We’re excited to announce the start of a new series of essays on design, engineering, and product development at Braintree.

We’ll be sharing nuts-and-bolts technical explorations and design walkthroughs, along with honest stories of the challenges and failures that contribute to our progress and success.

Give it a read and let us know what you think. Braintree Product & Technology publication.

If the brick-and-mortar world resembled digital commerce, every aisle and every checkout would be littered with shopping carts full of merchandise.

An average of 74.4 percent of global digital shopping carts are abandoned. In the digital world, it’s easier for customers to ditch their carts and never look back. Some of the biggest contributors to cart abandonment, however, can hinge on the customer experience — clunky user interfaces, time-sucking checkouts, questionable security, and too few payment options. Merchants can help address these issues by partnering with a trusted payments provider, such as Braintree.

Broadly speaking, customer conversion boils down to speed, convenience, and security — even if these characteristics seem at odds. Before customers have a chance to make it to the checkout, load times impact how long they’re likely to stay on a site and whether they are inclined to follow through with a transaction. Just a 1-second delay in load time can hurt conversion rates by 7 percent.

When customers do head to the checkout, they often run into roadblocks throughout the process. Poor usability is part of the problem. Consumers want to move effortlessly between shopping and checkout, updating their carts and checking the final price along the way. The right user interface (UI) is also integral to a seamless experience — and the payoff can be significant. The average large-sized ecommerce site can achieve a 36 percent better conversion rate just by improving its checkout design.

At the same time consumers want the ease of an express lane, they want the security of Fort Knox. A full 18 percent of consumers have reported abandoning their carts because they didn’t trust the site with their credit card information.

Whether because of security, convenience, or both, consumers cite too few payment options as another reason for leaving. It stands to reason. Alternative payment methods, such as e-wallets like PayPal, account for more than half of all global ecommerce today and are on track to reach 64 percent by 2020.

Fortunately, merchants need not be experts in the art and science of checkout flow, payments, and security. That’s Braintree’s domain. Braintree’s Drop-in UI offers merchants the ability to add a friction-free, easy-to-customize checkout flow through a ready-made integration for desktop and mobile.

The checkout process should be seamless, but storing sensitive payment information and monitoring fraud requires constant vigilance. Braintree solves this conundrum by making merchants eligible for PCI DSS SAQ-A compliance validation through its Drop-in UI. The Braintree Vault uses multiple encryption keys with split knowledge and dual control while conducting all API and Control Panel communication between merchants and Braintree via Transport Layer Security (TLS).

Of course, merchants can give customers the option of not even entering their payment information, shipping address, or billing address by offering PayPal. In a study of large-merchant checkouts by comScore, merchants that offered PayPal saw an average conversion rate of 87.5 percent. Taking that a step further, PayPal One Touch™ for mobile and desktop makes it possible, even for first-time customers, to check out with ease.

Braintree’s solutions tackle cart abandonment from all angles, helping to convert digital browsers into repeat customers. For more information on payments tips and trends, check out our Resources page.

Originally published at www.braintreepayments.com on September 18, 2017.

There’s no way to overstate the importance of the millennial mobile opportunity. But while mobile devices are proving to be an increasingly crucial path to purchase, a lack of sufficient security on mobile retail sites could be coming between businesses and their customers. Research from marketing company Alliance Data shows that 63 percent of millennials use their smartphones for shopping every day. That’s not particularly surprising behavior for a customer segment born between the early 1980s and early 2000s. As digital natives, millennials are inherently comfortable with mobile technology. They know that mobile devices have the potential to streamline and simplify the shopping process, putting the power to find the right product at the right price in these young consumers’ hands.

Despite the growing tendency to enlist the help of a smartphone when making purchasing decisions, millennials are still completing 53 percent of their purchases in physical stores. Why? This behavior can be traced in part to concerns about security. A recent study conducted by Osterman Research for account identity verification provider Mitek reveals that 42.2 percent of American millennials limit their mobile transactions due to security concerns. Slightly more millennials in the UK (42.4 percent), and considerably more Canadians in that subset (49 percent), do the same.

