The power of using payments to up conversion rate has a direct impact on the bottom line – and nowhere has this been more clearly demonstrated than at National Shower Spares in the UK. Profiled in the Strategic Payments white paper from InternetRetailing (download here), Aaron West, Ecommerce and IT Manager, tells how conversion rates have risen since implementing Amazon Pay.
Founded in 1999 in Scotland, National Shower Spares has grown to become the UK’s leading supplier of shower spare parts and accessories nationwide. Registered as the number one bathroom renovations supplier – out of 148 companies – for customer satisfaction, they assist customers to find showers, bathroom fixtures and shower parts and answer installation questions.
The retailer has been offering Amazon Pay to customers across desktop and mobile since 2018, and transaction volume through the payment tool has grown continually ever since, says explained Aaron West, Ecommerce and IT Manager at National Shower Spares.
We realised that since everyone has an Amazon account, it would provide a seamless payment process for our customers. I was an Amazon Pay early adopter myself and wanted our customers to experience the same benefits. The Amazon brand is instantly recognizable and helps give customers that extra confidence when paying online.
– Aaron West, Ecommerce and IT Manager, National Shower Spares
Witnessing the success it experienced with Amazon Pay, the company decided to upgrade its checkout experience, in 2020 to Amazon Pay’s next- generation checkout technology, Checkout v2. In the same year, the share of online customers completing checkout with Amazon Pay grew by 42%, which National Shower Spares attributes to decreased cart abandonments and improved decline handling through Checkout v2.
We wanted to use the latest checkout technology that provides an improved customer experience and better development maintenance: there are no widgets, and Amazon handles any errors.
– Aaron West
As an important additional benefit, West notes that Checkout v2 facilitates compliance with Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirements under the EU’s second Payment Services Directive (PSD2).
After completing the upgrade to Checkout v2, the company reported year-over- year revenue growth of 79%. The solution has also contributed to higher conversion rates of 60% – 70%, compared with other payment services.
The company attributes this growth to satisfied customers, who have been sending glowing reviews of the better and easier-to-use site.
The seamless experience has reduced clicks in the checkout process, while errors are handled straightaway, so our customers have a much clearer journey. Amazon Pay helps us to provide a good customer experience, and we are so pleased with the uplift that Checkout v2 brought us.
– Aaron West
The integration with Checkout v2 has also received a standing ovation from the National Shower Spares web developers, who pointed out more efficient error handling and a time-saving integration process.
I must say a massive thanks to the API designers because Checkout v2 was a hundred times easier to integrate than the first version. The overall flow has been greatly streamlined, making things much simpler for us to code, and for customers to navigate when transacting.
– Aaron West
