Getting more transactions through.
WHY PAYMENTS FAIL HERE
Cards restricted for online transactions International transaction limits Insufficient funds Network interruption during payment Bank downtime
WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL
Offering alternative methods Clear error messages Allowing a retry without losing the cart Not timing out too quickly
THE RETRY POINT
A customer whose payment fails should be able to try again immediately, with their cart intact.
If the cart empties, the sale is lost.
Test this.
THE ERROR MESSAGE
Generic failure messages leave customers stuck.
Where the gateway provides a reason, show something useful and suggest an alternative method.
FOR RESTRICTED CARDS
Many Nigerian cards require the customer to enable online transactions.
A note suggesting they check with their bank, plus an alternative method, recovers sales.
WHAT TO MEASURE
The proportion of attempted payments that succeed.
A low rate indicates a fixable problem.
WHAT TO TEST
A deliberately failed payment, and what the customer sees.
