‍“Yesterday I was at work, I work at Sam’s Club. I’m at the exit door with a coworker and for anyone that shops there, one of the easiest ways to get out is through Scan-N-Go on your phone. We’re split down a line, and on my coworker’s line, a woman comes up with her husband. I’m scanning other people’s receipts and letting them through before my coworker asks me for help.

The woman said she had trouble with her Scan-N-Go, so I look at her phone, it said it was declined. I told her that her card declined and she had to try another one. She laughs and shakes her finger and goes, "No, no. I have money on this card." Well ma'am if you had all this money, why did it decline? I didn't care, so I just shrugged and assumed her card was locked. They finally left, and my coworker told me she used multiple cards before it finally worked.”

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This vivid account from a viral Reddit post highlights an often-overlooked aspect of false declines: the emotional impact on customers' satisfaction. While businesses frequently focus on the revenue loss associated with card declines U.S. merchants suffer revenue losses of approximately $118 billion annually due to false decline) there’s also a human side to this issue that numbers alone can’t capture.

Customers will not return

Studies reveal that 41% of customers will not return to a business after experiencing a false decline. This compounds the financial damage, as businesses face revenue losses up to  13 times higher from false declines than from actual fraud.

 Studies indicate the significant impact that false declines have on customer experience. Over 30% of cardholders cease patronizing a merchant following a false decline, with 66% reducing or stopping their engagement with the business. The Reddit story resonates because it puts the customer's perspective on these statistics. Thinking about our customers' experience at card decline moments is extremely important in e-commerce, where we usually don’t see our clients in person.

Existing solutions for false declines

Because the impact of card declines is such a significant problem, there are multiple solutions available:

• Platforms like Stripe support multiple real-time payment methods, providing flexibility for customers to switch seamlessly.
• Companies like Adyen offer dynamic payment routing, automatically switching to another network if the initial transaction fails.
• Incorporating biometric technologies such as fingerprint or facial recognition adds an extra layer of security and reduces the likelihood of false declines.
• Services like Klarna’s “buy now, pay later” model provide flexibility, eliminating the need for credit cards and reducing the potential for declines.

Bounce’s unique solution: proactive, invisible payment recovery

At Bounce, we believe that addressing both the financial and emotional impacts of false declines is crucial. Our ML-driven payment recovery technology ensures customers almost never experience the frustration of a declined transaction. By proactively detecting and recovering failed transactions in real-time, we prevent the negative emotions associated with declines. Customers continue their shopping experience seamlessly, unaware that any issue ever occurred.

Bounce’s solution goes beyond just offering multiple payment options or biometric verification. We optimize every step of the transaction process, recovering failed payments without any intervention needed from the customer. This not only boosts revenue—recovering over 30% of transactions that would otherwise be lost—but also enhances customer satisfaction by eliminating points of friction.

 Bounce’s impact on your revenue lost 

• Bounce recovers over 30% of transactions that would otherwise be lost.
• Increase the top line by 5% due to payment recovery. 
• Minimizing false declines improves trust, reduces churn, and fosters a seamless transaction process.
• By reducing false declines, Bounce increases customer retention, customer satisfaction, and loyalty, directly improving LTV.
• Bounce’s proactive recovery reduces the need for costly retargeting campaigns, optimizing marketing spend.

Win-win payment recovery and an enhanced customer’s experience 

At Bounce, we only take commissions on lost transactions that we manage to recover, so you never pay for successful payments. It’s a win-win: you recover lost revenue, enhance customer satisfaction, and improve customer retention as more customers finish checkout smoothly without noticing any issues. Schedule a meeting with our experts to see how much you can save and how we can help boost your checkout conversion rates and improve customer experience.

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“People in all fields operate with beliefs and biases. To the extent you can eliminate both and replace them with data, you gain a clear advantage.”

 (Moneyball)

It’s September, and while most people are winding down from Labor Day, for online shop owners like you, it’s not just the end of summer—it’s the start of something bigger. With Labor Day sales fresh in mind, you’re already looking ahead to the next big events: Black Friday on November 29th and Cyber Monday on December 2nd. These days mark the beginning of the high-sales season, a crucial period that can significantly impact your financial year. “In 2023, Cyber Monday alone generated $12.4 billion in online sales in the U.S, offering merchants a prime opportunity to boost revenue and expand their customer base.

As a Shopify merchant, you’re not just thinking about sales; you’re strategizing on how to handle the surge in traffic, optimize Shopify checkout process, and provide an exceptional shopping experience. While others are still months away from considering holiday shopping, you’re already preparing your store to capitalize on this peak season. Gone are the days when every operational detail needed hands-on management, platforms like Shopify offer integrated solutions for inventory management, payment processing, and marketing automation, enabling you to focus on scaling and enhancing customer satisfaction.

However, the platform also presents some challenges that need to be addressed to fully 

capitalize on the upcoming shopping season:

Understanding main checkout challenges with your Shopify app

1.Shopify’s built-in fraud detection can be overly conservative, leading to legitimate transactions being flagged as fraudulent. In fact, NoFraud’s analysis found that 84.4% of “medium risk” orders were actually safe, meaning most of these good deals were wrongly declined. 

2. International transactions and abandoned checkouts: Cross-border transactions are often flagged as high-risk, leading to higher false decline rates and increased cart abandonment.

3.Subscription and recurring payments: Recurring payment models on Shopify are particularly susceptible to issues with false declines because the platform relies on third-party apps for subscription management, which can lead to higher rates of payment failures and involuntary churn, causing significant revenue loss for businesses dependent on consistent income streams.

Proven ways to optimize your Shopify checkout process

Here are four effective strategies to optimize your Shopify checkout and prepare for the busy shopping season:

•  Third-party fraud tools: Tools like Signifyd or NoFraud offer more precise fraud detection, reducing false declines and maintaining customer trust by using advanced machine learning algorithms. 
• Multiple payment methods: Incorporate digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal to provide customers with more payment options.
• Streamline the checkout process: Simplify the steps required to complete a purchase by enabling guest checkouts and removing unnecessary fields. Bold Checkout, for example, offers customizable solutions that can help reduce cart abandonment and boost conversions.
• Real-time payment analytics: Solutions like ReCharge and Klarna provide real-time insights into payment trends, helping you anticipate and resolve potential issues quickly. 
• Recover lost revenue with AI: Bounce reduces false declines and enhances payment experiences using cutting-edge machine learning technology.

While these strategies are effective, they often lack a comprehensive solution that integrates false credit card decline analysis with data-supported insights into a single platform. That’s where Bounce’s new Shopify app comes in—with its Payment Health Analysis.

