Every online shop needs to present payment option to the customers. Easiest way is to use credit card icons that are easily to be recognized by visitors. Design of credit cards changes periodically so you will need to update your site icons with latest versions to make them as much visible as possible to the public so they will know if they pay online in your shop.
Sometimes is not so simple to download from Internet a credit card logo and use it in your site because there may appear certain problems from the official payment service that requires you to use certain logos so that you will not create confusion or mask some sort of obscure payment.
Main idea regarding the use of official brand materials is that those are an image of the payment service and since financials are very important for everyone you would not want to make an error and make an undesired payment for example.
Such materials are: Acceptance Marks, Brand Marks or Other marks.
Considering for example Mastercard, they provide information about how to use these:
- Acceptance Marks – indicate acceptance of their payment brands. Common uses include decals and signs at merchant locations or in merchant advertisements.
- Brand Marks are used to market or promote our products and programs. Common uses include cardholder statements or card program advertising.
- Other Marks are used to promote or indicate acceptance of specific programs.
For example on PayPal they provide you all needed information in their PayPal Online Logo Center. They have also 3 types:
- Acceptance Mark – if you want your customers to see on your home page and checkout that you accept PayPal.
- Solution Graphics – you offer your customers the information that because you accept PayPal this includes also acceptance of various payment options.
- Additional Options – when you can use other graphics that integrate better with your site design.
Other services like 2CHECKOUT (2CO) also present an acceptable language. They insist on the fact that it is important for customers to understand the role the payment service plays in their online transaction. Proper understanding reduces consumer confusion over charges and therefore it may help reducing refunds and other negative activity.
In the case of 2CO for example best practices terminology for buttons includes:
- “Add to Cart”
- “Buy Now”
- “Continue”
- “Continue to 2CO”
- “Complete your purchase at 2Checkout.com”
- “Check out with 2Checkout.com”
What is the importance of Custom Checkout for your shop page?
By using a custom checkout page you can give your customers a more consistent customer experience and stay PCI Compliant at the same time. More important to know is that if the checkout page is on your website, you are responsible for PCI Compliance and not your payment processor.
Standard Checkout user experience created by using different colors, background and heading font styles create a difference experience for user. This is not always bad, but that user may have problems and can be confused having the impression that he is not on the correct side.
Custom Checkout user experience created by using the same colors, background and heading font styles create a unified experience for the user so that makes the process more easy to be completed.
For more information related to credit card usage and resources we recommend you reading about average credit card debt of card users.
Also many people are interested to compare credit cards and see which one is the best option for them.
Important to know is that you need to keep your store up to date when it comes about payment processors so that people will trust your site and not get confused.