With close to half of millennial shoppers in the US actively avoiding mobile purchases in spite of their loyalty to their devices, it’s time for merchants to rethink payments. Every aspect of the mobile transaction experience plays a part in converting a consumer into a customer, as well as shaping the shopper’s perception of your brand and your ability to satisfy their needs.

For many millennials, though, it’s the security of your online checkout that matters most. Taking every possible measure to ensure that their payment data is secure demonstrates a commitment to the security of these key customers, while improving the odds that they’ll complete their purchase and potentially return to your mobile site down the line.

This is where Braintree can help. By offering the ability to pay through a service millennials already use and trust like PayPal — which now has more than 200 million total active users — along with Apple Pay, Android Pay, Venmo, and major credit and debit cards, you send a message to customers that their payment information is protected. Braintree takes vital steps to help ensure your business meets PCI DSS compliance verification requirements through the use of tokenization, the Braintree Vault, hosted UIs, and more. We also recommend including visual cues that represent a secure checkout — such as a green lock icon, indicative of a secure connection — on the checkout page. It may seem like a negligible change, but this icon shows shoppers that their data is actively being defended against cyber attacks and fraud. Similarly, making sure your website is served over secure socket layer (SSL) helps prove to customers that you care about protecting their information.

Over the years, mobile has been steadily revolutionizing the retail environment. The convenience and ease with which this multi-faceted channel allows shoppers to obtain the goods they seek has benefited shoppers and retailers alike. But as long as millennials continue to question the security of the mobile sites they visit or choose to abandon their shopping carts moments before completing a transaction, there is still work to be done.

Many millennials have been quick to embrace the ability to make purchases on their smartphones, and more will follow suit when merchants actively work toward providing a secure mobile checkout. The millennial opportunity that’s so vital to mobile retailers? It’s just an improved mobile checkout away.

Originally published at www.braintreepayments.com on June 8, 2017.

Serving your customers is about more than just offering great products and being responsive — it’s also about protecting their payment data. Merchants must meet PCI DSS compliance standards to help protect the security of their customers’ credit and debit card information.

Though meeting PCI DSS compliance standards can feel overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be. Here’s what you need to know about becoming PCI DSS compliant.

PCI compliance basics

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) — also known as PCI compliance — is the set of 12 security requirements mandated by credit card networks. This standard applies to any business that processes, stores, or transmits credit cards, regardless of its size or location.

The 12 requirements specify the rules necessary to ensure the following obligations:

• All merchants must achieve and maintain PCI compliance at all times.
• Merchants cannot store some specific types of credit and debit card information, including CVV2, CVC2, and CID codes.
• Merchants must follow particular security standards to store allowed credit and debit card information, such as name, credit card number, and expiration date.

PCI compliance standards also require you to, at a minimum, complete an annual Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) to validate PCI DSS compliance. In certain cases, you may be required take take additional steps to validate PCI compliance. A merchant who fails to meet compliance standards will face penalties assessed by the card networks. In addition, the PCI-related fines for merchants who are non-compliant and suffer a data breach can be significant.

SAQ and QSA

The various types of SAQ forms available might bewilder anyone who doesn’t read PCI compliance rules for fun. However, processing with Braintree Direct gives you a leg up: we provide PCI compliance validation through our partner Qualified Security Assessor (QSA), SecurityMetrics. (Additional charges may apply when you hit Level 1 or Level 2 thresholds — inquire directly with Security Metrics for more information.) Having an expert guide you through the SAQ process can help you remain PCI compliant with minimal stress.

