With the share of eCommerce transactions expected to account for nearly a quarter of global retail sales by 2026, online stores are now racing to implement competitive advantages that will allow them to keep up with the growing competition.
In such a fast-changing market, adopting crypto as a payment option plays a significant role in keeping your competitive edge honed. But, even more importantly, crypto transactions can boost data security, support supply chain transparency, prevent fraud, and enhance your UX.
Let’s look into the reasons why you should start accepting crypto payments on your eCommerce site today - and how to seamlessly adopt this technology!
7 Benefits of Adding Crypto as a Payment Method on Your Ecommerce Store
Accepting crypto payments can have a wide range of benefits and work as an irreplaceable unique selling point.
Here are just some of the advantages you can expect from your choice.
Increased Privacy and Security
Not trusting an eCommerce site with credit card or personal information is one of the top reasons for cart abandonment, accounting for over 18% of lost sales at checkout. If you are struggling with users abandoning their cart before completing a sale, introducing crypto payments might help.
Indeed, thanks to its underlying blockchain technology, crypto transactions are immutable, secure, and anonymous, thus protecting the buyer’s privacy, personal data, and financial information.
Providing a Greater Choice of Payment Options
According to estimations by Statista, digital and mobile wallets are the preferred payment methods among eCommerce users, over twice as popular as credit cards.
But while allowing users to pay via Google Pay or Apple Pay can be a great starting point, it is impossible to ignore that, today, there are over 81 million crypto wallet users out there. Offering buyers the chance to pay using their crypto wallet can help you tap into a new market.
Lower Transaction Fees
Transaction fees represent a major challenge for any online and offline merchant. Indeed, all online stores and brick-and-mortar businesses looking to accept digital payments will require the service of a merchant service provider or payment gateways such as Stripe, Square, or Paypal.
However, these services come at a cost - that can be as high as 3-5% of each purchase. While merchants tend to build this cost into their pricing strategy, allowing for crypto payments can help you reduce this overhead to 0-1% of the transaction value. In turn, this can help you offer better value for money to your consumers.
Faster Transactions
Depending on the payment systems you are currently using, the chances are that it will take between a few hours and a few days to complete a transaction. This delay can have a significant impact on your business’s cash flow - but it is a challenge easily avoidable by preferring faster or immediate crypto transactions.
Scalability and Seamless International Growth
Cryptocurrencies are global currencies that aren’t governed by any government or central authority. So they can be transferred from one person directly over the internet without having to go through an intermediary like PayPal or Venmo. With this, you can sell products online internationally without having to worry about exchange rates between different currencies.
Lower Risk of Fraud and Chargebacks
The rise of eCommerce has certainly brought on exciting opportunities for digital entrepreneurs and business owners alike. But this transformation has also caused a sharp increase in fraud attempts.
According to estimations by the Federal Trade Commission, consumer losses due to fraud have grown by over 70% between 2020 and 2022, reaching a whopping total of $5.8 billion, and fraud reports have skyrocketed to nearly 3 billion in 2021.
Crypto payments can help online retailers fight this trend by ensuring that transactions are immutable and records are impossible to tamper with.
Boosting Supply Chain Transparency and Product Authenticity
The spike in the demand that took place since the start of the pandemic has caused the global supply chain to stretch thin - and become more exposed to bad actors. On the other hand, today’s consumer values nothing more than transparency and authenticity when shopping online.
Cryptocurrencies are helping counteract this trend. Indeed, their underlying blockchain infrastructure strengthens eCommerce by ensuring that transaction records are stored immutably and safely while also giving consumers access to reliable data about the authenticity of the goods they are about to buy.
Beware of Crypto Adoption Challenges
Although offering crypto transactions as a valid payment method has many benefits, it is crucial for online retailers and eCommerce platforms to be prepared for the challenges that this choice might bring on.
These include:
● High price volatility and significant fluctuations in coin value
● Taxes involved with crypto transactions
● Merchants are required to hold some crypto assets
● Limited buyer protection compared to credit cards
● Significant environmental impact of crypto transactions (which might clash with your brand’s sustainability pledge)
● Crypto is currently largely unregulated
Implementing Crypto Payments on Your eCommerce Site: 5 Steps to Get Started
Getting your eCommerce site - and your organization as a whole - ready to accept crypto payments requires a long-term strategy in place. Here are a few tips to help you get started.
Set Up a Digital Wallet or a Crypto Exchange Account
As a merchant, there are a few requirements you’ll need to meet to be able to provide Bitcoin or Ether payment options to your users.
Firstly, you will need to set up a digital wallet to facilitate crypto transactions and hold some crypto yourself to use as collateral for purchases. For this step, your focus should be on choosing a reliable provider. For example, purchasing cryptocurrency on SoFi can grant you access to a wide range of business features while ensuring that your crypto assets are secure.
What’s more, you might need a third-party payment processor. With this option, you won’t need to handle any stage of the payment, but the payment processor might automatically convert your crypto value into fiat currency. This can save you from price volatility but it can hinder your capital gain potential.
Select a Payment Processor or Gateway
The next step is to select a payment processor or gateway for your eCommerce site. If your online store exists on platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce, the chances are that you’ll be able to benefit from preset crypto payment integrations.
For example, if you are setting up a crypto payment gateway on WordPress, you will be able to choose among several user-friendly and easy-to-set-up crypto payment gateways.
Market Your New Integration and Communicate With Your Audience
According to surveys by Baymard, in 2022, some of the main reasons why users abandon their cards include not trusting the site with personal information, complicated checkout processes, and not enough payment methods.
Leveraging cryptocurrency as a payment option can resolve all of these issues - be sure to let your leads know at more than one step of their customer journey!
Get Ready For the Impact of Expanding Internationally
One of the greatest advantages of using crypto alongside fiat currencies on your eCommerce site is that you can now expand internationally.
But international expansion prompts more considerations that are not just limited to the payment options you’ll offer. For example, you might need to upgrade your website’s software to support higher traffic, level up your shipping strategy, and face legal and administrative challenges.
Boost CX With The Right Plugins
Although offering crypt as a payment option already helps improve your CX, don’t forget to keep your eCommerce platform up to date with the best cryptocurrency plugins to offer automatic refunds if needed and provide instant crypto payment confirmations.
Partner With a Specialized Advisor
Introducing crypto as a payment method on your site will require you to work with your teams, understand the downsides of this move, and be prepared with a contingency plan to avoid dangerous pitfalls. If you feel unprepared to support seamless integration of crypto payments, consider working with a specialized advisor or IT professional.
