Some surveys claim that Shopify hosts over 5.1 million stores across 175 countries. This statistic alone means that you will really need to do a lot for your store to stand out. And perhaps you’re thinking about whether incorporating crypto payments could help you. Well, you don’t have to worry if you have such questions because this article will help you uncover the answers.
But even before we can get into the depths of this discussion, any serious investor needs to watch out for trends where e-commerce companies are opening up to the crypto world. Such trends can affect the prices of Bitcoin and other currencies by pushing them higher due to increased demand. Thankfully, Bitcoin price tracker tools can help you monitor these changes, resulting in better investment decisions.
So, do you really need to incorporate crypto payments in your Shopify store? Can they add to your competitiveness? Read on to find answers to some of these questions and much more.
The growing need for immediacy
Gone are the days when we would wait weeks and months before completing a transaction due to slow and complicated transaction processes. In fact, if your store consistently offers such experiences, you might end up losing a good number of customers. Looking at the statistics, PYMNTs.com claims that about 78% of consumers rank instant payment as a very important aspect of their experience.
That means allowing for such experiences already positions you at a place where you can outperform competitors who don’t offer them. This could be one of the reasons you should consider crypto payments – they allow transactions to be completed in a matter of seconds. On top of that, customers don’t have to spend more money paying third parties to help them process transactions. Crypto transactions eliminate the need for intermediaries, which could actually lead to cost savings.
You don’t want to miss out on the benefits of aligning with customers’ needs, and crypto offers just the right opportunity to avoid that. By the way, do you actually know that, according to SuperOffice CRM, aligning your products and experiences with customer needs could generate 60% more profits than if you do not? Now that nearly eight in ten modern-day customers expect instant payments, taking advantage of digital tokens to meet this need can really contribute to your competitiveness.
Remember, acquiring new customers has never been as challenging. In fact, according to some experts, you might need to spend at least five more times to acquire than retain them. Therefore, since crypto payments can help attract new audiences, why should you not consider adopting them?
Financial inclusion for international businesses
Does your Shopify store target the global market? If it does, financial inclusion is not something you want to ignore. There are just some communities that will not be able to buy from your store because they lack official bank accounts to help with that. For some, it could be because of age restrictions; for others, it could be because of a lack of access to such services.
So, how do you ensure you reach such communities? Remember that adopting infrastructures that help them interact seamlessly with your platform can give the impression that you are concerned about their specific needs, which could encourage customer loyalty. And you’d be surprised to know that increasing retention by just 5% could lead to profits of anywhere between 25% and 95%.
Crypto allows you to reach such audiences effectively since users won’t need to access physical financial institutions like banks. As long as someone has good internet activity, they are good to go. Plus, they don’t need to have official accounts to own crypto accounts, giving room for more audiences to own the tokens. And since cross-border transactions can sometimes be problematic for international businesses, crypto offers users a faster and more affordable option for users.
Aligning with emerging trends
The number of crypto users is really increasing. In fact, if we look at the statistics, Exploding Topics believes that over one billion people use digital tokens. It gets even more serious now that a pro-crypto leadership has come into power in the US. Surprisingly, just a few weeks after Trump won the election, BTC rose to an all-time high of about $100,000.
You’d definitely expect such factors to encourage more individuals to join the sector. And we can suppose that a regular crypto user may be more inclined to transact with platforms that allow crypto payments than those that do not.
This could be the reason Swapin claims that 68% of individuals desire more opportunities to pay with crypto. The research continues to highlight that about 44% think crypto will become a popular choice for many online shoppers. You can imagine the benefits you’d reap if you cater to such needs. Since, according to Swapin, many individuals are open to digital currencies, you may want to adopt them as payment methods.
E-commerce amid a growing emphasis on online security
No one wants to interact in an environment that compromises their online security. And as much as we are very conscious of our physical security, we are also becoming more aware of our online safety. In fact, did you know that close to 4000 new cyberattacks are launched every day? With this statistic alone, you don’t want to be a victim of what you could have otherwise avoided.
Plus, the amount of money you might spend recovering from an attack is just exuberant—IBM approximates it to be $4.88 billion. Crypto boasts a decentralized framework where each member has a copy of the same data in a distributed ledger. If a member’s ledger is corrupted, the majority of members will reject it.
That’s without mentioning other features like multi-signature wallets, which strengthen security by requiring multiple private keys before approving transactions. To add to that, encryption technology hushes each transaction and links it to the previous one, making it difficult for unauthorized access.
What, then, is our conclusion?
It’s actually true that you need to be very innovative to operate successfully in the competitive e-commerce industry. You cannot just stick to the old, traditional methods of doing business and expect to stand out. That’s why you need to always be checking emerging trends to see how they can benefit your business.
And one way to get started is by adopting technologies like crypto, which can help meet shifting customer tastes. For instance, most customers expect to complete their transactions within a matter of seconds, and thankfully, crypto payments are processed almost instantly. Digital tokens are also more secure and can really help reach financially excluded communities.