Braintree’s PCI-compliant offerings

In addition to helping you validate PCI compliance with assistance from SecurityMetrics, Braintree also offers options that will fit seamlessly into your checkout while helping streamline your PCI compliance validation:

• Hosted Fields: Payment fields on your checkout page must be securely hosted on an external payment gateway’s domain. Braintree’s customizable Hosted Fields allow you to match the look of your website.
• Drop-in UI: You can start accepting payments quickly and easily with Braintree’s Drop-in UI. This UI offers your customers a card entry form and buttons for mobile payment, while maintaining your PCI compliance.
• Vault: You must securely store customer payment information in the case of recurring payments or save non-recurring transaction information for customers who wish to avoid reentering information with each purchase. Braintree’s gateway encrypts information and provides unique payment method tokens to any information stored in the Braintree Vault.

PCI compliance is good business

Achieving and maintaining PCI compliance may not be a public-facing part of your customer experience, but it’s crucial for building your customers’ trust and loyalty, as well as helping to protect your business from potential data breaches. Partnering with Braintree can help streamline the PCI compliance validation process, so you can put your focus where it belongs — on building your business and pleasing your customers.

Originally published at www.braintreepayments.com on May 17, 2017.

Transactions are the foundation of business, but too often in our line of work we see payments treated as an afterthought.

As a consumer, we’ve all gone through an online checkout, only to find they don’t take our card or our preferred mobile wallet; spotted a product online and struggled to find a place we can buy it; had to leave an app, or, worse still, download one to buy something; or landed on a confusing checkout page that looks completely different to the rest of the website.

As a merchant, perhaps you’ve spent time refining your website to look beautiful, but the data needed for compliant billing can’t always be gathered in a way that fits the site. Maybe you’ve found that your audience loves to shop on social platforms, but had to entice them away to a different site to buy. Or you’ve needed to pay other merchants selling via your online marketplace, or other service providers contributing to your platform, but can’t manage the settlement and disbursement quickly enough.

In all of these, the transaction is tacked on at the end of the experience, like an awkward yell of ‘Wait! You have to pay for that!” as customers depart the store.

Clearly, the payment is more than just transacting or getting paid.

Improving conversion

About 69 percent of all online transactions are abandoned. Business Insider calculates that this costs retailers around $4 trillion a year. Imagine if that was a physical store. One hundred people walk in, fill their baskets, walk up to the checkout, and then 69 of them just leave.

Now, in all fairness, a large portion of cart abandonments are simply a natural consequence of how users browse ecommerce sites — many users will be window shopping, comparing prices, saving items for later, exploring gift options, etc. This is largely unavoidable. However, a substantial portion of these could be converted into a sale through a better experience. Baynard Institute has suggested that around 35 percent are convertible — just by improving the checkout and payment process.

These changes include things like a shorter and clearer checkout, surfacing the relevant payment options that people want to use, and stronger security. Research shows that around 42 percent of millennials currently limit their own mobile transactions because of security concerns.

It’s clear that cracking online and mobile payments is a huge priority to improve business sales; however, it has an impact beyond conversion too.

Finding new customers

By making payments a core pillar of a business’s commerce strategy, you can open yourself up to a brand new customer base. This could be as simple as plugging into new online marketplaces or embedding buy buttons within social experiences. Or it could be as involved as creating APIs or custom partnerships with new platforms to deliver new services to audiences you’ve never encountered before.

For merchants, making payments and being paid have and will always be a core part of doing business, often outright determining success or failure. This means monetisation is never an afterthought. You’re enabling new audiences to buy where and when you find them.

As a consumer, payment often comes down to trust — do you trust the site, app or experience you are about to pay. If you are a repeat customer, the answer is probably yes, but for new customers, trust must be earned. That means presenting simple processes, payment experiences consistent with the rest of the customer journey, and payment options that are familiar to the customer. That includes everything from different currencies to ensuring that their credit card or digital wallet of choice is an option.

