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By Adedoyin Giwa
For tech companies playing in the eCommerce space, payment gateways are crucial to development and profitability. Many household names in the ecommerce space commenced operations relying on existing e-payment services in their checkout pages. As their businesses grow, they are conscious that by redirecting customers to the external payment page, they are effectively relinquishing control of their brand’s checkout experience.
There’s also the issue of shopping cart abandonment. This is usually associated with checkout processes constituting a barrier in the way of customers making payment, which in turn makes online stores lose customers and potential sales. To ensure a more streamlined checkout procedure, ecommerce brands result in setting up on-site payment options for customers. America’s Amazon introduced Amazon pay in 2007. Today, the brand has grown to allow customers pay with their Amazon accounts on external merchants’ websites. Also, Alibaba launched Alipay in 2004, five years after it commenced ecommerce business.
These moves are also mirrored in Africa’s ecommerce space. There has been a tradition of general resentment towards the internet payment system on the African continent, despite increasing craze for mobile technology among African youth. Though most African ecommerce platforms have relied heavily on cash-on-delivery model, some are making efforts to move transactions towards the proprietary payment system. To encourage the shift, a market leader like Jumia offers incentives such as cash back when customers use their payment systems, JumiaPay.
Ecommerce companies’ primary aim is to get paid easily for purchases made on their platform, but their on-site payment services provide encryption that keeps customers’ information secured, thus improving customer experience. On-site payment option also provides customers a faster, convenient shopping and check out experience. Conventional banks and external payment platforms often have all sorts of transaction issues which at times take days to resolve and can make customers weary of the process. However, shopping on Jumia platform with JumiaPay makes such issues easier to resolve when they occur.
Beyond the ease, data security, and convenience of shopping and payment options, the payment services of ecommerce platforms offer more to customers. For instance, with JumiaPay, customers can also pay electricity bill, Pay TV subscription, and mobile recharge. The interesting part of paying via the JumiaPay app is the added incentives. A unique offering of the service is that there’s no hidden charges on payments made through the platform; meaning a free payment gateway which affords customers to save more by avoiding extra charges associated with other service providers.
Added to this incentive is the opportunity for customers to enjoy exclusive discounts from Jumia brand partners when they pay via the JumiaPay app. A good example is the recent Jumia Brand Festival where the platform brought together global product manufacturers like Samsung, Nokia, HP, Nexus, XIAOMI and several others for direct sales to customers. The week-long campaign did not only allow customers to save money, but those who made payment transactions on the JumiaPay app got extra discounts on their deals.
From all indications, ecommerce brands are gradually taking up a crucial link in the e-payment space by offering more to customers who embrace the on-site payment option. Therefore, while Nigerian customers take advantage of the ease and comfort of ecommerce services, they can optimize ecommerce for better deals by opting for payment through on-site payment products of their preferred online platforms.
