can be a reliable partner in your entrepreneurial journey. Think cashless, think PayTabs! Save the date.

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