Seeking new markets

“Online” essentially means that all retailers are international from the outset. PayPal’s most recent data shows that tens of thousands of UK SMEs started to sell online to a new country between July and December 2016. The top 5 online export markets for British SMEs during that period were the US, Germany, Australia, France, and Italy. In each of these markets it’s not only currency and taxes that you have to consider; each have different customs and approaches to payments, whether it’s credit card providers, invoice systems, or digital wallets. If you don’t provide a familiar experience, customers in those markets are unlikely to buy.

This doesn’t mean you have to become an expert in international payment systems, currencies, customs, and taxes. As a merchant you’ve probably got more immediate priorities when it comes to growing your business.

Scaling your business

The good news is that by embedding payments within your strategy, scaling payments becomes an automatic by-product of the strategy. Payments is a complicated subject, so becoming an international payments expert probably isn’t worthwhile, considering you have a business to run. Fortunately, you can work with partners that will help you get where you want to be.

By using APIs (an Application Programme Interface that provides a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications) and SDKs (software development kits) from an experienced payments provider, you can essentially allow them to run the show, using their compliance and developer/integration expertise to build and scale the best possible payments experience. This ease may also open avenues to embark on new partnerships and integrations that may help you scale your business.

For the CEO of a company, a CFO looking at costs, or even a marketer optimising user experience — the payments experience can influence a business’s entire ecosystem. How, where, and when a user pays and gets paid is a powerful asset, and one that should be interwoven through a company’s entire strategy from the start.

UK online retail sales reached £133 billion in 2016, an increase of just under 16 percent, year-over-year. Mobile commerce accounted for much of this growth and with the expected growth of mobile transactions reaching 74 percent over the next two years, merchants have a short window to tap into that growth, or be left behind.

Originally published at www.braintreepayments.com on May 2, 2017.

From 3DS to SSL, language around payments can be complicated. And while we pride ourselves on being payments nerds, we know that not everyone is as passionate about this terminology as we are. That’s why we’ve put together this list of some of the most common industry terms and their definitions. We hope it helps shed some light on the payments industry (and what the heck we’re all talking about). Keep in mind that the use of these terms may differ outside of Braintree or across different countries and regions.

Still can’t find what you’re looking for? Check out our support articles for more information on the basics of payment processing and how you can use Braintree features to best fit your business, or reach out to our Support team — we’re always happy to help.

3DS: 3D Secure. An additional security layer provided by certain credit card associations for online credit and debit card transactions. 3DS adds an authentication step for customers making online purchases.

Acquirer: The financial institution that provides a merchant account and processes credit or debit card transactions on behalf of a merchant.

ACH: Automated Clearing House. A network for the processing of electronic financial transactions between banks in the United States

ACS: Access control server. The server that banks contract out to provide their end of the 3DS schema.

Amex: Shorthand for American Express.

APAC: Shorthand for Asia-Pacific.

ARN: Acquirer Reference Number. A unique number that tags a credit or debit card transaction when it goes from the merchant’s bank through to the cardholder’s bank. Also called a trace ID, this number is often used to determine where a transaction’s funds lie at a certain time.

Authorization: The confirmation from the cardholder’s bank that the credit or debit card or account is valid for a specific transaction.

Auth fee: In international markets, the static monetary amount deducted from each transaction. Also known as a per-transaction fee.

AVS: Address Verification System. A fraud protection feature that checks to see that the billing address given by the customer matches the one on file with the issuing bank for the credit or debit card.

Bankcard: A credit or debit card issued by a bank.

Batch: A group of credit or debit card transactions that have been submitted for settlement to the merchant’s bank account. Also known as a settlement batch.

BIN: Bank identification number. The first 4 or 6 digits of a debit or credit card number. Also known as an issuer identification number (IIN). Looking up the BINs associated with payment methods you’re processing can provide insights like where most of your customers are located or what types of cards they use.

Capture: After authorization, a follow up transaction that refers to the submission of a credit or debit card transaction for processing. Upon success, the transaction is sent to the acquirer for settlement

Card association: A specific credit card company, such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, etc.

