A Holiday Season Like No Other

Online shopping for the 2020 holidays is expected to be record breaking. Is your payments platform ready for potentially the biggest ecommerce season in history?

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3 Quick Wins for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

PayPal Checkout

Upgrade from standard to Express Checkout and reduce clicks and help increase conversions by up to 25%.*

PayPal Credit**

Enable more purchases by offering customers the buying power they need.

PayPal Store Cash

Help reduce cart abandonment with targeted incentives that can bring buyers back.

Need help adding these products? Call our Holiday Survival Hotline:

844-353-0782

Preface
Surviving the Most Unique Holiday Shopping Season Ever

The most wonderful time of the year is nearly upon us. Even in a struggling economy, ecommerce is going strong. Online share of retail sales increased 90% between March and April 2020,1 and most consumers believe this “new normal” will last longer than 4 months.2 That means the 2020 holiday shopping season could be packed with opportunity. But you’re going to need a new playbook. And you’re going to need it quickly.

Rewrite the Holiday Playbook
Major retailers like Macy’s, Target and Walmart are already setting up their plays. Macy’s is planning to offer curbside pickup, a service they didn’t provide in 2019.3 Walmart and Target will be closed on Thanksgiving4,5 – announcements that would have been considered crazy a year ago.

One thing won’t change: We’ll likely see a continued rise in online spending – which was already record-breaking in 2019, when Black Friday shoppers spent $7.4 billion6 and Cyber Monday shoppers spent $9.4 billion.7 Enterprises that don’t update their game plan before the code freeze are leaving money on the table.

Turn to the Experts
PayPal offers tons of tools to help enterprises survive and thrive during the 2020 holiday shopping season. QR codes, consumer financing, mobile wallets, and abandoned cart incentives – these are a few of our favorite things for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and beyond. Let’s dive in.

The Digital Metamorphosis: How Coronavirus Is Reshaping Commerce -
The Pandemic’s Digital Shift And Retail’s ‘Super Bowl’ -

Chapter 1
How to Help Increase Conversions in a Year of Economic Uncertainty

In 2019, the cart abandonment rate was already 69.57%.8 This year, financial uncertainty is high,9 Americans have less savings,10 and competition for those hard-earned dollars is likely to increase. Abandonment rates could be through the roof – unless you have the right tools. PayPal can help.

Secure the Sale
The PayPal Button is always working hard to increase your conversions – 52% of surveyed online shoppers were more likely to purchase if PayPal is visible.11 Don’t make them wait until the checkout page to let them know you offer one of the most popular ways to pay.12 Help secure the sale by moving PayPal buttons upstream to your product pages.

Rescue Abandoned Carts
Store Cash targets customers who ditch their cart, helping you win over undecided buyers. Enable Store Cash and choose your offer amount, and we’ll send customers an email with an incentive to return. PayPal can identify and re-engage 3x more customers and help lift transaction volume.13 And you don’t pay anything unless the sale is made. That’s how you win the holidays.

Enable More Purchases
Buy now, pay later options are essential for holiday shopping. In 2019, over 70% of holiday shoppers used a credit card, with average charges of $660.14 PayPal enterprises can offer PayPal Credit15 at checkout to enable larger purchases. You could see 21% more incremental sales just by adding PayPal Credit to your product and cart pages.16

Store Cash Floral Merchant Case Study
PayPal Buy Now Pay Later Product
PayPal Credit Infographic

Need help adding these products? Call our Holiday Survival Hotline:

844-353-0782

Chapter 2
How to Make Sure Your Payments Platform Won’t Crash on Cyber Monday

While long lines and big crowds on Black Friday are out, Cyber Monday is definitely in. PYMNTS estimates up to a 40% jump in Cyber Monday sales, to $12.7 billion.17 Processing outages and slow load times are sales killers – just ask retailers like Costco and H&M, who had major outages in 2019.18 Enterprises will need their payments platform to be ready.

Simplified Troubleshooting
Getting all your vendors on a conference call is not what you want to be doing this holiday season. To simplify your support, you need to combine all your payment needs under one house. With PayPal, you get a single support team across all of your payments, consolidated reporting, and simplified troubleshooting. You’ll be dashing through the snow, instead of stuck in a snow drift.

Reliable Uptime and High Availability
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are high-stakes: Costco estimates it lost $11 million during its cyber week outages.19 Uptime and availability are more essential than ever. PayPal for Enterprise offers built-in redundancy and high availability to reduce the impact of outages. With 99.99% uptime,20 we help enterprises capture all of that vital holiday season revenue.