Now, with our new Shopify app, we go beyond optimization and enable data-driven insights from real payment date

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Meet Bounce: data-driven Shopify app

We are excited to introduce Bounce’s new Shopify app, powered by advanced machine learning to help Shopify merchants:

• Optimize financial performance and uncover hidden revenue streams. Our app offers comprehensive analysis, providing:
• Real-time monitoring of your store’s payment health and performance. With data-driven revenue insights, the app helps you identify trends and optimize for greater profitability. App also focuses on loss prevention by detecting potential issues before they impact your bottom line, ensuring financial stability.
• A user-friendly dashboard, the app offers a no-code, customizable interface, making it easy to visualize key metrics and make informed decisions quickly.

Needless to say, our app is seamlessly integrated with Shopify, enhancing your checkout process without any disruption to your existing workflow. 

Gain a clear advantage with data-driven payment insights

With Bounce’s payments health analysis, your e-commerce business gains a competitive edge by turning data into actionable insights. The app offers a comprehensive view of your payment flow, including:

• Total transactions
• Total declined transactions
• Decline rate 
• Credit card type distribution 
• decline rate per credit card type 
• Customer retries breakdown
• Decline rate by nationality 
• Decline reason distribution
• Bounce potential
• Decline rate for a certain period 
• Geographical trends

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This allows you to pinpoint revenue-draining issues and uncover hidden opportunities. By monitoring payment trends, decline patterns, and customer behaviors in real time, you can optimize your checkout experience, reduce declines, and enhance revenue capture. This holistic approach not only improves financial performance but also equips you with the knowledge to make strategic, data-driven decisions that propel your business forward.

With proven results, Bounce will bring in the best position for the e-commerce high season. Explore our new app on the Shopify App Store today.

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‍Subscription payment trust: fueling E-Learning growth

In recent years, the online education market has experienced remarkable growth, fueled not only by the pandemic but also by the increasing popularity of subscription-based models. These models often begin with freemium offers or trial conversions to drive user acquisition, seamlessly transitioning into recurring revenue streams.

By 2023, the global e-learning market reached $316 billion, and it’s expected to grow to $462.6 billion by 2027. Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Moodle and Blackboard enabled institutions to offer courses online, breaking down geographical and financial barriers. Meanwhile, platforms like Coursera and edX made high-quality education from top-tier universities accessible to a global audience. Unlike traditional one-time payments, subscription models offer flexibility and affordability by allowing access to an entire course library for a recurring fee.

The key to e-learning system

As the e-learning market expands, reliable subscription payment systems have become critical for sustaining this growth. Managing complex subscription renewals, preventing disruptions, and ensuring seamless access for millions of learners across the globe are central to e-learning success. North America, holding 41% of the market share in 2023, and emerging markets in India and Latin America, are prime examples of regions embracing this shift.

For corporate training and professional development platforms, subscription payment reliability is especially important, ensuring that learners can access content consistently without interruption.

Ensuring uninterrupted learning: the payment challenge

Despite the scalability and accessibility offered by subscription models, they face a significant hurdle: payment processing issues. When credit card declines occur during automatic renewals or sign-up, learners may lose access to courses, interrupting their educational journey. 

Studies show that 24% of recurring transactions are falsely declined, a problem exacerbated by the global nature of many e-learning platforms.

For learners, these technical issues can mean a sudden loss of access or unexpected subscription cancellations, undermining the very essence of e-learning: seamless and continuous access to knowledge and skill development. E-learning platforms must prioritize seamless payment systems alongside creating engaging educational content.

Bounce payment recovery for online education ecosystem

Bounce’s payment recovery solution, powered by Machine Learning (ML), addresses credit card false declines. This is particularly important for platforms converting free trial users to paying customers, where less than 30% currently convert due to payment issues.

With Bounce’s intervention, the entire subscription model flow—from free trials to paying customers and from paying customers to renewals—is enhanced. platforms experience a 20% lift in free trial conversions, a 5% lift to the top line, and a 1.5x increase in LTV (Lifetime Value), along with a significant lift in retention.

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Lingopie use case

Lingopie, the world's only language-learning application that uses real TV shows and movies, partnered with Bounce:

• 1.8% lift in authentication rates: Bounce increased the number of users successfully completing Lingopie’s authentication process.
• 2.4% rise in total deals: Enhanced authentication facilitated a 4% increase in total deals.
• Increase in lifetime value (LTV) and repeat purchases: Bounce boosted Lingopie’s LTV and encouraged repeat customer purchases.
• Improved conversion and retention rates: Authentication enhancements led to higher conversion and retention rates.

By integrating seamlessly with existing systems, Bounce allows e-learning platforms to focus on their core mission of providing quality education, without worrying about technical payment issues. The solution supports the scalable, continuous access that’s essential for successful e-learning today.

Book a demo today and help shape the future of education witout technical or financial limits.

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"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."

(Donald Rumsfeld, the former U.S. Secretary of Defense)

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E-commerce is bleeding billions due to cart abandonment, posing a daunting challenge within the e-commerce ecosystem, with an abandonment rate of 70.19% (according to the Baymard Institute). Businesses lose $18 billion yearly from unfinished transactions alone. Certain industries are more severely impacted: 

• The travel sector, including cruise and ferry websites, faces the highest rates with up to 98% of carts being abandoned
•  The fashion industry experiences rates of approximately 87.79%, 
•  The mobile providers and airline industries contend with abandonment rates of 90%. 

Despite the prevalence of cart abandonment, awareness among stakeholders and e-tailers varies. Reports indicate that 74% of e-commerce managers recognize cart abandonment as a critical issue, yet only 40% actively track and analyze this data to understand its financial impact. Here's the kicker: Instead of relying on remarketing strategies, businesses should focus on addressing the psychological, UI, and especially money transfer issues that lead to abandoned carts in online shopping.

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Combating buyer's fatigue

Cart abandonment often boils down to decision fatigue; when shoppers are bombarded with too many choices, their mental bandwidth gets maxed out, leading to exhaustion and cart abandonment before purchase completion, which is why many strategies now focus on simplification:

• Simplify choices: Reduce the number of product options and streamline the decision-making process. Apple, for example, simplified its product lineup, boosting sales.
• Provide clear and full information: Ensure that product descriptions are clear and concise, providing all necessary information to make an informed decision without needing to browse through multiple pages. Amazon’s product pages exemplify this approach by highlighting key details and comparisons.
• Optimize navigation: Design an intuitive and straightforward navigation system to minimize the effort required to find and select products. Think about how easy it is to work with Google’s clean and user-friendly interface.

Easier checkout processes

A complicated checkout process significantly deters customers from completing purchases. Here's how you can simplify it: Streamline steps: Reduce the number of required fields and steps to complete a purchases; Guest checkout: Let customers checkout without creating an account ;Multiple payment options: Offer various payment gateways and ensure the site is mobile-optimized.

