It's one thing to talk about the growth of e-commerce in Portugal, but it's another to back up that claim with figures.
This is exactly what the latest CTT E-Commerce Report tells us: it is estimated that 2024 will end up with a universe of 5.3 million e-shoppers in our country who, in turn, will help online businesses reach a turnover of around 12.26 billion euros.
Beyond marketing investment and an agile and easy-to-navigate sales platform, the success of online businesses depends to a large extent on the online payments that they offer their consumers.
The importance of online payment methods for your business
We don't need to emphasise the obvious, i.e. the online payment methods are essential for your customers to be able to pay for the products and services they have purchased, but their importance does not end there.
As the last or, more specifically, penultimate stage in the customer buying journey (the last should be post-purchase follow-up), the online payments should be the logical corollary of a sales service that not only does not offer barriers to consumersIt also adapts to everyone's habits.
The integration of payment methods in e-commerce can be the difference between a realised sale or a abandoned shopping cart before payment, which will have a financial impact and bring reputational damage to the business, since it is likely that the service evaluation is negative and the opportunity to customer loyalty lost.
In addition, payment methods that are in line with customer habits and are customisable promote a satisfactory purchasing journey and increase the average ticket (average amount spent on each purchase) for customers.
These and other data on the importance of online payment methods for companies should be at the forefront of managers' minds when deciding on the best payment platforms for websites and marketplaces.
Choosing the best payment platform for your site
As we emphasised in the previous point, the online payment methods for companies must not promote friction. They must not be too complex, they must not require the customer to fill in more fields than those relating to the chosen payment method and, above all, they must be secure.
If you are in the process of starting an online business or want to improving customer satisfactionso that you can start choosing the best form of accept digital paymentsYou need to answer this question: what kind of platform do I sell on or am I going to start selling on?
Once you have your answer, consider the payment methods most used by Portuguese consumers when shopping online.
In this area, the CTT E-Commerce report gives you a helping hand and tells you that by 2024,
- MB Way was the preferred payment method for the majority of Portuguese e-shoppers with a market share of 47.4%
- followed by Paypal with 44.4%
- Multibanco references with 34.6%
- Credit cards with 29.8%
- Virtual credit cards with 20%
Finally, you should also take into account whether or not the payment method is integrated with your sales platform.
In this regard, it is important to emphasise that if you are selling or going to selling through an online shopthe method you choose will have to be integrated, whereas if selling without a websiteThe payment solution you choose will not require integration.
How to implement online payment methods: step by step
Let's start by emphasising that anyone who sells via their own website will need to integrate a online payment gateway on your sales platform, but if selling through a marketplace or selling through social mediaThis will not be necessary.
With this in mind, you need a payment gateway for your site, we recommend that you choose one that is easy to integrate and is supported by the main e-commerce plugins on the market, such as REDUNIQ@E-Commerce.
REDUNIQ@E-Commerce
As well as offering you the possibility of receiving transactions with debit and credit cards, Visa and Mastercard, with no membership costs and the advantage of taking advantage of the monthly fee offer in your online shop. REDUNIQ@E-Commerce is easy to integrate with the most widely used e-commerce plugins on the market.
Once you have contracted this solution with REDUNIQ, our technical team will help you with the entire implementation process. online payment solutionwith your team of programmers. Then all you have to worry about is attracting customers and seeing your turnover increase.
If the integration doesn't give you any major problems, the same can be said of its operation.
Let's imagine that a customer makes a purchase of 20 euros in your online shop and chooses to pay with a credit card:
- After choosing the payment method, your customer will be redirected to a secure UNICRE payment page, which will ensure that you do not have access to your customer's data throughout the payment process;
- The customer enters their card details and waits for the transaction to be validated;
- Once the transaction has been approved, the payment operation is finalised;
- The money from the sale will be credited to your bank account within a few working days of the transaction date.
Because safety is an important prerequisite for REDUNIQDuring the entire payment process, you will never have access to the customer's bank details.
However, does all this simplicity extend to online payments for small businesses selling without a website?
The answer is yes, as long as you opt for the turnkey solution REDUNIQ@Payments.
REDUNIQ @Payments
No need for integration, which cuts costs and simplifies the payment process, the turnkey solution REDUNIQ@Payments is the most efficient way for those who sells without a website and wants to receive payments online.
Simple and quick, this solution will allow your online business to receive online payments via a link, email or SMS, WhatsAppby Multibanco or MB WAY referencewith Visa and Mastercard.
In functional terms, the payment process is as follows:
- REDUNIQ@Payments offers you a secure payment platform, optimised for smartphones and tablets, where you can create a payment link;
- Send the payment link to your customer via email, SMS or WhatsApp;
- The customer clicks on the link and is redirected to a secure REDUNIQ payment page where they complete the transaction.
As with REDUNIQ@E-Commerce, you will not have access to the customer's card details at any stage of payment.
Tips for ensuring an easy and secure payment experience for customers
Despite our online payment solutions offer absolute security, as REDUNIQ is the only one of its kind. acquirer Portuguese with the PCI-DSS international security certificateIt is important that your customers promote good practices in their online purchases.
Therefore, in order to guarantee an easy and secure payment experience, your customers must:
- Don't connect to public Wi-Fi networks to shop online;
- Keep the antivirus updated and the firewall switched on;
- Keep the purchase receipt, which can later be used as proof of purchase;
- Use a different password for each online account you create;
- Do not share card details with third parties.