Cardholder: The customer to whom a credit or debit card has been issued; the individual authorized to use the card.

Chargeback: The result of a cardholder disputing a specific credit or debit card transaction with his or her issuing bank. The issuing bank initiates a chargeback with the acquiring bank, which then filters the chargeback down to the merchant account level The amount of the disputed transaction is immediately withdrawn from the merchant’s bank account, and the merchant has a set amount of time in which to defend the chargeback, depending on the rules of the card association. A chargeback fee is usually charged to the merchant in addition to the amount of the transaction.

Chargeback defense: The transaction information a merchant needs to defend against a chargeback, such as the amount, an invoice, a customer verification/signature, and/or shipping documents.

Credit card: A payment card that enables cardholders to purchase goods and services on credit. The cardholder is then billed by the issuing bank for repayment of the credit extended.

Credit card processors: Merchant services providers — like Braintree — that handle the details of processing credit card transactions between merchants, issuing banks, and merchant account providers. Also called third-party processors or payment processors.

Currency conversion: The process by which a presentment currency is converted into the settlement currency. The presentment currency is determined by the acquirer; the settlement currency is the currency in which a merchant is funded.

CVV: Card verification value. A 3- or 4-digit numeric code on credit and debit cards; a fraud protection feature that helps verify physical possession of a credit or debit card.

Debit card: A payment card issued by a bank that can be used to make purchases or withdraw cash. Unlike credit card transactions, money for a debit card transaction comes directly from the cardholder’s bank account.

Decline: A processor decline. This indicates that the cardholder’s issuing bank has refused the transaction request.

Disbursement: The paying out of funds from an acquirer to a merchant’s bank account.

Dispute: A claim made by a cardholder to his or her issuing bank to contest or question the validity of a charge to his or her credit or debit card. Customers dispute charges for a variety of reasons, such as unauthorized or excessive charges, dissatisfaction with the product, or billing errors. Disputes often result in retrievals or chargebacks.

Ecommerce: The buying and selling of goods and services, including the transmitting of funds or payment data, online.

Electronic draft capture (EDC): A system which enables merchants to capture and transmit transaction data for credit and debit card processing.

Electronic funds transfer (EFT): The electronic transfer of money between two bank accounts, including ACH transfers and wire transfers.

EMEA: Shorthand for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Interchange fee: A fee specified by card associations that is paid by the acquirer to the issuing bank for each credit or debit card transaction. The acquirer passes this fee to merchants, in addition to any other fees charged for processing credit or debit card transactions. The exact interchange fee for a particular transaction depends on a number of variables, such as card type, business type, card acceptance method, settlement or batch time frame, information submitted with the transaction, and more.

Issuing bank: The bank that maintains the customer’s credit or debit card account and settles funds to the merchant’s acquirer for payout to the merchant. The issuing bank then bills the cardholder for the sum of all transactions during a given time period.

Merchant: Any business that accepts payments in exchange for goods or services.

Merchant account: A bank account provided by an acquirer that enables the holder to accept credit and debit card payments.

Payment gateway: The software used to transfer payment information from the merchant to the acquirer.

PCI compliance: Adherence to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), a set of requirements mandated by card associations that apply to any business that transmits, processes, or stores credit cards, regardless of the business’s size or location. If card associations find that a merchant is not PCI compliant, they can suspend the merchant’s ability to accept credit card payments and assess penalties to the merchant.

Reserve account: A portion of the funds from a high-risk (as defined by the merchant account provider) merchant’s credit card transactions, held in reserve by the acquirer to cover possible disputed charges, chargeback fees, and other expenses.

Retrieval request: A request initiated by an issuing bank when a cardholder or issuing bank wants information on a credit card transaction. The merchant has a set number of days in which to respond with transaction information, or the retrieval request becomes a chargeback, in which case there is usually a retrieval request fee issued against the merchant.

