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Ready for the Next Wave of Social Commerce? 4 Trends to Track

Next Wave of Social Commerce

The rise of social media has transformed the way we interact, communicate, and shop online. Social commerce, the integration of social media platforms and online shopping, has become increasingly popular in recent years. Social commerce has created new opportunities for businesses to reach and engage with their target audience, drive sales and build customer loyalty. In this article, we will discuss the top social commerce trends to track in 2023.

What is Social Commerce?

Social commerce is the use of social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest to buy and sell products and services online. Social media platforms have become a powerful tool for businesses to reach out to their customers, showcase their products, and engage with their audience. It provides an opportunity for businesses to use social media to sell their products directly to customers without the need for a website or a physical store.

Difference Between Social Commerce and E-commerce

Social commerce is often confused with e-commerce. While e-commerce refers to buying and selling products and services online, social commerce involves the integration of social media platforms with online shopping. Social commerce relies heavily on social media platforms to drive sales and build customer relationships, while e-commerce relies on websites and online marketplaces to sell products.

Also Read: Best Payment Gateways for eCommerce Websites in UAE

Traditional e-commerce differs from social commerce in terms of the customer journey as well. In e-commerce, the customer typically visits an online store, browses products, adds items to a cart, and proceeds to checkout. In contrast, social commerce leverages social media platforms as the primary point of engagement with customers, allowing businesses to reach potential customers at various touchpoints along their journey, from awareness and consideration to purchase and post-purchase feedback. This makes social commerce a more integrated and seamless experience for the customer, with fewer barriers to making a purchase. Social commerce also emphasizes the role of social proof and community in driving sales. Features such as user-generated content, influencer marketing, and social shopping create a sense of trust and connection between the customer and the brand.

Social Commerce Trends for 2023

Augmented Reality (AR)

Augmented reality is an interactive experience that enhances a user’s real-world environment by overlaying computer-generated information such as images, videos, and sounds. In the context of social commerce, AR allows customers to virtually try on products such as clothing, makeup, and accessories, giving them a better idea of how the product would look on them before making a purchase. AR can also be used to provide customers with additional information about a product, such as its features, benefits, and uses.

Social Media Marketplaces

Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest have been gradually expanding their e-commerce capabilities by enabling businesses to sell products directly within the platform. This trend is expected to continue in 2023, with more businesses using social media marketplaces to reach and engage with their target audience. Social media marketplaces provide an opportunity for businesses to showcase their products, receive customer feedback, and build customer loyalty, all within the platform.

Social Shopping

Social shopping involves the use of social media platforms to shop with friends, share products, and get recommendations from other users. It creates a community-driven shopping experience where customers can interact with each other, share opinions, and receive advice before making a purchase. This social commerce trend is expected to grow in 2023 as social media platforms become increasingly integrated with e-commerce.

Video Commerce

Video commerce involves the use of videos to showcase products and drive sales. Video content is becoming increasingly popular among social media users, and businesses can leverage this trend to showcase their products and drive sales. Social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok allows businesses to create short-form videos that are engaging, entertaining, and informative.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing involves collaborating with social media influencers to promote products and services to their followers. This social commerce trend has become increasingly popular in recent years and is expected to continue in 2023. Influencer marketing provides businesses with an opportunity to reach a wider audience, build brand awareness, and increase sales. Social media platforms such as Instagram and YouTube are popular channels for influencer marketing.

Chatbots

Chatbots are automated messaging tools that can be used to provide customers with real-time support and assistance while shopping on social media platforms. Chatbots can answer frequently asked questions, provide product recommendations, and assist customers with their purchases. This trend is becoming increasingly sophisticated, with advanced AI algorithms that can understand natural language and provide personalized responses.

Voice Commerce

Voice commerce involves the use of voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant to make purchases online. This trend is expected to grow in 2023 as more customers embrace the convenience of voice-enabled shopping. Voice commerce lets businesses reach customers through new channels and provide a seamless shopping experience.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) involves using content created by users to promote products and services. UGC is becoming increasingly popular on social media platforms, with customers sharing photos, videos, and reviews of products they have purchased. It can be a powerful tool for businesses to drive sales, creating a sense of authenticity and social proof.

Personalization

Personalization involves tailoring the shopping experience to the individual customer’s preferences and interests. Social media platforms provide an opportunity for businesses to gather data on customers and use it to personalize the shopping experience. Personalization can take many forms, such as personalized recommendations, product suggestions, and targeted marketing campaigns. It creates a sense of relevance and connection between the customer and the business.