Fandango Case Study
5 Hidden Problems with Your Payments Platform

Chapter 3
How to Offer Touch-Free Transactions

Reality check: The coronavirus isn’t likely to disappear before the holiday season. A vaccine isn’t expected until 2021. Consumers are showing a preference for contactless payments, self-checkout21 and curbside pickup.22 PayPal’s touch-free omnichannel solutions make it easy for enterprises to keep up with the changing face of holiday shopping.

Leverage QR Codes
QR codes are making a comeback as businesses look to implement contactless payments and curbside pickup. With PayPal, businesses can use QR codes with no software needed. Our system is being rolled out to more than 8,000 CVS stores nationwide, and our enterprise customers can easily join the trend. Just print your QR code and post it at your point of sale or attach it to a package for curbside pickup.

Accept Mobile Wallets
Consumers are turning to contactless payments more than ever to ease their coronavirus fears.23 PayPal for Enterprise offers popular wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo (US only) and PayPal Wallet. Add and remove payment methods with just a few lines of code and easily reach customers in new ways: 50% of Venmo users have made at least one online or in-store purchase after seeing it on a friend’s social feed.24

PayPal’s Plan for Touch-Free QR Code Commerce

Interested in accepting QR codes? Call our Holiday Survival Hotline to get started:

844-353-0782

Chapter 4
How to Make Your Doorbuster Deals Frictionless

You’ve got the customer in the virtual door. They’re ready to buy eight days of presents and stocking stuffers galore. But 80% of shoppers stop transacting on sites with a poor experience.25 In a big-ticket season like the holidays, that’s a lot of money going up in smoke. To capture the sale and keep customers coming back, retailers need a completely seamless checkout process.

Increase Checkout Speed
A tiny 100-millisecond improvement in site speed leads to an 8.4% increase in conversions and a 9.2% higher average order value for retail sites.26 Now imagine the benefits of trimming full seconds off your page load times during the busy holiday season. PayPal enterprises can provide fast, easy checkout with our drop-in UI, or fully customize their own interface.

Maximize the Mobile Experience
Enterprises who up their mobile game get results: Jane.com saw a 30% increase in mobile revenue with PayPal’s mobile SDK.27 Our mobile SDK allows businesses to create a streamlined experience across all devices. And with features like One Touch, PayPal customers can check out without filling out a single form field.

Offer Alternative Payment Methods
The top 30 major merchants accept an average of 8 payment methods. The bottom 30 accept only 5.8.28 To help maximize conversions, the more payment methods, the better. Adding the PayPal Button is only the first step. PayPal for Enterprise is the only payments platform that can give you access to Venmo’s 52 million users.29 We also have mobile wallets, ACH/bank transfers, and traditional debit and credit card transactions.

5 Levels of Frictionless Payments
Frictionless Commerce Article
Making Every Website Visit Count

Chapter 5
How to Reduce Fraud Without Affecting Approval Rates

Before the pandemic, card fraud was already expected to lead to $32.39 billion in losses.30 Now, it’s likely to be even higher: Ecommerce fraud rose 12% in the seven weeks after the first lockdown measures were taken.31 Add in record-breaking sales volumes, and you’ve got a recipe for revenue loss – unless you have the right strategy to prevent fraud.

Enterprise Fraud Protection
False positives can be a big problem, especially during busy times: 30% of all customers report having legitimate transactions declined.32 PayPal for Enterprise uses real-time data and machine-learning technology to proactively help prevent fraud while keeping auth rates high. PayPal Wallet transactions saw a 7.9% uplift in authorizations compared to non-PayPal direct credit card market transactions.33

Double the Network, Double the Data
With fraud on the rise, the more data enterprises can leverage, the better. PayPal’s two-sided network means we may better understand anomalous shopping patterns. Enterprises get a 360-degree view of fraud patterns and emerging risks with unique data sets they may not be able to get anywhere else. It’s the power of Big Data in a streamlined package.

Seller Protection
There’s nothing friendly about “friendly” fraud. Chargebacks and reversals are a major source of revenue loss.34 During the holidays, business’s attention is better spent driving up revenue, not chasing down chargeback complaints. A PayPal Seller Protection policy can help protect your revenue from chargebacks, reversals, and fees on eligible transactions. (Limits apply).

