Tag Archives: eCommerce

Ecommerce Tips: How To Make Payment Easier For Your Customers

Posted on by Allen Brown
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For an eCommerce business, having user-friendly payment methods is crucial for success. If you’re setting up your business, prioritize payment methods. Explore the many options online and see which one best suits your business.

Customers need to know from the get-go how to make payments after a purchase. Therefore, make it clear how payments should be made and provide multiple options on your site.

The upside of having a secure, friendly payment option is that you can grow your client base. Here are some tips that will improve your customer’s payment experience.

1. Accept a Variety of Payment Methods

Because clients’ preferences differ, offering them several options at checkout makes the payment more manageable. Therefore provide many tools such as credit or debit cards, virtual currency, or even loyalty points.

The catch here is to keep in mind that the payment methods should sync with your customer trends. Find out which strategies they prefer by either doing market research or a survey. For instance, a customer may choose an eCheck because it reduces their costs, unlike paper checks.

2. Offer the Mobile Option

If you want instant payments, providing mobile payment options can be a great way to make your customers’ lives easier. On this front, Apple Pay can be an ideal way to help increase conversions from your mobile customers as an eCommerce entrepreneur. The best part is that if you’re using it for BigCommerce, you can always seek expert advice and consultation to make the most out of the mobile payment option. 

Mobile payments provide a convenient alternative to your customers because they can make payments from anywhere. Whether they are shopping online or ordering food, they can pay their bills immediately from their phones. Additionally, mobile payments are secure due to features such as biometric scanning.

3. Use Online Credit Card Payments

Add a payment form that accepts online credit cards. You can outsource this mode to a payment service provider. The provider will host the payment mode and process the payment securely. They also store payment records securely to capture return clients as long as they give their permission.

You can also use a merchant gateway such as PayPal or Stripe. When choosing a service provider, consider their fees and fraud protection levels.

4. Stop Redirecting Customers

Ensure sales and payments happen on one website. Redirecting customers to another site for payment can cost you business. Payment platforms like PayPal are secure, but turning customers from your website might make the payment process cumbersome. Apart from making your customer’s work lighter, retaining them on your website longer can keep them shopping around for more products or services. If the payment process for your eCommerce business involves redirecting customers, you might want to rethink it. 

5. Avoid Prodding Too Much

So, your customer has made a purchase and is ready to pay, but there’s a long-form waiting for him to fill at check-out. Having to fill lengthy forms can make a customer abandon a sale. If you must collect information, limit it to the essentials.

Requesting unnecessary details is a hurdle to purchases, and customers don’t like challenges when shopping.

6. Reassure Customers about Privacy

Most people fear making online purchases due to fraud. Customers become skeptical if a website asks for personal information. Therefore, they need to know they can trust you with their details.

One way to do this is to have a Secure Sockets Layer certificate, which means information such as credit card details, IDs, and passwords are encrypted. Having a secure website can also boost customer trust, and ultimately their loyalty. Data security and privacy are paramount. 

Here are some moves you can make to help assure customers of their privacy and payment security on your site:  

  • Create a privacy policy page on your website and make sure it’s visible to the customer
  • Ask for consent before using cookies or tracking customers online
  • Encrypt data that is being transmitted over public networks like Wi-Fi hotspots so that no one can intercept it
  • Use SSL certificates to encrypt your customers’ data
  • Disable the ability for customers to enter personal information on your site
  • Consider a secure checkout process that doesn’t require a customer’s credit card or other sensitive info
  • Give customers the option of opting in or out of sharing their contact information with you
  • Allow customers to delete their account and all personal data from your site at any time

7. Upskill Your Staff

You might have brilliant technology and equipment, which staff can’t operate. If this is the case, train your team to handle such equipment and answer queries related to online payments.

They should also know how to resolve issues like failed payments or hitches during transactions. Train your staff on this whenever you upgrade to a more advanced payment method such as a mobile wallet.

8. Improve Your Purchasing Experience

It’s one thing to have a website that is super good and which customers enjoy visiting. It’s another to ensure they can make payments from wherever they are and whichever device. 

Ensure your check-out process is straightforward. One way to do this is to offer a seamless payment option even on mobile devices. You can also assure clients that your payment methods are secure by displaying a privacy statement on your website.

Making payment easier is not the only thing you need to increase conversions on your eCommerce site. Apart from streamlining the checkout process, other things you can do to improve the customer purchasing experience include the following:

  • Provide adequate information about products
  • Use high-quality images to showcase your products
  • Have a variety of colors and sizes available for customers to choose from
  • Display the price in an easy-to-read format, such as $10 or 10% off
  • Offer free shipping on orders over $50
  • Allow customers to return items if they are not satisfied with their purchase within 30 days

The success of your online business is not solely dependent on your product. Having a cumbersome payment method could make you lose business. For a safe and friendly payment experience, ensure your customers can use several options. You should also prioritize security and privacy to build customer trust. On top of this, avoid sending customers away from your site. Remember to train your staff on new technology whenever you upgrade.

How To Fix Common WooCommerce Security Issues

Posted on by Denny Fontaine
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WooCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce software platforms. It has one of the highest market shares (23.43%), second to Squarespace online stores at 23.51%. Its popularity is mainly facilitated by its ease of use and user-friendliness advantages.

This is not to say that WooCommerce has no challenges. Security threats targeting eCommerce stores are on the rise. To use a WooCommerce store, users will have to login in and share their sensitive details with you.

Because WooCommerce stores have a significant market share, hackers target them more than other eCommerce platforms with a lower market share. The higher the market share, the more vulnerable an eCommerce platform will be.

