What methods of payment does your eCommerce store accept? While you most likely allow your customers to pay using traditional methods of payment like a credit card or debit card, you may want to consider accepting cryptocurrency payments as well.
A report published by Consultancy found that 700 billion cryptocurrency-based transactions were performed in 2020. By accepting cryptocurrency payments on your eCommerce store, you can experience the following benefits.
1) Low Transaction Fees
There are transaction fees for nearly all methods of payment. When customers check out by placing an order, your eCommerce store’s payment processor will charge you a fee. These transaction fees typically range from about 2 percent to 3 percent of the customer’s payment amount. When compared to credit card and debit card payments, though, cryptocurrency payments tend to have lower transaction fees.
Accepting cryptocurrency payments will save you money on transaction fees. You’ll still need a payment processor, and the payment process will still charge you fees for processing customers’ payments. Nonetheless, transaction fees for cryptocurrency payments are lower than those for traditional methods of payment.
2) Free Exposure
You’ll gain free exposure for your eCommerce store by accepting cryptocurrency payments. After discovering that they can pay using cryptocurrency, customers may tell their friends or family members about your eCommerce store. This word-of-mouth marketing will result in free exposure.
Your eCommerce store may appear in online directories. There are online directories for stores and merchants that accept cryptocurrency payments. When added to these online directories, more customers will find your eCommerce store. Customers who hold invest or otherwise hold cryptocurrency may encounter your eCommerce store listed in one of these directories.
3) Discourages Abandoned Carts
Another reason to accept cryptocurrency payments is to discourage abandoned carts. Fewer customers will abandon their carts if they can pay using cryptocurrency. Customers often abandon their carts for different reasons. According to Baymard Institute, two of the most common reasons are a lack of payment options and declined cards.
Customers will have more payment options from which to choose if your eCommerce store accepts cryptocurrency payments. And assuming a customer chooses to pay with cryptocurrency, there’s no risk of his or her card being declined. Accepting cryptocurrency payments will discourage customers from abandoning their carts. A lower cart abandonment rate, of course, will translate into more orders being placed.
4) Outshine Your Competitors
Accepting cryptocurrency payments will allow your eCommerce store to stand out from other online retailers. Cryptocurrency is still in its infancy. Whether it’s Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana or Polkadot, only a small percentage of online retailers currently accept it as a payment method.
If you visit your competitors’ stores, you probably won’t find many of them that accept cryptocurrency payments. They may accept credit card and debit card payments, but chances are they don’t accept cryptocurrency payments. Therefore, embracing this alternative payment method will outshine your competitors. It will give your eCommerce store a unique advantage over your competitors’ stores.
5) Fraud Protection
Fraudulent transactions are common in the eCommerce industry. When customers pay for products in person, they must present their credit card or debit card to the cashier. When paying for products online, conversely, customers only need to enter their card number, expiration date and security code; they don’t need to physically have their card in their possession.
Because customers only need the information displayed on a credit card or debit card to purchase products online, fraudulent transactions are a concern for eCommerce stores. A Juniper report, in fact, found that fraudulent eCommerce transactions will soon exceed $20 billion per year. If your eCommerce store is the victim of fraudulent transactions, you may have to refund cardholders or pay resolution fees.
You can protect against fraudulent transactions by accepting cryptocurrency payments. Customers must own the necessary amount of cryptocurrency to use it as a payment method. Furthermore, nefarious customers can’t request a chargeback with cryptocurrency payments. Banks only honour chargebacks for credit card and debit card payments; they don’t honour them for cryptocurrency payments.
6) Accepting Is Easy
Despite what many store owners believe, accepting cryptocurrency payments is easy. You can either use your own cryptocurrency wallet, or you can use a third-party cryptocurrency processor, such as BitPay or Coinbase. The latter option is the easiest because it eliminates the need for coding. You can sign up for a third-party cryptocurrency processor to accept cryptocurrency payments on your eCommerce store.
Many eCommerce building platforms support apps for third-party cryptocurrency processors. If your eCommerce store was built on Shopify, you can use the BitPay or Coinbase app. Downloading the BitPay or Coinbase app and activating it on your eCommerce store will allow you to accept cryptocurrency payments.
Other platforms support similar third-party cryptocurrency processor apps. Regardless, you can use one of these apps to easily accept cryptocurrency payments. The third-party cryptocurrency processor will accept customers’ cryptocurrency payments on behalf of your eCommerce store, and it will store the digital currencies in a secure wallet. You can then either retain the digital currencies paid by customers, or you can convert them into fiat.
7) Future-Proof Your Business
Accepting cryptocurrency payments is a way to future-proof your business. As more customers embrace digital currencies, they may expect your eCommerce store to accept them as a payment method. Failure to accept cryptocurrency payments may result in them choosing a competitor’s store.
According to Techjury, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for cryptocurrency is 3.5 percent. In other words, the percentage of people who will own or use cryptocurrency increases by about 3.5 percent per year. With such a high CAGR, cryptocurrency will soon become a leading payment method that ranks alongside credit cards and debit cards. As a result, accepting it will future-proof your business.
Cryptocurrency isn’t a substitution for credit card and debit payments. You should still allow customers to pay using these traditional payment methods. By adopting cryptocurrency as an alternative payment method, however, you can take advantage of several benefits. Accepting cryptocurrency payments will save you money in transaction fees, generate free exposure for your eCommerce store, discourage abandoned carts, outshine your competitors, protect against fraudulent transactions and future-proof your business.