SSL: Secure socket layer. A system for encrypting data sent over the Internet, including ecommerce transactions and passwords. With SSL, client and server computers exchange public keys, allowing them to encode and decode their communication.

Settlement: The process by which the acquirer and issuing banks exchange financial data and value resulting from sales transactions, cash disbursements, and merchandise credits. After authorization, the merchant must submit a transaction for settlement — this is done automatically through some payment gateways.

Void: The cancellation of the transfer of funds from the customer to the merchant. Merchants can issue a void if the transaction is either authorized or submitted for settlement.

Originally published at www.braintreepayments.com on March 29, 2017.

E-commerce has been on a roll. According to US government figures, it’s already 8.1 percent of all domestic retail. But finding more success online can also mean encountering more challenges, such as an increase in chargebacks or returns.

According to Deloitte, a good return policy has become a key competitive advantage in e-commerce sales. We think that makes sense. If consumers know they can easily return an online purchase, they’ll feel reassured and be more likely to buy. But favorable return policies can also open the door to more returns. UPS says that return rates for e-commerce are three times higher than for brick-and-mortar sales, and can hit 30 percent of sales in certain categories, such as apparel.

And it’s not just the hassle of dealing with returns that creates a potential problem. When you add up transportation, handling, and warehousing costs, processing returns gets expensive. One sportswear merchant told Internet Retailer that a $40 returned order can cost $15 in shipping and handling. In addition, because you refund the original price, you lose all the margin dollars, turning a one time sale into a net loss.

Unless you get returns under control, the more you sell, the more money you can lose. Reducing return rates can improve not only profitability, but also the buying experience, which means better long-term relationships with your customers. Here are three ways we believe can help reduce online returns:

1. Be clear: Consumers can’t pick up and handle the products they see online before buying, which puts them at a disadvantage. If they misunderstand something about the product, they may be unhappy when they receive their order, and are likely to return it. Set expectations by being as clear as possible on your website or app. Include detailed product descriptions; well-lit, high-resolution photos of products; videos that show a product in use; explicit sets of requirements for use; and customer reviews. The more informed your customer is, the more likely they are to choose the right product from the beginning.
2. Get better control over product quality: Product quality issues that stem from your supply chain can blindside you and lead to unhappy customers. Quality issues can crop up almost anywhere: during the creation of materials, subassemblies, or ingredients; through manufacturing and assembly; or even during delivery. Cut the surprise by thinking like a manufacturer. Get detailed quality testing reports from your suppliers, including quality information about individual components, and look for deviation from set specifications. The more that parts or materials stray from the characteristics they’re supposed to have, the greater the chance of quality problems in the final product. Conversely, the more controlled and predictable your supply chain, the more likely it is that your customers get what they want and expect.
3. Mine your data: The old 80–20 rule, called the Pareto principle, says most returns will probably come from a small percentage of the products you sell, so analyzing your sales and product data can pay off. Look for patterns in returns: are there specific products, or even single SKU numbers, that cause most of the problems? The more closely you can identify the culprits, the better you can adjust your product mix to avoid some — or even most — returns.

When you improve communications, get control over product quality, and can clearly see the source of problems, you address three of the biggest reasons your customers return products. The results? Higher profitability, more efficient operations, and happier customers.

Originally published at www.braintreepayments.com on November 21, 2016.

Developers spend countless hours creating the code that lies behind the scenes of almost everything we do. It manifests itself through the sites we browse and the tools we use. But, as is the nature of the beast, the code itself remains unseen.

Today we took the chance to flip the script. To celebrate the individual lines and languages, the choices that are unique to each application, and the developer behind each.

Because we know there are a million ways to arrive at any final product — some more elegant than others — we’ve created an open-source project that gives life to the art and science of code. It’s called Codeology.

What it is

Codeology is an open-source project that reimagines code by bringing it to life visually. The combination of programming languages in each GitHub project determines its look: as no two pieces of original code are exactly alike, no two Codeology forms are either.