Sustainability

Sustainability has become a growing concern among consumers, and businesses that prioritize sustainability and ethical practices are likely to appeal to socially conscious customers. In 2023, businesses that demonstrate their commitment to sustainability through their social commerce efforts will likely gain a competitive advantage. Social media platforms let companies showcase their sustainability efforts and engage with customers on environmental and social issues. This can take many forms, such as using sustainable materials in product design, reducing waste in packaging, and partnering with environmental organizations.

Also Read: Paymes: The Best Social Commerce Platform For Freelancers

Conclusion

Social commerce is a rapidly evolving field that offers companies numerous opportunities to engage with customers, increase sales, and build brand loyalty. To stay ahead of the competition in 2023, businesses must stay updated with the latest social commerce trends and embrace innovation in their marketing and sales strategies. Additionally, integrating a social commerce payment gateway such as PayTabs is essential for accepting payments and making it easier for customers to buy products directly from social media platforms. By staying on top of these trends and leveraging social commerce to its fullest potential, businesses can set themselves up for success in the years to come.

Marketplace & D2C Conf 2023

Date: 07 MARCH 2023
Venue: Ramee Dream Hotel Dubai

PayTabs is proud to be a partner of the biggest E-Com Conference on analytics, advertising, and promotion on marketplaces and D2C channels in the MENA region.
This is the first conference in e-com segment for sellers and brand executives in the UAE.

Marketplace & D2C Conf 2023

Payment Page Influence Purchasing Decisions

Payment Page Influence Purchasing Decisions

Introduction

With the development and advancement in e-commerce, the online payment methods have seen a massive increase across the globe. Now, a customer has multiple options to complete an online transaction and a number of factors to consider the favoured option. The payment page design of a website is one of the key determinants while making a choice. A user-friendly payment page saves a lot of time and enables smooth transactions. Have you all experienced a complex payment page which takes a lot of time and is difficult to operate? This could actually lead to incomplete transactions and ultimately lead to a loss of customer-base.

Since the payment page is the last step of a purchase, it is essential to have an effective and simple checkout process. So, what goes into building a frictionless payment page? In this article, we will reveal some of the best payment page design examples that will encourage customers to make frequent purchases. Read on.

What Goes In A Good Payment Page?

If you want to know about the best checkout page, you need to explore multiple payment page design options. The checkout page design you choose depends on your preferences. You can also take the help of expert web designers for the best results.

Browsing through templates will also help you to come up with a personalized payment page. A smooth UI makes it easier for customers to navigate the website. Let us look at the different payment page designs:

Payment Page Design Examples

  • Figma

Figma is one of the best examples of a user-friendly design. The payment information is minimal. As a seller, the only field you need to access is entering details of the credit or debit card..

All other information is extraneous. With customization, you can keep the payment form as simple as possible. Figma known for its simple and sleek payment gateway design makes it easier for customers to make purchases.

  • Dribble

The biggest benefit of this design is that it highlights simplicity with an eye-catchy interface.

Dribble’s checkout design has an intuitive user interface that keeps the information field minimum for the customers. This makes it more likely for customers to complete the process and make a purchase.

It is critical for your business to keep the checkout page as simple as possible to motivate the customers to complete the payment process. The payment page provides an organized and clean format with inviting colors.

  • Nike

The feature of the product image appearing at the checkout makes it easier for customers to review what they are buying before completing the transaction.

Nike uses the three-step process and creates a display where all steps are on a single page. This eliminates the use of multiple pages to complete a transaction.

  • Minimalist Page Idea

The minimalist design is the same as the Nike design, which displays the item on the checkout page and attracts the customers further about the purchase. The design utilizes the space between the images and texts beautifully.

With everything on one page, customers find it convenient to make a purchase.

  • Apple

The checkout page of Apple has a simple white background. All you can see are the blue call-to-action buttons. It makes it easier for the customers to know what action Apple wants them to take. Customers do not need to sign up before buying any product. They can shop as guests, reducing the cart abandonment problem.

Also Read: How to Integrate Payment System Into the Existing App

  • Nixon

Customers generally go through several steps before completing the checkout process. Sometimes, it is longer than expected. Hence, Nixon uses the progress bar at the top of the page to show customers the development of the purchasing process.

  • eBags

The elegant and simple layout makes the payment page design sleek and stylish. Customers can customize their cart when buying the products. The website clearly says which information is mandatory for customers to fill. To make it even better, eBags have a live chat option, allowing customers to ask questions and get answers immediately during the shopping experience. Many customers can get points with each upcoming purchase.

How to Optimize The Payment Page?

For a great payment gateway page design, the idea should be to eventually increase sales and reduce the number of unsuccessful transactions. You can optimize the payment page in the following ways:

  • Usability

The primary goal of the usability analysis is in the number of steps and actions from the moment you click the pay button until the payment completes. It is essential to reduce the number of steps, structure them logically, and arrange the essential elements in a sequence convenient for human perception. The buyer must understand the type of button that should be pressed at a given time to move towards the purchase completion.