Woocommerce Security: Best security plugins (2018 Edition)

This article explains seven practical tips to fix WooCommerce security issues.

1. Always Update Your Site

WordPress WooCommerce and security plugins usually become obsolete over time. As a result, they become vulnerable to security breaches. Developers and software vendors are always coming up with new or improved versions to address security issues. They will release new software updates that have improved security capabilities.

You have to install the security updates once they have been released. Failing to update is like choosing to live with the security vulnerabilities which could be detrimental to your WooCommerce security.

The best strategy to deal with the updates is to set aside a regular time to review and conduct the updates, backup your data, and deploy the updates to your WooCommerce website. You can as well set up the WordPress auto-update feature to do the task for you.

2. Use Security Plugins

Installing security plugins is one of the most vital WooCommerce security measures that you must implement. WooCommerce security plugins will scan through your site to identify any security threats.

The plugin will also clean up all your websites to protect them from brute force attacks, malware attacks, among many other security threats.

3. Install SSL Certificate

Having an SSL certificate on your WooCommerce store will ensure that all in-transit data and communications between your store servers and your customers’ browsers are encrypted. Encryption ensures that no intruder can read or decipher a communication.

You must acquire your Secure Socket Layer (SSL) from a trusted SSL certificate providers like RapidSSL, CheapSSLShop, GeoTrust, DigiCert etc. There are several SSL certificate options that you can work with. However, I will recommend the wildcard SSL certificate because of its ease of use and cost-effective advantages that the certificate brings forth.

With a wildcard SSL certificate, you only need a single certificate to secure an unlimited number of first-level subdomains under the chosen main domain. If budget is a concern, there are several premium yet cheap Wildcard SSL certificate that you can choose to work with.

When you invest in one such certificate, you afford premium and reliable security to multiple subdomains such as blogs, payment pages upto level one.

4. Protect Wp-Config.php File

Wp-Config.php File carries critical data and information. Therefore, it is one of the most vital files on your WooCommerce store and should be protected at all costs. It would be difficult for an attacker to hack into your WooCommerce store if your Wp-Config.php File is not accessible.

Protecting your Wp-Config.php File is not an arduous task. All you need to do is move the file to a higher level than the root of your WooCommerce store.

5. Use Strong Passwords and Enable Two-Factor Authentication

Passwords act like the keys that lock your WooCommerce platform to protect it from unauthorized intrusions. The stronger the passwords, the more secure your WooCommerce platform will be. The following are the best passwords practices that you can adopt for your WooCommerce platform:

  • Use unique passwords for each account and advise your clients to follow suit.
  • Create strong passwords that combine numbers, letters, and special characters. The more complex the password, the more secure it will be.
  • Password Length should be a key priority. Use passwords with eight or more characters.
  • Use password manager tools.
  • Store the passwords safely.

Passwords are susceptible to attacks such as brute force attacks and dictionary attacks. As such, you will need an extra layer of authentication to fortify your authentication process.

Two-factor authentication, commonly abbreviated as 2FA, is one of the most fantastic WooCommerce security measures that will safeguard your store against intruders.

2FA denies unauthorized people the ability to validate the logins via the extra authentication factors. For instance, a user will have to enter a one-time password and use biometric authentication features such as voice recognition, retina scans, or fingerprint IDs to gain access to an account.

Only the rightful account owners have access to the second authentication factor. For your WooCommerce security, ensure you enable the 2-factor authentication.

6. Back-Up WooCommerce Store

If you ever lose your data or your WooCommerce website gets hacked, then a backup is the easiest way to get your website on track as soon as possible.

A backup plan will help you retrieve all your data. Without a backup, your business will most likely cease to exist, which is not a good thing. Here are some of the WooCommerce backup tips that you should know:

  • Select a WooCommerce backup plugin that will automatically backup all your data. One of the best plugins that you can work with is the JetPack Backup.
  • Regularly update your data. You can select the daily backup option or real-time backup option.
  • Ensure you have a seamless data restoration plan to have your website up and running in just one click.

7. Use a Secure Hosting Provider

Selecting a web host is one of the most significant business decisions that will impact the success of your business. A reliable web host will play a vital role in the security of any business.

With the right hosting provider, you can adequately secure your WooCommerce store. Choose the wrong host, and you will end up causing all kinds of web security headaches.

The first question you ought to ask yourself when choosing a web hosting provider is, “will the web hosting provider take your WooCommerce security seriously?” If you have any reason to believe that the host will easily compromise the security of your WooCommerce site, then you better not use such a provider.

Here are some of the critical considerations to make when choosing a web hosting provider for your WooCommerce store.

  1. Always choose a dedicated hosting provider over a shared host.
  2. The hosting provider should maintain regular backups.
  3. The web hosting provider should monitor your internal networks to detect and prevent intrusions and anomalous activities.
  4. The web host should offer firewalls capable of protecting your networks against all forms of intrusions.
  5. The web host should offer antimalware and antivirus software to protect your networks against any form of malware attacks.

If your web hosting provider does not meet any of these thresholds, it would be best to work with a more secure host to avoid any security issues to your WooCommerce website.

Conclusion

All the hustle and bustle involved in launching a WooCommerce store can make you quickly forget about the security concerns. However, an insecure WooCommerce store could potentially expose your customer data to malicious people. Therefore, it would be best to have a cybersecurity measure that protects your store from security threats.

By following the seven steps, you will be able to formulate the perfect groundwork for a secure and trustworthy WooCommerce store that is well protected in any event of an attack.