Key Holiday Season Considerations for Payment Industry Businesses

The holiday season is finally here! As people actively shop for gifts for their loved ones, stores, businesses, and PSPs are busier than ever. So, while the celebrations are certainly an exciting time of year, they also come with pressure to provide the best experiences to consumers, from creating the best offers to ensuring the checkout goes smoothly.

In fact, it is extremely easy to confuse priorities when getting the payment processes ready for the holiday bustle. Not to worry - in this guide, we will go through the main aspects that PSPs need to keep in mind this shopping season.

3 Tips to Ensure a Smooth Payments Flow This Winter

Recent surveys show that 48% of consumers plan to start their festive shopping earlier this year in an attempt to check the items off their list before the prices rise. This means that both merchants and PSPs should get ready for the season in advance to make the most out of the influx of purchases.

Here are the top four things to keep in mind when making the payment process holiday-ready:

1. Focus on Security

For PSPs, this is a sign to review their security protocols and make certain that they run smoothly alongside the merchants’ holiday campaigns and are set up to maximize fraud detection while minimizing payment declines.

After all, false positives could be especially devastating for shoppers when combined with the strict deadlines of the approaching celebrations and could result not only in immediate revenue loss but also in long-term issues, such as a decrease in brand trust.

2. Use Data Optimization to Drive Conversions

Purchases nowadays take place across a wide range of channels, from offline stores to social media platforms. All these payment transactions generate data that can be used by merchants and PSPs to gain valuable insights about such aspects as:

• Preferred payment options
• Spending habits
• Local payment trends

Analyzing and interpreting such data will provide both PSPs and merchants with a competitive advantage and guarantee bigger success throughout the festive days and beyond.

3. Offer the Right Selection of Payment Methods

It’s essential for PSPs to keep the markets they are targeting in mind and offer a relevant array of payment methods to their merchants. This is especially critical for cross-border transactions, as the locally preferred payment options vary significantly, particularly in areas with a highly fragmented payments landscape like Asia.

What’s more, understanding which selection of payment methods to offer is sure to increase conversions not only during the holiday season - after all, in 2021, LPMs were responsible for 77% of online purchases globally.

Also, it is advisable to pay special attention to enabling the possibility of accepting gift cards, as it is a common choice of present worldwide.

Final Touch for the Holiday Season: Create a Backup Plan

Having applied the three pieces of advice listed above, PSPs can already consider themselves well-prepared for handling the winter celebrations payment frenzy. However, there is just one more detail missing - a plan B.

Even though festive shopping is expected to be less intense this year than usual due to the fact that the majority of consumers are affected by inflation, there still could be unexpected jumps in sales.

That’s why it is so important to not only ensure that the payment process is efficient and the transactions are running smoothly but also to have a backup in case the normal flow is disrupted. If one or several processors or acquirers experience issues, it’s essential to have an established communications plan to use with the merchants and an internal protocol to manage the errors.

Developing a clear action plan for unexpected situations is the final step payment service providers need to rest assured that their operations will run smoothly during the winter season and will be primed for success in the upcoming year.