By Ben Zyl

With physical checkouts disappearing across the country, consumers continue to be left with clunky, slow self-serve ordering systems, and it’s sending us all bananas.

Unless, that is, the retailer happens to have a darn good app.

McDonald’s is my favourite example. It was no small ask for them to replace a well-trained teenager who punched in our no-pickle, extra sweet and sour requests at lightning speed, a process customers were very comfortable with. But they have made one of the most successful transitions to in-app and kiosk ordering of any major chain.

Nowadays, there is maybe one manned counter and the rest are kiosks, or you can order through the app. It’s taken about four years for these changes to slowly creep in, but now ordering through the app is a no-brainer for regular customers. That’s because McDonald’s hasn’t just built a good app; it has made the entire checkout journey as easy as an Uber ride, demonstrating why the in-app payment experience is as crucial as the product selection.

The checkout is your win/lose moment

Unfortunately, it is still all too common for marketers to treat payments as an add-on problem. Typically, the thinking goes that as long as they offer enough payment options, the customer will sort out the rest. 

This is a mistake.

E-commerce generally has become so familiar and well-tooled that it’s the payment part of the journey that will make or break a sale.

If you’re asking repeat customers to punch in a card number upon each purchase, they’ve already decided that top was a ‘want’, not a ‘need’ and it remains in their cart until oblivion.

As McDonald’s has proven, in-app is the best place to deliver a seamless payment experience that will also drive loyalty. One of the best tricks McDonald’s has used is to make the kiosks twice as fast for those with the app. With the payment already sorted upon sign-up, the focus is on a fast, highly personalised experience, suggesting add-ons I might actually like. On the app, I can even order through Siri while in the car, pulling up to the drive-through window, shouting out my order number and continuing on my way. Now that’s efficiency, and it’s all linked to my McD loyalty.

Wallet on file, without the clunk

The best approach for in-app payments is undoubtedly wallet-on-file, but card-based payments create risk and friction. By all means, link the cards and digital wallets. There are still plenty of shoppers making use of loyalty card schemes and they have a place. But bear in mind that card-on-file, whether in a digital wallet or in-app, is a security risk and requires updating when a card expires.

The best way to avoid card fraud is to pay cardless. Real-time, account-to-account payments have emerged as the ideal option for in-app payments. Amazon Australia recently introduced Pay by Bank (powered by PayTo) as a payment option. This is a seamless and secure direct debit payment option. Funds are debited straight from the user’s account, removing the need to provide card details. The new ‘PayTo’ payment option gives Amazon.com.au customers visibility and control over their payments by facilitating the safe authorisation of PayTo arrangements via their online banking platform.  

Shopback has also introduced Pay by Bank as its debit payment option, eliminating card surcharges while creating an easy and secure way for customers to connect and pay in-app straight from their bank account.

Account-to-account payments offer numerous other advantages, including lower costs for the merchant, no card fees for the consumer, instant settlement, reduced chargebacks, and the ability to link into any loyalty program – be it in-house or third-party.

Whichever way you go, the crucial thing is to enable the customer to complete the payment as quickly and easily as possible, with as few pitfalls as possible and build the payment journey seamlessly into the overall experience so it feels like a single, personalised process that drives repeat usage. 

With physical checkouts becoming symbols of cost-cutting and letting consumers down, consumer control, loyalty and convenience have, without doubt, moved to app-based payments. If you nail this, you’ll have customers coming back faster than you can say “Two Happy Meals, please”. Trust me.

Ben Zyl is the country lead for Australia at Banked.