  • Financial Security

The payment page should be individually generated for each transaction. User data should be reliably protected from intruders. Whenever the billing details and personal information of the customer are involved in the checkout process, it is necessary to consider the precautions to keep the information secure.

Also Read: How to Increase Alternative Checkout Options

Conclusion

To conclude, if you are facing issues with making purchases online and are confused about what to do, an easy-to-use and simple payment page design can be a safe solution.

Integrate Recurring Payments

Integrate Recurring Payments

In the modern ecosystem, customers have understood the benefits of paying to access a product rather than owning it outright. The subscription and recurring revenue model have taken over the one-time sales model with more companies providing recurring payment services. If you’re new to this developing payment system, this article will provide you with an overview of the payment model, and how you can integrate it into your system, and make profits.

What is the Recurring Payment Model?

In a recurring payment business model, the vendor provides access to their services or products for a recurring fee charged at regular intervals. Once popular for magazine or newspaper subscriptions and gym memberships, recurring payments are becoming common for other industries as well.

Recurring payments are automatic payments that appear once a customer authorises the merchant to charge for a product or service on a predefined schedule. If done correctly, recurring payments can save a lot of time for the business and help in retaining customers. With recurring payments, merchants wouldn’t need to raise payment requests every time. With the consent of the customer to charge their card, the payments can be done automatically on an ongoing basis.

How to Start Accepting Recurring Payments?

To adopt the recurring payment model, you’ll need two blocks: billing logic and payment processing. Billing logic calculates the price for the product taking into account several factors while the payment processing block executes the actual transaction by charging the customer’s card.

Also Read: 5 Common Payment Processing Challenges Small Businesses Face

If you have a billing engine in place then you can start accepting recurring payments with the help of a payment processor. Being an all-in-one payment solution, payment gateways are suitable for this payment method. They can automate the recurring billing system and help you scale your subscription business.

In addition to selecting a payment gateway, you need to decide which method to offer customers. It’ll depend largely on your customer base and how they like to make payments. Once the payment aspect is cleared, it’s time to decide on the billing software. Good recurring billing software can easily integrate with your payment processor, support one-time payments, and make the whole process agile and hassle-free for your customers.

Also Read: Understanding the difference between a payment gateway and a payment processor

How to Integrate Recurring Payments?

  1. The first step is to select the appropriate payment gateway that you want to integrate. Choosing the payment gateway depends on several different factors relating to your business. Select a payment gateway that supports international payments and can accept foreign currencies.
  2. Select a recurring billing software that can generate invoices, perform checkout, integrate accounts, team dashboard, PCI compliance, transactional emails, and more.
  3. After integration, customise the tools to match your business.
  4. Perform testing to make sure that the integration works fine.
  5. Set up a notification and reminder system that notifies your customers about upcoming payments and has a clear understanding of how the recurring payments work.

Benefits of the Recurring Payments Model

Predictable Revenue

Traditional businesses are subject to market fluctuations. With recurring payments, organisations always have a steady source of revenue at regular intervals. This helps businesses to plan their expenses, stock inventory, spend on marketing, and create growth strategies.

Attract More Customers

The premise of paying less money across intervals instead of paying too much at once has enticed customers for a long time. By dividing the payment options into smaller chunks, you can attract more customers and reduce their price barrier. Subscriptions and EMIs are a great way to offer products and make them more accessible to customers. So while the monthly payment might not impact them much, they can end up giving you more money over the entire term.

Customer Retention

Repeat customers make up a huge chunk of the market for businesses. Pitching your product to new customers every time for just one sale isn’t that economical. Selling those same products to existing customers, however, isn’t that difficult as they are already familiar with your products and don’t have to go through the entire process again. In fact, retaining customers has been found to be five times cheaper than acquiring new ones.

Speeds Up Transactions

Once it is set up, billing gets automated and requires little to no maintenance. There’s no need to start a new payment, every month. Once a date is defined by the customer and a payment method is selected, money transfer happens automatically.

Takeaway

The recurring payment system is becoming popular among customers as well as business owners. They provide a certain freedom to both the stakeholders and ensure that there is no disconnect in the service as long as timely payments are made. Integrating a recurring payment gateway like PayTabs will allow you to set up scheduled payments with your customers and maintain a steady stream of income every month. It supports multiple payment methods so that your customer can pay for your goods or services however they like.