Payment decline and cart abandonment

However, there is the elephant in the room. Customers get really irritated when they encounter incorrect prices or face payment declines at checkout. This doesn’t just lead to cart abandonment; it also destroys the trust and credibility of the e-commerce site. For example, 42% of consumers will abandon their cart if their payment is declined due to suspected fraud. Studies show that customers are more likely to get upset and switch to a competitor after facing a payment decline. This perfect storm of lost sales and damaged reputation screams for exact pricing and a frictionless payment process.

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Revolutionizing revenue recovery with Bounce

Bounce identifies and approves false card declines, converting them into successful transactions using advanced machine learning algorithms. This approach not only recovers lost revenue but also enhances customer satisfaction by ensuring legitimate transactions are not mistakenly rejected. Bounce's ML algorithm works seamlessly in real-time to approve valid transactions, ensuring legitimate sales are not lost and a smooth user experience. This immediate, yet seamless, intervention helps:

• Increase top line revenue: Recover over 30% of falsely declined transactions, which adds 5% to your top-line revenue.
• Improve KPIs: Enhance key performance indicators (KPIs) such as conversion rates and customer satisfaction by reducing false card declines.
• Enhance customer trust: Provide a smoother, user friendly checkout experience, reducing frustration and improving satisfaction.

Compared to retargeting

Bounce’s solution tackles the root cause of lost sales, proving to be more cost-effective than retargeting campaigns. Retargeting can hike conversion rates by up to 128%, but it comes with extra marketing costs. Preventing false card declines directly recovers sales without additional ad spend, offering a higher ROI.

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Don’t let potential sales slip through the cracks

Ready to claw back your lost revenue from false declines? Schedule a demo with Bounce to see how our revolutionary solution can turn hidden losses into wins. Don’t let potential sales slip through the cracks—let Bounce elevate your conversion rate and customer satisfaction. For more information, visit Bounce.

ABBA's "Take a Chance on Me" might not have been about the internet and free trials, but the sentiment fits perfectly: In today’s subscription economy, offering something for free to earn loyalty and commitment is spot-on. In fiercely competitive subscription markets and ecosystems, turning free trial users into paying customers is the difference between a win and a loss.

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7 Winning strategies for making your free-trial users into paying customers

1. Streamline the user journey :To avoid user abandonment, it’s crucial to remove friction from your onboarding process. Tools such as FullStory and Hotjar offer detailed analytics and session recordings to help you pinpoint where users encounter difficulties. 

2. Personalize the experience: Customizing the onboarding process to meet specific user needs can significantly boost conversion rates. For example, Spotify personalizes its user experience by leveraging user data to tailor the onboarding process. When users sign up for a free trial, Spotify analyzes their listening habits and preferences to suggest playlists and songs they are likely to enjoy. This approach makes the trial experience more engaging and increases the likelihood of conversion paid subscription.

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3. Accommodate various learning styles:  Provide varied onboarding methods - such as guided tours, checklists, and live workshops - to accommodate different learning styles. Interactive tutorials and personalized guidance can make the onboarding process more engaging and informative.Canva and Notion provide personalized onboarding tutorials during their free trials. 

4. Utilize the Zeigarnik Effect:To boost free trial conversions, leverage the Zeigarnik effect. This psychological principle suggests that people have a strong desire to complete tasks they've started. By using 2-step opt-in forms, you can effectively harness this effect. For instance, OptinMonster's prompts users to click a link to open a signup form, increasing the likelihood they’ll complete the action by entering their email. Hubstaff successfully applied this technique, increasing free trial signups by 21% by engaging abandoning visitors with a well-timed popup.

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5. Implement behavior-based emails: Dispatch activity-triggered emails to steer users through essential actions. Emphasizing unused features and upgrade benefits keeps users engaged and promotes conversions.

6. Contextualize Upgrade Prompts :Clearly demonstrate how your product addresses specific user problems, making the upgrade decision more compelling. For example, emphasize how a project management tool streamlines workflows and saves time. This contextualization helps users see the tangible benefits of upgrading to a paid plan. For instance, Asana illustrates how their tool can enhance team productivity and project management efficiency.

7.Request payment information upfront: While requesting payment information upfront may reduce the number of free trials, it filters out non-serious users and increases conversion rates. In the subscription ecosystem, it’s often better to have fewer subscribers who are genuinely interested in your product or service. This strategy is commonly used in SaaS models where the conversion rates for opt-out trials, which require payment information upfront, can be as high as 60%, compared to lower rates for opt-in trials.

The credit card decline dilemma

Even with effective strategies, credit card declines remain a significant hurdle, causing involuntary churn and eroding revenue. The actual moment of conversion, often referred to as the "blind zone," is critical. When this zone is not addressed, potential revenue is lost. Common causes include expired cards, fraud holds, insufficient funds and hard declines. Monitoring and addressing these issues can enhance revenue and customer satisfaction. These issues impact not only revenue but also customer experience and operational efficiency.

Stop leaving money at the table

In today's subscription economy, smooth onboarding is key. But what if perfectly valid subscribers are getting flagged at checkout, leading to lost revenue and frustrated customers?

Bounce solves this problem with the power of AI. Our machine learning technology analyzes payment data to identify valid transactions wrongly declined. This means:

• An Access to Bounce’s New Tailored Product Swift: Swift is a machine learning solution focused on converting more customers after a free trial. It helps identify users with high intent and ability to pay without charging their cards, ensuring a seamless onboarding experience. Swift operates on two levels: conversion level, predicting chances of becoming paying customers, and action level, suggesting the best actions to turn low-chance users into paying customers. This enhances user experience, accuracy in user acquisition, revenue generation, and understanding of customer lifetime value (LTV).
• More Subscribers, More Revenue: We recover up to 20% of lost free trial conversions, translating to a 5% boost in top-line revenue.
• Reduced Customer Churn: Bounce ensures a seamless checkout experience, reducing frustration and leading to a 15% decrease in churn. Happy customers stick around longer, boosting your lifetime value (LTV).
• Frictionless Signups: Our AI ensures a smooth payment flow, preventing unnecessary friction and keeping customers happy.

• Recover Lost Revenue: We identify and approve valid subscribers flagged at checkout, recovering up to 10% of failed signups.
• Boost Conversion Rates: Bounce helps convert more free trials into paying customers, leading to a 4% increase in top-line revenue.
• Improve Customer Satisfaction: A smooth checkout experience keeps customers happy and reduces churn.

You don't have to take our word for it; we can show you. Schedule a meeting with our experts and see how we can improve your conversion performance.

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It's no surprise that over 33% of the world’s population shops online, propelling e-commerce into a $6 trillion industry, with projections to reach $8 trillion by 2027. The opportunities are vast, but so are the pitfalls. While potential customers are busy adding items to their online carts, many businesses are still losing substantial revenue.

