Don’t let payment glitches spook your customers: how to avoid payment incidents

Running a smooth e-commerce business is all about building trust with your customers. A seamless checkout experience is key to that trust, and nothing throws a wrench in things faster than payment processing issues.

We’ve all been there: you’re about to complete your purchase, and suddenly – an error message. It’s enough to send shivers down any online shopper’s spine. Especially when you are hunting that good deal on a big sales campaign.

In the first quarter of this year, according to MakeCommerce, Estonian banks encountered 10 incidents or planned maintenances, when payment initiation service was unavailable. Four of these occurred during day time with some lasting over night to morning hours. During that time, accepting payments from affected bank was either not possible or was severely disrupted.

Here at MakeCommerce, we understand that payment hiccups can be a nightmare. That’s why we take a different approach. While most payment service providers (PSPs) rely on a single technical solution, payment initiation service (or PIS), we offer a unique double-layered system: payment initiation service backed up with traditional banklink.

Think of it like having a backup generator for your online store. PIS acts as your primary power source, offering a smooth and secure way for customers to pay directly from their bank accounts. But what happens if the bank’s system experiences a temporary glitch?

That’s where banklink comes in. It’s a reliable alternative payment method that seamlessly kicks in if PIS encounters an issue. Since on the bank side, PIS and banklink run on different rails, it’s uncommon to have issues with both simultaneously.

The mentioned downtimes lasted a total of over 17 hours. During that time, the payments from the bank in question were switched from payment initiation service to banklink. Thanks to this feature, we saved purchases worth many hundreds of thousands of euros to our merchants which otherwise would have been likely lost.

This is a risk mitigation feature that is not limited to select few top merchants but available to every MakeCommerce merchant by default. This ensures your checkout process stays up and running, preventing frustrated customers from abandoning their carts.

In a way, this feature is like insurance – mostly you don’t think about it but once something occurs, you are very happy you have a back up in place to automatically deal with the incident. This is critical to business, especially when merchants are running big sales campaigns that attract a lot of customers and purchases. Having payment incidents during campaigns can seriously hurt sales and cost a lot of money. Luckily a backup solution like this mitigates those risks.

Here’s how this benefits your business:

• Reduced Cart Abandonment: Payment failures are a major reason why customers ditch their carts at the last minute. Our double-layered system minimizes this risk, keeping your sales flowing
• Enhanced Customer Experience: A smooth checkout process builds trust and loyalty. Knowing you have a backup plan in place shows your customers you prioritize their experience.
• Peace of Mind for you: Running an online store comes with its share of anxieties. Our system gives you peace of mind, knowing you’re not at the mercy of a single technical point of failure.