3D Secure Payment Gateway

3D Secure Payment Gateway

Every organisation is susceptible to data breaches and encounters them almost every day. Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for security lapses, and one of their favorite targets is collecting sensitive payment information of customers. They can then use this information to commit payment fraud and cause damage to customers as well as the brand.

Thankfully, you can protect your customers’ information from being breached or hacked by using a 3D Secure payment gateway. With online shopping and e-commerce on the rise, customers look for more secure processes, especially when it comes to payment, and a 3D secure payment gateway provides them the much-needed trust.

What is a 3D Payment Gateway?

To counter online identity fraud and instill more trust in customers’ minds about online transactions, major payment processors were invented with a preventive measure known as a 3D secure payment gateway. It adds another level of security to your payments and ensures that payments go through successfully without exposing any sensitive information. Visa’s Verified by Visa and MasterCard’s SecureCode are examples of 3D secure payments that you must be familiar with.

It is often referred to as 3DS payments because it uses 3 Domain Servers to secure your online transaction. The three domains are:

  • The Acquirer Domain: the merchant or the bank to which you’re paying.
  • The Issuer Domain: the organisation or bank that issued the card being used.
  • The Interoperability Domain: payment systems that bridge the gap between an Acquirer Domain and an Issuer Domain like Visa, MasterCard, and AmEx.

How Does a 3D Secure Payment Work?

3D secure gateways are responsible for making sure that every transaction is secure and carried out by the user himself. This is why the cardholder is often required to enter an OTP or a unique passcode known only to them. To understand how 3D Secure works, here are the steps in detail:

  1. The card information is collected first by asking the customer to enter the card data for their credit or debit card.
  2. Once the information is entered, the system checks if the card is already registered for 3D Secure or not.
  3. If the card supports 3D Secure and is enrolled in the system, the user is then redirected to a 3D secure page of the respective card provider.
  4. Now comes the additional verification step. Once the customer is on the provider’s website, they are asked to enter their unique password/pin or the one-time authentication code which is sent to their registered email address or phone number.
  5. Once the correct information is entered and verified, the user then goes back to the merchant’s website to confirm the payment.
  6. The user will then receive the ‘payment confirmed’ message. This marks the end of the payment process.

Why is 3D Secure Important ?

One of the biggest benefits of 3D secure payments is that it prevents any payment fraud or identity theft from happening for both users and merchants. As per a report by Deloitte, several organisations in the Middle East are struggling with online payment fraud, especially since the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic. Around 48% of the respondents, said that their organisation experienced more fraudulent activities this year than in previous years. This makes 3D Secure important for merchants as well.

3D Secure is especially beneficial for users thanks to its payment liability shift. The additional personal authentication step added in the 3D Secure process makes the issuing bank liable for any fraudulent chargebacks. So as a customer or a merchant, if you claim that an unauthorised payment occurred through your card, it’s the responsibility of the card provider to manage the refunds. Fewer chargebacks mean more money in your pocket. 3D Secure alleviates the resources associated with penalties, dispute management, and fees.

While 3D Secure payments are the gold standard for preventing payment fraud, it has slight drawbacks as well. The time taken for complete verification and payment discourages customers and is one of the biggest reasons for cart abandonment. To mitigate this issue, the 3D Secure process is being upgraded to 3D Secure 2.0.

What is 3D Secure 2.0 ?

With the help of 3D Secure 2.0, merchants wouldn’t have to choose to lower the risk of fraud or increase conversions. The improved 3D Secure protocol enhances the customer experience and facilitates the exchange of information between the three domains so that the process finishes quicker.

3DS 2.0 replaces the hassle of remembering passwords or waiting for OTPs by using a token-based authentication system that uses biometric identification like face or fingerprint. This process is much faster, as customers don’t need to wait for the payment provider’s website to open, there’s no need to remember so many passwords, and there are fewer steps to complete the purchase.

The new 3D Secure protocol is not just faster, it’s also more secure. It analyses more than 100 data points per transaction and provides an improved risk assessment. This increases the chances of fraud prevention as compared to the previous protocol. Merchants have experienced an 85% reduction in checkout time and a 70% reduction in cart abandonment rates by using 3DS 2.0.

Choose the Right Payment Gateway

Integrating a 3D Secure payment gateway has become a necessity for e-commerce businesses. Customers look for extra security while paying online and are generally concerned about their privacy and payment information. There are studies indicating that nearly one-third of cardholders won’t proceed with the payment if it is not completely secure. For merchants, this not only cuts into their business but also throws a bad light on their reputation.

Hence, it is important to choose the correct payment gateway for your business that not only implants a sense of security in the customer’s mind but is also fast and easy to set up. PayTabs is a leading next-gen payment solution that you can easily integrate with your e-commerce business. It ensures complete security during transactions and accepts several payment methods as well.