Most marketers are familiar with the alarming online shopping cart abandonment rate of 70%. Still, fewer are aware that many customers abandon their carts due to declined transactions rather than complicated checkout processes, unexpected shipping costs, or slow delivery times. In fact, 10% of checkout deals are declined, directly affecting your top line revenue with an average potential loss of 5%. However, not all is lost. You’d be surprised how many of these are false card declines (i.e. when payment systems mistakenly reject valid transactions). In this must-read post, we’ll explore why this happens and how you can prevent it from impacting your business.

What are card declines and why do they happen?

Card declines happen when customers cannot complete a payment due to failures in the authorization process. These issues can arise from problems with the card network, payment-processing platform, or credit card issuer. Today, every step of the processing flow declines a transaction. - the issuer, the network, and the gateway. When a charge fails, the merchant is given an error code to the business (and hundreds of error codes). 

Understanding the reasons behind card declines is crucial for eCommerce success.

There are several common causes:

• Insufficient funds: The most straightforward reason for a card decline is that the customer’s account doesn’t have enough funds to cover the purchase. This is beyond the merchant's control but remains a significant cause of lost sales. 
• Incorrect card information: Simple errors in entering card details—such as an incorrect number, expiration date, or CVV code—can lead to declines. These mistakes often occur during hurried or distracted checkout processes.
• Expired cards: Customers sometimes forget to update their card information when their old cards expire. This leads to automatic declines when outdated card details are used.
• Suspicious activity: Banks and card issuers may decline transactions that appear unusual or potentially fraudulent. This can be particularly common for international transactions or unusually large purchases. While these measures are intended to protect customers, they can also result in legitimate transactions being wrongly declined.

• Technical glitches: System errors, either on the merchant's end or within the payment gateway, can cause transactions to fail. These issues might stem from server downtime, software bugs, or connectivity problems.
• Outdated customer information: Changes in a customer's address or phone number that aren’t updated in the bank’s records can lead to mismatches during the verification process, resulting in declines.

Why it’s important to track your card decline rate

Despite the attention given to cart abandonment ratios, the importance of tracking card decline rates often goes overlooked. Some might look into payment acceptance rates that indicate the proportion of revenue captured compared to potential untapped revenue. However, they still can’t fully grasp the impact of such a decline on their business. 

By staying vigilant and proactive in monitoring decline rates, you can ensure a smoother payment process for your customers while maximizing your business's financial performance.  

Here’s why it’s crucial you track your card declines:

• Revenue optimization: Monitoring decline rates helps identify and address issues in payment processes, optimizing flow to capture potential revenue loss.
  Just about every marketing KPI is affected by conversion fails including your top line Impact, cost of acquisition (CAC), reacquisition costs, LTV, and conversion-to-paid rate/monetization rate. 
• Customer experience: High decline rates frustrate customers, leading to abandoned purchases and eroded trust. Tracking enables proactive issue resolution, enhancing satisfaction and loyalty. 
• Fraud prevention: Sudden increases in decline rates may signal fraud. Tracking helps detect suspicious trends early, allowing for additional security measures.
• Operational efficiency: High decline rates strain resources, increasing support inquiries and manual interventions. Tracking enables streamlining of operations and resource allocation.
• Strategic decision-making: Decline data provides insights into payment behavior and preferences, informing decisions on methods, fraud prevention, and customer engagement for business growth.

Recovering more than 30% of your false card declines 

Though it seems like a clear win, it might come as a surprise that a customer's click on the "pay" button doesn't always guarantee a successful conversion. Within the realm of eCommerce, false card declines present a formidable obstacle for businesses, affecting acceptance rates and overall revenue, while also resulting in disappointed customers who may seek alternatives from competitors to complete their purchase.

Bounce empowers you to identify false card declines swiftly and efficiently, recovering more than 30% of them in real-time. This seamless process ensures that you not only maximize revenue potential but also minimize losses effectively.

As Michael Jordan famously said, “I’ve never lost a game; I just ran out of time.” This mindset of quickly bouncing back after a setback is crucial in e-commerce, where retargeting serves as a strategy to recover from lost sales, especially following a failed transaction.

Reminding them of what they left behind

Retargeting is a powerful strategy to remind customers of what they left behind and bring them back to complete their purchase. Companies like AdRoll and Criteo excel in this, using cookies and tracking pixels to craft personalized ads based on users’ previous interactions, significantly boosting conversion rates and enhancing brand recall. Retargeting is a key strategy for converting “window shoppers” into buyers by leveraging their initial interest and keeping the brand top-of-mind.

However, are you considering whether retargeting is always the most cost-effective solution after a failed transaction? This practice is particularly common, where businesses instinctively turn to retargeting to recover lost sales. While retargeting can be effective, it doesn’t address one of the root causes of lost sales: false credit card declines.

While retargeting can be effective, it doesn’t address one of the root causes of lost sales: false credit card declines.

False credit card declines continue to be a significant issue for merchants, costing billions in lost revenue. But is it really so significant? In 2019, merchants in the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany collectively lost $20.3 billion due to false credit and debit card declines, according to a study by Checkout.com and Oxford Economics. This figure represents a substantial increase compared to earlier estimates, underscoring the growing impact of this problem. For every dollar lost to actual fraud, around $25 in genuine transactions are falsely declined, which is a substantial burden on businesses. These false declines cause immediate revenue loss and necessitate increased spending on retargeting efforts to recover these lost sales. Instead of constantly solving the problem after it occurs with expensive retargeting, businesses can prevent it in the first place by addressing the root cause -false credit card declines.

What are false declines and why do they happen?

False declines occur when customers cannot complete a payment due to failures in the authorization process, which can involve the vendor, payment-processing platform, or credit card issuer. The issuer is responsible for approving or declining transactions and provides an error code when a charge fails. Common causes include insufficient funds, incorrect card information, expired cards, suspicious activity, technical glitches, outdated customer information, and overly stringent fraud prevention measures. These issues not only impact revenue by causing potential sales losses but also affect other marketing efforts and KPIs - Cost of Acquisition (CAC), LifeTime Value (LTV), conversion rates and retargeting efforts as well as customer experience, and operational efficiency. High decline rates frustrate customers, leading to abandoned purchases and eroded trust, while straining resources and increasing support inquiries. Additionally, monitoring decline rates helps optimize revenue, enhance customer satisfaction, detect fraud early, streamline operations, and contribute to informed strategic decisions.

How Bounce helps reduce retargeting costs 

Bounce offers a cutting-edge AI-based payment recovery solution designed to address the issue of false declines. By analyzing millions of data points in real-time, Bounce can distinguish between valid and invalid declines, recovering over 30% of transactions that would otherwise be lost. This not only helps retain revenue but also reduces the need for extensive retargeting campaigns, thereby cutting down on retargeting costs.

Your Gain

• Reduction in Retargeting Costs: By recovering falsely declined transactions, Bounce significantly minimizes the need for additional retargeting efforts. This leads to substantial savings in your marketing budgets, allowing you to allocate resources more efficiently.

