Apple Pay WooCommerce payments allow you to bring the power and simplicity of Apple Pay to your WooCommerce store. Mobile payments are growing, especially among young people. Contactless payments are growing right alongside of them.

In this post, we’re going to cover the rising popularity in contactless payments and the role Apple Pay plays in them. We’ll also cover what Apple Pay is and what businesses are saying about it. We’ll then go over a handful of reasons why you should enable this payment gateway before wrapping up with a few tips on how to get started.

Let’s get into it.

The Emergence of Contactless Payments

Contactless Payment

The way we pay for goods and services has changed quite dramatically over the last century. When credit and debit cards first emerged, they allowed consumers to make purchases in much more efficient ways while also allowing them to carry larger amounts of “cash” in their pockets.

Contactless payments are making similar changes. They’re not replacing the cards we’ve become accustomed to using. They’re merely changing the way we use them.

What Benefits Do Contactless Payments Offer?

The most immediate benefit consumers experience from using contactless payments is simplicity. Consumers simply need to tap or wave their cards near a capable point-of-sale terminal to complete these types payments thanks to an embedded chip and RFID and NFC technologies.

PINs and signatures aren’t required, making this form of payment much quicker. It’s also more secure since it does not transmit personal information. It even generates unique codes to identify transactions on a per-transaction basis.

This is all great for local businesses, but you’re probably wondering what this has to do with your WooCommerce store. Simply put, Apple Pay provides a simple way for you to offer contactless payments to online customers.

Your current checkout process probably involves a few different steps. On the customer’s end, one of those steps likely includes entering payment information manually or logging into an online payment system. With Apple Pay, a completed transaction is a few taps away.

What is Apple Pay?

Apple Pay

Apple Pay is a payment service and form of contactless payment offered by Apple. In fact, it’s quickly becoming one of the most popular forms of contactless payments in existence, especially in the West.

It’s available on supported iOS devices. It allows you to make payments in store, on the web and within apps. You use the cards you have stored in your Wallet to make payments, and use Face ID or Touch ID as authorization.

Overall, it provides a much faster way for Apple users to make purchases. This is mainly due to the fact that it removes several obstacles customers face while checking out. In person, customers no longer need to swipe or enter a PIN, and they’re beginning to expect this level of convenience online.

Online, many of your customers will no longer need to enter their credit card or shipping information. It makes the checkout experience much more accessible, which will ultimately translate to more sales for your store. More on this in a bit.

You can enable Apple Pay WooCommerce payments via an integration with Stripe. However, before we get into why you should enable this payment method on your own store, let’s go over what other businesses are saying about it.

What are Businesses Saying About Apple Pay?

Adii Pienaar

“The attraction of Apple Pay is the convenience of already having your credit card details on your device. Your customers are also already familiar with spending money on their Apple devices (even if it’s just via iTunes or the App Store).

In general, there’s a trend where customers are spending more dollars when they can act impulsively and with a low-level of friction.”

These are the words of Adii Pienaar, founder of Conversio and co-founder of WooThemes, the original developers of WooCommerce. What he’s referencing is a benefit you and your customer will both experience with Apple Pay.

Thanks to Apple Pay and mobile payments in general, your customers have made spending money on their devices a habit. New products are only a few taps away. If you enable this service on your store, you’ll make things more convenient for them by giving them access to something they already have. Plus, as Adii put it, you’ll see an increase in revenue as you tap into your customers’ tendencies to buy on impulse.

That quote by Adii is from an article published on BigCommerce’s blog. It features opinions and stats about Apple Pay from various ecommerce businesses. Most businesses cited increases in the number of younger customers they have, increases in mobile use and security as reasons for adopting Apple Pay. As such, most of these businesses recommend adopting this service if you have a high mobile and/or iPhone usage on your store.

Here are a few highlights from the article. After adopting Apple Pay…

  • CocoWeb saw a 20% increase in conversions on mobile and 15% on desktop.
  • Zin Home saw an increase between 10 and 20% in mobile conversions.
  • Natomounts nearly eliminated chargebacks.

Let’s switch gears and talk about a few specific reasons why you should adopt Apple Pay.

Reasons to Use Apple Pay WooCommerce Payments

We’ve already talked about a few different reasons why stores enable Apple Pay. Now, let’s elaborate on those reasons and expand on them. This list contains seven reasons why you should enable Apple Pay on your WooCommerce store.

Reason #1: iOS’ Market Share

Statcounter - Mobile Operating System Market Share - United States

When you look at worldwide stats for mobile operating systems, you’ll find iOS has a market share of 24%, as of November 2018. However, if you look at stats from specific regions, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Oceania, you’ll see iOS devices have a 60+% stake in the market.

This means you can potentially increase your revenue by adapting your store in a minor way for 60% of mobile users in English-speaking regions.

Reason #2: Increase Conversions

Increase Conversions

Apple Pay processed over $1 billion in transactions in June of 2018. This was three times the amount the service processed in previous years. The service also has over 4,900 bank partners. Plus, Loup Ventures estimates there are currently over 252 million Apple Pay users worldwide. This is 31% of iOS’ user base.

There’s a lot of potential here for you to increase the amount conversions and revenue your store generates. This is especially true if your store already attracts a lot of mobile users.

Reason #3: Simplicity

Simplicity

Apple Pay simplifies the process of making a purchase quite a bit. All your customer has to do is click the Apple Pay button on your product or cart pages and utilize Face ID or Touch ID to authorize the transaction.

Plus, as explained earlier, the simplicity will tap into your customer’s tendency to buy on impulse. It does this by removing the number of steps they need to take to complete purchases. Think of Amazon’s 1-Click Ordering feature.

Reason #4: Security

Chip Card

WooCommerce already has plenty of payment gateways you can use to keep your customers safe. These services do this by storing your customer’s payment information for you.

However, they do store that information somewhere. Apple Pay, on the other hand, doesn’t store your customer’s information. Device-specific numbers and unique transaction codes make Apple Pay WooCommerce payments more secure than standard payment gateways.

Reason #5: Prevent Fraud and Chargebacks

Fraud

Apple Pay transactions require three things—an iOS device, a card in the device’s Wallet and personal identification from Face ID or Touch ID. This makes it much more difficult for thieves to commit fraud by using stolen credit or debit card information.

Plus, according to Natomounts and LoungeBuddy, Apple Pay greatly reduces and even eliminates chargebacks.

Reason #6: Available via Stripe for WooCommerce

Stripe

While Apple Pay WooCommerce payments may be a little difficult to implement for other payment gateways, WooCommerce and Stripe have simplified the process quite a bit. All you need to do is enable Stripe on your site, get it ready for Apple Pay, and configure the settings.

Reason #7: Future Proof Your Business

Mobile Payment Revenue
Source: The Washington Post

Apple Pay WooCommerce payments allow you to get your business ready for the future. Mobile payments will generate over $1 trillion in revenue by 2019, according to The Washington Post. Plus, 70% of polled millennials believe they’ll make most or all of their purchases via digital wallets in the future.

You can prepare for this early by adopting Apple Pay now.

How to Add Apple Pay To Your WooCommerce Site

If you want to implement this service via Stripe, start within the Stripe dashboard, and accept their terms and conditions for Apple Pay. Enter your domain after this, ensuring to drop the “http(s)://www” part.

With the WooCommerce Stripe Payment Gateway plugin installed, you can enable this service with a simple click via Settings → Payments.

If you currently use a different payment gateway, then you will need to see if your current payment gateway supports Apple Pay Integration.

If you have any problems implementing Apple Pay WooCommerce payments, be sure to get in touch with our support staff, we specialise in WooCommerce Support for growing stores.

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