Help Preventing a Coronavirus-Fueled Fraud Pandemic
5 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Fraud Solution
3 Revenue Killers Infographic

Want to learn more about activating a Seller Protection policy?Call our Holiday Survival Hotline:

844-353-0782

Chapter 6
How to Tell If Your Payments Provider Is Stuck in the Past

The digital explosion brought on by the coronavirus is forcing the hand of the holdouts, skeptics, and laggards. Black Friday 2020 may be a turning point. Enterprises with a secure, agile payments platform will be able to help gain ground and keep their momentum going long into the new year. Those whose provider is stuck in the past may crumble under the holiday stress.

Optimize Your Payments Process
The days of closed networks, legacy systems, and disparate integrations may be over. The age of end-to-end payment processing solutions has arrived. The old school processes payments and calls it a day. The new school optimizes the payment experience across all channels, offers the payment methods customers want, and provides tools to help fight revenue killers. Be a part of the new school.

Strengthen Your Security
Advances in data encryption, tokenization, and AI reveal another widening rift between the old school and the new school. PayPal uses industry-leading TLS configurations and network tokenization. We also follow 3D Secure 2 protocols, which can help reduce transaction times, decrease cart abandonment,35 and allow enterprises to shift chargeback liability. Every second counts during the holidays, and PayPal enterprises could have an edge over the competition.

Future-Proof Your Payments
If the coronavirus has taught us anything, it’s that the world can change in an instant. This potentially record-breaking holiday season is a case in point. With PayPal, enterprises get an agile payments platform that can quickly scale up to help deal with increased demand, plus powerful data insights that help you stay ahead of shifts in the holiday shopping landscape.

5 Signs You’ve Outgrown Your Payments Processor

Chapter 7
How to Help Turn Seasonal Shoppers Into Year-Round Customers

Capturing revenue during the holiday season is all about bringing in new customers. But the key to true, long-term growth in any industry is to keep customers coming back. Many enterprises aren’t aware this is something their payments processor can help them with. But PayPal enterprises have powerful marketing tools.

Gain Consumer Trust
When finances are tight, consumers turn to brands they know they can depend on. PayPal is one of the most trusted brands in the world.36 59% of surveyed customers reported that they are more likely to trust an unfamiliar retail website if PayPal is present.37 Our brand can provide consumers peace of mind – and your brand could gain trust as a result.

Nurture Relationships
PayPal enterprises have the tools they need to drive conversions this holiday season. But what happens next? PayPal can help you get repeat business by identifying up to 40% of anonymous website viewers and helping you retarget them with email campaigns.38 Our Extend integration allows you to set up loyalty programs and in-context experiences. And our secure Vault safely stores card information for these purchases.

Make Data-Driven Decisions
Data pays off: Insights-driven businesses grow at an average rate of more than 30% annually.39 But many enterprises are stuck in a pattern of collecting data without analyzing it. PayPal’s data reporting can help make sense of it all. Uncover reasons for card declines and cart abandonment, use our broad datasets to target the right customers and get actionable insights to keep holiday success stories going year-round.

Think Outside the Button
A Guide to Delivering Modern Commerce Experiences with a Flexible Digital Payments Platform
LevelUp Case Study
Krispy Kreme Case Study

Chapter 8
How to Integrate These Improvements... Before the Code Freeze

The digital landscape is in constant flux. Legacy systems are becoming outdated faster than ever. The countdown to the holiday code freeze is on. Businesses everywhere are wondering – how will we get it all done in time?

Make Changes Within Days
PayPal customers can leverage many of our tools quickly and easily. Add and remove payment methods with just a few lines of code. Set up Store Cash in minutes. Enable PayPal Credit40 and add messaging to your site in as little as 10 clicks. Get your personalized QR code and start accepting contactless payments in just a few days.

Give Devs the Tools They Need
Adding the PayPal Button on average takes just 2 weeks. Our Extend and fraud integrations could be up and running within weeks as well. That’s because all our code was made to integrate easily into your system.

Our developer tools streamline the integration process even further. Use our demo tool to experience checkout flow from the customer’s perspective. Visit the sandbox to test transactions using virtual simulations. Simulate API requests and responses in the API Executor before going live. It’s all in our developer portal. Start now, and you’ll be fully prepared before the code freeze countdown runs out.

Quick Change Artists: How PayPal Enterprises Are Adapting to Coronavirus
Ready. Set. Adapt. Infographic

Don’t forget to register for our free webinar,
How to Prepare Your Business for the Holiday Season.

October 15, 2020 11:00AM Pacific (US and Canada)

Register today

3 Quick Wins
* Data based on merchant case study (business’s own internal data from 2020 using PayPal Express Checkout). Results may not be typical and may vary substantially by business.
** Subject to consumer credit approval

Preface

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