• Improved Customer Retention: Ensuring a smoother checkout experience reduces customer frustration and improves loyalty. This enhances the lifetime value (LTV) of your customers, as satisfied customers are more likely to return and make repeat purchases. Our clients have seen a 15% decrease in churn due to the improved payment process.

• Higher Conversion Rates: Successfully recovered transactions boost overall conversion rates. This maximizes the return on investment (ROI) for your initial marketing efforts, turning more potential leads into actual sales and driving revenue growth. Our solution has been shown to increase conversion rates by up to 10%, significantly enhancing your marketing ROI.

• Enhanced Renewal Rates: Subscription renewals often face payment issues, with decline rates reaching up to 50%. Bounce identifies and resolves these issues, recovering up to 20% of almost lost renewal deals, directly boosting your subscription renewals and overall revenue. This results in a 5% increase in your top-line revenue and improves key metrics like CAC, LTV, and retention.

You can save millions annually

Retargeting is essential for e-commerce success, but it comes with significant costs, particularly when dealing with false credit card declines. Bounce’s AI-based payment solution offers a powerful way to reduce these costs by ensuring more transactions are successfully processed, improving customer satisfaction, and enhancing the overall efficiency of marketing campaigns. By addressing false declines, businesses can save millions annually, gain a higher return on their marketing efforts, and lift their top line by up to 5%.

Schedule a meeting with our experts and let’s see together how much you can save.

While it's common to monitor metrics like cart abandonment rates, assessing your card decline ratio is often overlooked.

Interestingly, research shows that up to 50% of card declines are associated with valid transactions, representing significant revenue losses. These declines not only directly reduce your revenue but also adversely affect other critical KPIs such as Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Lifetime Value (LTV), retargeting costs, and retention rates.

Introducing Bounce’s hidden losses estimator! 

By utilizing our estimator, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of your current card decline losses and their broader implications on your KPIs. In just a few steps, you will obtain valuable insights that can help you mitigate these losses and optimize your business performance.

The importance of tracking your card decline rate

While businesses frequently monitor cart abandonment ratios, the critical nature of tracking card decline rates often goes unnoticed. Payment acceptance rates might offer a glimpse into the captured revenue versus potential untapped revenue, but they don't fully illustrate the profound impact card declines have on overall business health.

Keeping a close eye on your card decline metric is crucial. Here’s why:

• Revenue recovery: Up to 50% of card declines are valid transactions, representing significant revenue loss. Addressing these can directly boost your bottom line.
•  Impact on marketing KPIs: Just about every marketing KPI is affected by conversion fails, including top-line impact, cost of acquisition (CAC), retargeting costs, lifetime value (LTV), and conversion-to-paid rate/monetization rate. By reducing decline rates, you can positively influence these metrics.
• Fraud detection: Sudden spikes in decline rates can indicate potential fraud. Early detection allows you to implement security measures, protecting your business from substantial losses.‍
• Informed strategy: Data on card declines provides insights into payment behaviors, guiding strategic decisions on payment options, fraud prevention, and customer engagement, ultimately driving business growth.

How to use Bounce’s hidden losses estimator

It’s easy as 1,2,3! 

Visit this link and enter your email address to get started. We’ll then ask you a bit about your business and what you sell (apps, books, cosmetics, cleaning supplies, household goods, legal services, etc). Choose what best describes your business and then pick out your primary market location. Write down your annual revenue from online sales. Write down the percentage of the revenue that comes from international sales. If you sell internationally, tell us where you sell (up to 5 countries) and let us know whether you’re selling to consumers or businesses. We’ll guide you through just a few more questions to get you to the finish line! There you’ll learn how much money you’re losing to card declines and how much can be saved. Trust us- you won’t believe the numbers! 

Staying vigilant in monitoring card decline rates is not just about improving payment processes; it's about securing your business's financial health and ensuring long-term growth. Start tracking today to unlock these benefits and drive your business forward.

Try out our hidden losses estimator now!

We've all been there - gleefully clicking "Buy Now" on what seems like the best deal, whether it's booking that long-awaited flight, upgrading to the latest high-end smartphone, or ordering a customized New York Times front page puzzle, and suddenly: your card has been declined.This all-too-common issue, known as a card decline, occurs when a credit or debit card transaction is rejected during checkout. While it may seem like a minor inconvenience to the shopper, for businesses, card declines can signal significant trouble.

Research shows that over 10% of checkouts fail due to payment declines, significantly impacting e-commerce and subscription services, resulting in millions of dollars lost annually. Furthermore, the operational costs associated with managing declined transactions and providing customer support add another layer of expense. Businesses also grapple with higher customer acquisition costs (CAC) as they endeavor to re-engage lost customers, making card declines a pressing issue that requires attention.

For large online retailers, a single percentage point increase in decline rates can translate to tens of millions of dollars in lost sales annually. In 2023, U.S. eCommerce firms are projected to lose $157 billion due to false declines alone. Major players in the e-commerce space report that decline-related friction can significantly reduce customer lifetime value (CLV), with companies like Postmates experiencing a 1.72% uplift from implementing card account updater services, leading to $60 million in recovered revenue.

Resulting in substantial lost sales

When customers encounter declined transactions during online purchases, the experience often leads to significant frustration and impacts their future behavior and perception of the business. According to a study by the Baymard Institute, nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned due to various issues, including credit card declines. Approximately 26% of shoppers who experience a payment issue, such as a card decline, end up purchasing the same product from a competitor.  Additionally, credit card debt surged to over $1 trillion in Q2 2023, reflecting increased transaction volumes but also a higher risk of declines and delinquencies. This issue not only leads to immediate revenue loss but also tarnishes brand perception, as frequent declines can make customers question a business’s reliability, potentially spreading negative reviews and eroding trust. Furthermore, the 2023 McKinsey Global Payments Report highlights that such experiences significantly decrease customer loyalty, with dissatisfied customers more likely to seek alternatives, thereby increasing churn rates and reducing customer lifetime value.

Strategies to mitigate card declines

Effectively managing card declines is crucial for maintaining revenue and customer satisfaction. Here are advanced strategies to reduce declines and improve transaction success rates:

• Enhanced Fraud Prevention and Security Layers: Implement robust fraud prevention tools and add multiple security layers, such as 3D Secure (3DS2), which uses security questions or biometric authentication. This reduces fraudulent transactions and minimizes false declines, improving authorization rates by up to 10%.

• Accepting Digital Wallets: Digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay use tokenization and two-factor authentication, reducing fraud risk and improving authorization rates. They expedite the checkout process, enhancing customer satisfaction.

• Accurate Industry Indicators and Customer Information Ensure all transaction data matches business activities and customer details. Using accurate Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) and complete billing information, including ZIP codes and CVCs, strengthens authentication and reduces declines due to mismatched information.