How it works

The application pulls data from GitHub’s public API and creates visuals using WebGL, ThreeJS, and GLSL Shaders. Shape and color represent an individual language, with size being proportionate to how many lines of code were written.

Join us in reimagining code

Codeology is open source; it can be forked and modified. Visualized projects can be downloaded or shared as wallpapers and GIFs. We’d love to see your favorite projects come to life.

For the full experience, we invite you to explore Codeology on desktop or mobile, and check out the project on our GitHub page.

Originally published at www.braintreepayments.com on February 17, 2016.

How were your holidays? If you’re a retailer, you are probably recovering from one of the busiest periods of the year. Shoppers reached to their laptops or, increasingly, to their smartphones and (hopefully) found that perfect gift from your business — something unique, exclusive or exotic perhaps, or maybe just an irresistible bargain.

For consumers, buying abroad is a great way to find an ideal present, and online shoppers are doing this more and more. Last year, according to Ecommerce Europe, 1 in 7 online EU purchases came from sellers in other countries, and that figure is growing rapidly.

For sellers, the holiday season is a great time to build cross-border sales, but there are plenty of other opportunities too. In fact, tapping into other countries’ celebrations can help you with increased sales all year round — attracting new customers and enjoying incremental revenue. Here are three ways to develop your cross-border business.

1. Research local holidays and celebrations

Christmas is huge, but there are other national or cultural celebrations that make great retail opportunities: Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, or Singles Day.

There are also many events that drive sales in different countries but are not so well known outside their borders. For example, China’s Golden Week holiday in October is actually a bigger gift-giving occasion than New Year. Back to School is a big event in the US that drives sales of educational supplies from pens and pencils to big-ticket technology.

Also worth remembering: as the summer vacation season is ending in Europe, it’s just beginning in the southern hemisphere. Many retailers successfully sell beachwear, hiking gear, and other goods in Australia and New Zealand during Europe’s “off season.”

Our parent company, PayPal, lists key dates and gift-giving customs on their PassPort site. It’s a great resource for identifying overseas opportunities that align with your business.

2. Give a great user experience

A great user experience is always important in ecommerce, but it’s even more vital for cross-border sales where shoppers are more cautious and cart abandonment rates are higher. Make the buying and checkout experience as smooth as possible.

For example, a recent study by IPSOS for PayPal found that 73% of shoppers prefer to pay in their home currency. Offering PayPal in your checkout flow is another way to make the payment process smoother. We’ve often seen that the familiar logo on an unfamiliar site can increase customer confidence and merchant sales.

Braintree offers merchants the ability to accept over 130 currencies as well as PayPal with just the single integration of our v.zero payment SDK.

Shipping mistakes and unexpected charges top shoppers’ concerns about cross-border purchases. Help them out with clear guidance on shipping costs (the top blocker for nearly half of shoppers), customs duties, or other fees.

Here are some other important questions to answer for potential customers: How easily can they track the shipping of their purchases? How will you handle returns? Where can they call if there’s a problem? Make these things easy to find and simple to understand and it will build the trust and credibility that’s essential for international sales.

Celebrate sales all year long

Cross-border selling is growing fast, and, with a little research, you should be able to take advantage of global retail opportunities, improved user experience, and clarity around costs. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes; imagine what will attract them and eliminate the blockers.

And, of course, if you have any questions, comment below, give us a call (+44–207–1220917), or send us an e-mail (sales@braintreepayments.com).

Originally published at www.braintreepayments.com on January 15, 2016.

After residing in Southeast Asia for 25 years, and spending the last 2 years as a mentor to startups in my role as Startup Advocate for Braintree_Dev, I’ve seen momentous change and growth in the region. With the soon-to-be-established ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), Southeast Asia is buzzing with investors. The AEC is labeled as the ASEAN’s “EU moment,” where Southeast Asian countries move towards economic integration, a common market, and a powerful combined GDP of US$2.57 trillion.

