Online payments

Peak season likely brings in new shoppers, including shoppers from other countries or regions. To make the most of that opportunity, you should consider extending your checkout with payment methods that those new shoppers are familiar with.

Whatever you decide, make sure any big changes are completed before peak season, and thoroughly test everything even if you did not add any new features to your integration.

Start early

Some of the recommended actions to get ready for peak season, require time to implement. You should plan such actions well in advance so that you can properly test your implementation.

Add payment methods

To make the most of the peak season, you should enable customers to pay the way they want. This means offering relevant local payment methods in addition to international cards. With local payment methods you can:

• Maximize revenue through higher approval rates and higher conversion rates.
• Expand into new markets and reach new customers.
• Improve shopper experience and loyalty.
• Benefit from lower costs for certain local payment methods compared to cards.

In particular, consider adding:

• Wallet payment methods, such as Apple Pay, Alipay, and Cash App Pay. Their simple, fast, and secure checkout can improve conversion and improve authorization rates.
• Online banking payment methods, such as iDEAL, Pix, and Blik. These payment methods have lower transaction costs, high authorization rates, and large market shares.
• Buy Now, Pay Later payment methods, such as Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay. These payment methods appeal to a different audience and tend to lead to an increased order value and conversion for online retail and travel.

Also consider offering additional international cards besides Visa and Mastercard, and local credit and debit cards.

For recommendations tailored to your situation:

1. Log in to your Customer Area with your company account.
2. Go to Revenue & risk > Uplift overview.
3. Review the Adyen Uplift dashboard for recommended payment methods.

Check your integration's health

Well before peak season starts, you should thoroughly test or retest your integration.

Make sure you take advantage of the following resources:

• The test card credentials and utilities that are supported in the test environment.
• The API logs and webhook event logs that are available in your Customer Area.
• The Developer dashboard in your Customer Area.

Make sure you test the following aspects:

• Local markets: If you are active in local markets, test your integration with local markets in mind. Double-check that localizations and translations are correct, and that local payment methods are active and working.
• SCA and 3D Secure 2: The Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) is a European regulation requiring strong customer authentication (SCA) to make online payments more secure. If PSD2 SCA applies to your transactions, test 3D Secure 2 authentication with your integration. This is important because issuing banks refuse transactions that do not comply with the PSD2 SCA regulation.
• Web browsers: Not everyone uses Chrome, so verify that your checkout works in the relevant browsers for your market.
• Mobile devices: Verify your checkout on mobile devices. Verify the flow of local payment methods on mobile devices.
• Webhooks: Test your webhook framework. Verify that you receive Standard webhook messages informing you of payment status changes, and that you can update your order management system accordingly with the latest payment information.
• Unhappy flows: Test several refusal reasons to verify your integration can handle payment failures. In addition, test what happens if a customer does not understand the flow and opens multiple tabs with the same payment page, selects the "Back" button during a payment, or double-clicks on buttons while submitting a payment.

If you are satisfied with the (re)testing results, keep an eye on the performance of your integration using the Developer dashboard in your Customer Area.

See also