How to tackle credit card declines with Bounce’s solution

At Bounce, we are committed to excellence with our advanced AI that recovers failed payments in real-time, requires minimal resources, and operates on a commission basis, ensuring businesses only pay for successful recoveries. Our solution includes:

• AI-Based Payment Recovery: Our system analyzes transaction data in real-time to recover failed payments, boasting a recovery rate of over 30% for declined transactions.
• Real-Time Transaction Analysis: Continuous monitoring of transaction patterns allows us to quickly identify and address issues that might lead to declines.
• Seamless Integration: Our technology integrates smoothly with existing payment systems, requiring no additional budget or extra work after implementation.

And contributes to these KPIs:

• Increases top line by 5%: By recovering a substantial portion of failed transactions, we help businesses boost their overall revenue.
• Improves Authentication Rates by 7%: Enhanced fraud detection and verification processes improve the success rate of legitimate transactions.
• Reduces Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Efficiently managing declines helps retain customers and reduces the need for costly reacquisition efforts.

Incorporating innovative tools like ours transforms this challenge into an opportunity. With industry-leading AI-driven payment recovery and real-time transaction analysis, we don’t just mitigate the impact of card declines; we revolutionize the entire checkout experience. By integrating such sophisticated technology, businesses can optimize revenue streams and enhance customer experience and retention, knowing they are less likely to be declined for no good reason, ultimately positioning themselves as leaders in the marketplace.

Consider how visitors navigate through your website before making a purchase. They typically start on the homepage, browse between the different products, add items to their cart, and then proceed to complete the purchase at checkout. However, this journey is rarely smooth. In this blog post, you'll discover exactly where and how to eliminate any potential or existing marketing funnel friction for your B2C and B2Ds all the way to checkout.

Limit landing page distractions 

The first point in both B2C and B2D marketing funnel friction is the landing page experience. A single issue on the landing page can cause visitors to leave prematurely. In fact 53% of visitors will abandon a page after only three seconds. This happens if visitors can’t find what they’re looking for, the loading time is too slow, or if the site has functional or usability problems.

Ensuring a seamless and user-friendly landing page experience is crucial to keeping customers engaged.

5 fundamentals of a spot-on landing page: 

1. Create a headline that demands attention: Craft a headline that resonates with the target audience's needs and desires, using powerful action words and emotionally charged language.
2. Use a hero image to bring your offers to life: Incorporate a visually appealing hero image that grabs visitors' attention and encourages engagement, while ensuring fast loading speeds.
3. Create calls to action that inspire action: Design clear and persuasive calls to action (CTAs) that represent the conversion goal, personalized to the audience and campaign objectives.
4. Provide form fields that make conversion easy: Simplify the conversion process by minimizing form fields to only essential information, ensuring a user-friendly 
5. Offer social proofs to build trust: Utilize social proofs such as customer reviews, ratings, and testimonials to establish credibility and trust with potential customers, ultimately boosting conversion rates.

Simplify product navigation:

How you present and organize the products and offerings on your site can make-or-break your business. If your website has poor navigation, limited search functionality, or a cluttered layout, customers may struggle to discover the products that interest them, thus causing a whole lot of friction during the product discovery process. This can lead to frustration and abandonment of the shopping process, and of course a failure to arrive at checkout. 

Good design, coupled with intelligent and robust catalog search capabilities, hold the power to eliminate a major friction or pain point from the marketing funnel.

5 key product discovery strategies to improve navigation 

1. High-quality images/videos: Provide multiple images/videos for each product to showcase its features.
2. Advanced filtering/sorting: Offer robust options to narrow down searches by price, size, color, etc.
3. Personalized recommendations: Use AI for tailored product suggestions based on user behavior.
4. Improved search: Implement features like autocomplete and predictive search for quicker results.
5. Interactive previews: Allow users to view essential product details without leaving the page.

Make trust an absolute must 

The inability to convey trust just might be costing you a lot of revenue. Communicating trust or adding "trust elements" is crucial in online transactions, especially in the realm of online shopping where you're betting on the fact that a person will have a good enough experience that they'll gladly go to checkout, hand you their credit card details, and pay you money. 

While it is especially important at the payment stage, if a potential customer does not feel a sense of trust, this can create major friction in the marketing funnel, it will be very hard to reel them back in again. 

3 key elements to boost trust 

1. Secure payment options: Offering secure payment methods such as credit card processing, PayPal, or other trusted payment gateways instills confidence in customers that their financial information will be protected.
2. Customer reviews and testimonials: Displaying genuine customer reviews and testimonials provides social proof of the quality and reliability of your products or services, helping to build trust with potential customers.
3. Clear return and refund policies: Transparent and easy-to-understand return and refund policies reassure customers that they can shop with confidence, knowing that they have options in case they are not satisfied with their purchase.

Ensure product information accuracy

Providing clear and detailed product information is essential for guiding customers through the purchasing decision. If customers can't find necessary information such as product specifications, pricing, or availability, they may hesitate to complete their purchase. High-quality images, product reviews, and comparison tools can help customers feel confident in their decision.

3 strategies to maintain product information accuracy

1. Regular updates: Ensure that product details such as pricing, availability, and specifications are regularly updated to reflect any changes accurately.
2. Quality control measures: Implement processes to verify the accuracy of product information before it is published on your website or presented to customers.
3. Customer feedback: Solicit feedback from customers regarding the accuracy and completeness of product information. This can help identify any discrepancies or areas for improvement.

Simplify the checkout process 

A lengthy and intricate checkout process often leads to customers abandoning their payment. Each extra step and form field prolongs the payment procedure and adds to the difficulty. Since customers prefer a straightforward and convenient process, any additional steps can negatively impact your user experience. 

Once customers have selected their desired products, the next marketing funnel friction point can occur when trying to add items to their cart. Complicated checkout processes, unexpected fees, or technical issues can deter customers from completing their purchase. It's important to streamline the process of adding items to the cart and provide transparency in pricing to minimize friction.

1. Streamline form fields: Reduce the number of required fields to only essential information, such as name, shipping address, and payment details.
2. Implement guest checkout: Allow customers to complete their purchase without creating an account, reducing friction for first-time buyers.
3. Offer multiple payment options: Provide various payment methods, including credit/debit cards, digital wallets, and alternative payment solutions, catering to diverse customer preferences.
4. Auto-fill and save information: Enable auto-fill features to populate form fields with saved information and offer the option to save details for future purchases, saving time and effort for returning customers.

For more tips, check out this article where we explore the different ways you can improve your checkout conversion rate.

Make sure the payment was completed

Even after your customer clicks the "pay" button, you’re still in danger of a lost deal. Many promising transactions fail due to card declines, with an average of 10% of checkout purchases failing at this crucial stage. Merchants often overlook this issue, but it can result in significant revenue loss and wasted marketing expenses. 