Diversified yet full of opportunities

Southeast Asia is extremely diverse — home to 620 million people across 11 countries — with different languages and religions. AEC aims to facilitate more intra-region trade and build a region fully integrated into the global economy. The top 6 wealthiest economies are Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Philippines with at least US$2000 GDP per capita. The IMF predicted the top five Southeast Asian economies’ growth rate will be 5.2 percent this year, which is higher than the United States or Europe. The region’s demographic is very young, with 60% of the population being aged 15–34. Furthermore, this youth demographic is quick to adopt new technology and boost commoditization.

Governments have realized the tech growth potential

Southeast Asia governments recognize high-growth and scalable startups are going to be the next-gen pillars for their economics, and they’re putting their money towards this future. Malaysia’s government funds MaGIC, an accelerator and community builder which grabbed headlines with its opening attended by US President Barack Obama. Armed with US$11.4 million in funds, MaGIC’s mission is to enable local startups and make Malaysia an attractive destination for expatriate tech companies. Neighboring Singapore is also on an aggressive growth plan. Its government co-invested US$770K in startups with third-party investors, as well as awarding US$178K of grants. Selected Singapore-based investors also stand to benefit. If they raise at least S$10 million from third-party investors, they will receive dollar-for-dollar matching from NRF, up to a maximum of S$10 million.

International attention

Southeast Asia has gathered attention around the globe, with most technology companies having a regional HQ in Singapore to take care of their entire Asian market. Social media giant Facebook has successfully penetrated the market, and Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, Line, and Viber all serve as the social media and communications platforms for startups to build their customer base on. Global commerce giants such as Rocket Internet’s Lazada, eBay, Alibaba, and Rakuten continue to invest heavily in online shopping expansion — getting more users accustomed to buying online. And even at Braintree, we’ve expanded our footprint beyond North America and Europe into Singapore and Malaysia, allowing companies incorporated in these countries to experience frictionless selling.

Access to capital internationally and regionally

Global investor 500 Startups has set up micro funds of US$10 million and US$15 million in Southeast Asia. In addition, assets managed by private equity and venture capital fund managers in Singapore are valued at around $28.3 billion, with venture capital being US$1.8 billion of that total for 2014. For those who prefer debt financing, three of Singapore’s largest banks (OCBC, DBS, and Standard Chartered) offer special lending schemes and banking services focused exclusively on startups.

Mobile growth penetration and its impact

The IDC estimates that about 1.5 billion smartphones will be shipped globally in 2015 — up from 1.3 billion last year. New brands such as Cherry Mobile, Himax, and I-Mobile are emerging to grab the Southeast Asia market from stalwart global smartphone brands. These newer phone makers aim to get consumers hooked on their own keenly-priced but strongly-specced devices, that sell for about half the price of leading brands. Cheaper smartphones allows lower-income groups to adopt these devices, resulting in greater growth and penetration as the median income rises. Mobile-first startups (HotelQuickly, KFit, Sugar) have huge opportunities to secure funding and expand rapidly in the region.

Looking up

Malaysia’s Grabtaxi (estimated valuation of US$1.8 billion), Vietnam’s VNG (estimated valuation US$1 billion), Thailand’s Lazada (estimated valuation US$1.2 billion), Indonesia’s Traveloka (estimated valuation US$1 billion), Singapore’s Garena (estimated valuation US$1 billion), and Razer (estimated valuation US$1 billion) are all unicorns that now roam the Southeast Asia startup ecosystem’s green pasture. The growth potential is clearly astronomical due to government support, mobile penetration, international investment, and smartphone takeover.

Braintree aims to bring new startups to the next level by enabling multi-currencies to go global as well as future-proofing them with new payment methods. So, if you’re looking to take a risk and jump into a young, underdeveloped but growing ecosystem, then look no further than Southeast Asia.

Originally published at www.braintreepayments.com on December 4, 2015.