Bounce helps you detect false card declines and recover over 30% of them seamlessly and in real time, ensuring you maximize revenue and minimize losses.

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A good B2C marketer tries to win over customers. But a great one wins over customers while hitting company goals, aka marketing KPIs (key performance indicators). 

Setting targets and strategies that support a company’s long and short-term objectives is the most important part of a B2C marketer's job. In this blog, we'll cover the key KPIs every B2C marketer should know to boost their business.

Understanding the marketing funnel

Marketing KPIs exist within the marketing funnel. To understand any KPI, one needs to be familiar with the marketing funnel as a whole. This is essentially a model that visualizes the path customers take from brand awareness to conversion (purchase). 

While there is no single marketing funnel that everyone agrees on, there are some basic stages that remain the same.

1. Awareness: Introducing consumers to your brand and keeping it top of mind.
2. Consideration: Educating consumers about your brand and its unique value proposition.
3. Conversion: Convincing consumers to make a purchase decision.
4. Loyalty: Building long-term relationships and turning customers into advocates.

Within the B2C sphere, the marketing funnel can also be referred to as the Purchase Funnel. Essentially this outlines the buyer's journey within a website, from the product page to adding items to the cart, and ultimately checkout.

Conversion rate

This is probably the most important metric or marketing KPI for measuring performance. Conversion rate records the percentage of users who have completed a desired action. 

It helps assess if a certain action or campaign was successful or not and indicates what actions need to be taken accordingly. 

Marketers or growth specialists can define their own different conversion rates; For example - one could measure the traffic to cart conversion rate (customers that arrived at a site and placed a product in the cart), or the level of traffic to a newsletter signup (the amount of visitors that ended up subscribing to a newsletter).

Traffic to Cart Conversion Rate: This measures the percentage of website visitors who add items to their shopping cart. It helps assess the effectiveness of product visibility, website design, and the ease of adding items to the cart.

Cart to Purchase Conversion Rate: This metric indicates the percentage of visitors who complete a purchase after adding items to their cart. It reflects the persuasiveness of product descriptions, pricing, checkout process, and overall user experience.

Traffic to Newsletter Signup Conversion Rate: This measures the percentage of website visitors who subscribe to the company's newsletter. It gauges the appeal of the content, incentives offered for signing up, and the placement and visibility of newsletter signup prompts.

Conversion rates are calculated by taking the total number of users who 'convert' (for example, by clicking on an advertisement), dividing it by the overall size of the audience and converting that figure into a percentage.

For example, to calculate conversion rate of visitors > free trial, you need to divide the number of free trial signups by the total number of visitors. So , if you have 500 visitors to a free trial campaign landing page, and 45 of those visitors subscribe to a free trial, you have a conversion rate of 45/500, or 9%.

Checkout conversion rate 

A subsection of conversion rate, and a major component in e-commerce businesses, this B2C KPI marketing metric refers to how many leads ‘convert’ into actual paying customers. This can also be referred to as macro-conversion, whereas a micro-conversion can refer to general engagement with the business (as mentioned above.)

Return on Investment (ROI)

While there are creative ways to cut costs and stay resourceful, marketing campaigns cost money, especially large ones aimed at attracting a lot of eyeballs. This is why ROI (return on investment) is crucial to your overall marketing costs and budget. ROI is the biggest determinant of cost allocation, with the goal being to get the most revenue possible with the least amount of investment.

Calculate ROI: Divide Net Profit by Cost of Investment, then multiply by 100%.

For example, if you invest $10,000 and generate $15,000 in revenue, with a net profit of $5,000, you would need to divide 5,000 by 10,000 and turn it into percentage - 50%.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total expense of marketing to get a single customer. It covers the costs of marketing campaigns and other related expenses necessary to attract new customers, needless to say, it's important.

The CAC formula is calculated by dividing the total marketing costs by the number of customers acquired during the period. 

For instance, if your monthly marketing expenditure amounts to $5000 and you acquire 1000 new customers, your CAC would be $5.

AOV (Average Order Value)

A crucial metric within the e-commerce industry, the average order value (AOV) measures the average total of every order placed with a merchant over a defined period of time and is a key factor in business decisions for online stores. It is calculated by dividing the total revenue by the total number of orders.

To find the Average Order Value (AOV), you divide the total revenue by the number of orders placed. For example, if you made $4000 from 160 orders this month, your AOV is $25.

Calculation:

$4000 / 160 = $25

Lifetime Value (CLV or LTV)

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or LTV) is a metric that represents the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer over the entire duration of their relationship. It's a crucial measure for understanding the long-term value that each customer brings to a business. CLV takes into account not only the initial purchase but also the potential for repeat purchases and the overall loyalty of the customer. The customer lifetime value formula is:

Customer Lifetime Value = Customer Value x Average Customer Lifespan. 

This gives you the revenue expected from an average customer over their time spent with your business.

Churn Rate and Retention Rate:

This time a pair of crucial B2C marketing KPIS: Churn Rate and Retention Rate are two key performance indicators (KPIs) used to measure customer loyalty and engagement.

Churn Rate: 

This metric represents the percentage of customers who discontinue using a product or service within a specific period of time. It reflects the rate at which customers "churn out" from a business.

The formula to calculate churn rate is as follows: Lost Customers ÷ Total Customers at the Start of Time Period x 100.

For instance, if your business had 250 customers at the beginning of the month and lost 10 customers by the end, you would divide 10 by 250. The result is 0.04. Then, multiply 0.04 by 100, which equals a 4% monthly churn rate.

Retention Rate:

This metric indicates the percentage of customers who continue to use a product or service over a certain period of time. It measures the ability of a business to retain its existing customers and prevent them from churning.

The formula for calculating retention rate is: ((Number of Customers at the End of a Period - Number of New Customers Acquired During that Period) ÷ Number of Customers at the Start of the Period)) x 100.

For example, if your business started with 500 customers, acquired 100 new customers, and ended after a certain period of time with 550 customers, the retention rate would be: (550 - 100) ÷ 500) x 100 = (450 ÷ 500) x 100 = 90%.

Tracking traffic source and volume

Web traffic sources are the various ways people arrive at a website.They give us clues about where our visitors come from, the volume of traffic, and how they discovered the content. Monitoring these sources and assessing the amount of traffic helps manage your online presence and decide where to invest resources wisely.

Typically, these sources include:

• Direct Traffic: Folks who type our website URL directly into their browser or use a bookmark.
• Organic Search: Those who stumble upon our site through search engine results after typing in relevant keywords.
• Referral Traffic: Visitors who click on links from other websites, blogs, or social media platforms.
• Social Media Traffic: People who find our site via links shared on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
• Paid Search: Visitors who click on ads displayed in search engine results.
• Paid social: Users who click on ads or promoted content on social media platforms.
• Email Marketing: People who click on links in emails or newsletters sent by us or our affiliates.
• Display Advertising: Visitors who click on banner ads or display ads placed on other websites.

An example taken from hubspot traffic sources report

Click-through Rate (CTR) 

Click-through rate refers to the marketing metric that measures how often people click on a link, ad, email, or any piece of content in general. This tells us how successful the piece of content was in capturing a person's attention. The higher the click-through rate, the more successful the ad has been in generating interest. 

It's important to keep in mind that these numbers are typically low when referring to ads, as many internet users today have developed ad fatigue (the average American sees somewhere in the region of 4,000 to 10,000 ads every day.) A typical click-through rate may be only about two users per 1,000 views (or impressions), or 0.2%.

Email Open Rate

If your strategy involves email marketing, understanding your Email Open Rate KPI is crucial. This tells you how well your email marketing is working as it indicates the percentage of people who open the emails you send. Many digital marketers love to focus on the size of their email list, but what use is a huge list if no one's clicking? A higher open rate means your subject lines are grabbing attention, while a lower one might mean they need some tweaking.

Which KPIs do I establish?

When establishing which marketing KPIs for you are most important to your ecommerce store or B2C company, it's essential to look at the bigger picture and consider how different KPIs interact with each other. For example, while a high conversion rate may seem great, if the customer acquisition cost is too high, it could significantly impact your overall ROI. In this instance, you would ask yourself why the CAC is higher than usual or why your top line is low while conversion rates seem to remain stable.

By analyzing multiple KPIs together, you can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the performance of your marketing efforts and make better decisions.

The KPIs measured can be adjusted periodically based on your marketing priorities and the current challenges in your sales funnel. For instance, after launching a service or product, you may prioritize driving traffic to it. Once you achieve this, you can then shift your focus to converting the generated traffic. After successfully converting leads, you can redirect your focus to metrics like Lifetime Value (LTV) or the percentage of repeat customers, and so forth.

In conclusion, investing time and resources into understanding and leveraging B2C KPIs is essential for staying ahead in the dynamic realm of marketing and achieving sustainable success in today's B2C landscape.

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Ever wondered why your online shoppers are ditching their carts at checkout? If you answered yes, you might be in the middle of a checkout conversion problem.

In other words, visitors come to your website to make a purchase, but leave before completing their purchase. This phenomenon is all too common in e-commerce, with abandoned cart rates having skyrocketed to 70% in 2023.

Fortunately, there are several effective tactics businesses can employ to tackle this problem head-on and reclaim your potential customers. In this blog, we'll delve into the top ways you can boost checkout conversion rates and up your revenue.

But first, why are people dropping out?  

There are many reasons why people visit your online store, make their way through a purchase process and then at the last minute totally change their minds. Here's a list of the typical reasons why you’re not getting those wins. 

• Complicated checkout process: A lengthy or convoluted checkout process with too many steps or form fields can discourage customers from completing their purchase.

• Account creation walls: Requiring users to register or create an account before checkout can be a barrier, especially for first-time visitors.

• Lack of preferred payment option: If your store doesn't offer the payment method preferred by a customer, they may abandon their cart rather than compromise on payment security or convenience.

• Lack of trust in website security: Concerns about the security of personal and financial information can cause customers to abandon their carts if they don't trust the website's security measures.

• Unable to save the items for later: Some customers might wish to save items for future purchase or comparison, leading them to abandon their carts temporarily.

• Website errors: Technical glitches or slow loading times can frustrate visitors and lead them to abandon their carts.

Top ways to improve your checkout conversions rate 

1. Simplify the checkout process

People appreciate a clear and intuitive buying process. However, many businesses fail to deliver on this. To increase conversion rates, aim to make the journey to checkout as simple as possible without unnecessary steps, forms, or pop-ups. To create a simplest checkout process: be mindful of general design and layout, and  keep the journey as quick (and painless) as possible. 

2. Offer guest checkout

As mentioned above, there should be minimal steps before checkout. A great technique to achieve this is by offering Guest Checkout options. This allows potential shoppers to bypass account creation and purchase items directly, thereby potentially preventing a 35% drop in transactions. Shoppers provide their information for their order, such as their name, shipping address, and payment details, without wasting their precious time creating an account on your website.

3. Optimize for mobile

Most folks these days shop on their mobile phones - 76% of adults (US), to be exact. If you're running an ecommerce store, you'd best make sure that you adjust mobile navigation so that your online store is fully optimized for the mobile experience. Key actions you can take include ensuring a highly responsive design, providing an optimal mobile view, and integrating payment options like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal, allowing users to complete their purchases with a single touch or click.

4. Display clear shipping fees

If you have global customers shopping from your online store, they probably want to see shipping costs before they click the pay button. Shipping costs can significantly affect prices, and purchasing an item without shipping costs can appear quite different at checkout. To avoid misleading customers, it's best to display clear shipping costs and available payment methods clearly on the checkout page. Doing this helps shoppers make better-informed decisions, ensures transparent pricing, and even boosts trust.

5. Communicate trust

Customers want to feel safe and secure when making purchases online. This includes having a reputable-looking website and displaying various badges for payment security, data protection, and purchase policies. Creating a trustworthy relationship with your customers boosts conversion rates. In fact, statistics show that 35% of potential buyers abandon a site without a security badge. These trust signals reassure customers that their information is safe and their purchase is protected.

6. Offer multiple payment options

Different customers have various preferences when it comes to payment methods. The Baymard Institute found that 6% of cart abandonments occur due to a lack of preferred payment methods. With more options, paying becomes more convenient, increasing the likelihood of completing a purchase. By offering multiple payment options, you make it easier for customers to pay in a way that suits their preferences and needs.

7. Use abandoned cart emails

Implementing an abandoned cart marketing strategy is crucial. A great way to do this is by  re-engaging customers through "abandoned cart emails." Setting up emails gently reminds customers about their abandoned carts, highlights the items left behind, and utilizes personalized tactics tailored to reflect their buyer interests. Additionally, offering exclusive discounts or special offers can entice customers to return and seal the deal.

8. Reduce card decline rates

Having your customer click on the "pay" button can still turn out to be a lost conversion. Countless good deals are lost due to card declines - in fact, an average of 10% of checkout purchases get thrown out right at this very last conversion stage. This problem often goes unnoticed by merchants, but it can lead to millions of dollars lost for your business, not to mention the wasted marketing costs. With Bounce, your ecommerce business can identify false card declines and recover over 30% of them in real time, ensuring you capture valuable revenue opportunities and minimize losses effectively.

Optimize checkout for success

Whether it’s confusing web design, or false card declines, improving your checkout process is vital for ecommerce success. With many factors leading to cart abandonment, streamlining the online checkout is crucial for retaining customers, building loyalty, and boosting revenue. By prioritizing checkout optimization, businesses can seamlessly guide customers through the buying journey and resolve common pain points that maximize value from your shoppers.