With the latest PCI Changes taking affect July 1, 2010, many e-commerce store owners were stuck between a rock and hard place for accepting credit card payments while maintaining compliance.  For those using X-Cart the option of integrating their X-Payments module isn’t exactly easy or time-efficient.

The simplest option for those using Authorize.net as their payment gateway is to use the Authorize.Net SIM payment method, which is where the customer is sent to a special Authorize.net hosted payment form to enter their credit card data.  This strikes fear into the heart of many e-commerce owners as the general belief is that sending a customer off your site will scare them away / decrease conversions.

One client shared with me that Authorize.net SIM was their only option at the moment and hired me to solve: “How can we use Authorize.net SIM without hindering conversions?”

I’ll admit, from the outset I was not sure there would be much room for improvement given our limitations.  However, after careful planning and optimizing of their One Page Checkout Mod (from Altered Cart) and the Authorize.net form we achieved some surprising results – a 34% increase in customers moving from the Checkout Page to a Sale!

Listed below are the procedures used so that you might benefit from similar results.

1. Manage Expectations
2. Reduce the Information Requested
3. Maintain Consistency / Image

Manage Expectations

The first step is managing your visitor’s expectations by telling them what is going to happen next and why.  This helps eliminate any confusion or apprehension from the ‘unknown’.

So, by using Authorize.net SIM for checkout what are we doing?   We are sending the customer to a secure payment page to enter their credit card information.  Let’s make sure we communicate that clearly to them by changing both:

1. Payment method description (Located in Admin Side -> Payment Methods -> ‘Special Instructions’ field)

   

2. In the clients version of X-Cart 4.1.9 the label “disable_ccinfo_msg” also was used as it appears when a visitor selects ‘Credit Card’ on the checkout page.

The end result looks like this:

Now we are creating and managing the experience that the customer is being taken to a highly secure separate page for their payment information, so they can feel safe entering it.

Note: the Trustguard security seals were previously present.  For more information on reducing anxiety / increasing conversion with these see my post on Reducing Customer Anxiety.

Reduce Information Requested

When a customer reaches the Authorize.net SIM payment form, they’ve already signaled their intent to buy and provided us with all the information we need – except payment information (the most important!).

The primary purpose of this form becomes to capture payment information:  everything else can be removed.  Login to your Authorize.net account and click ‘Account -> Settings -> Payment Form -> Form Fields’.  Once here uncheck everything except ‘Invoice No’ and ‘Card Code’ (if you use it):

Again, you already have the customers information saved when they entered in your checkout page.  Asking for that again adds too many unnecessary fields and detracts from our managed experience of ‘securely entering credit card information’.

Maintain Consistency / Image

We want to ensure our visitors don’t feel like they’ve been sent somewhere deep in cyberspace to enter their credit card information just so it can be stolen.  To prevent this, we need to continue managing their expectations by maintaining consistency / branding during their interaction with the Authorize.net form.

Now, Authorize.net doesn’t give us a lot of flexibility in this area, but as we saw from the initial results, it appears to be enough.  To customize the rest of the payment form:

1. Color Settings – Leave these at default (Black, Blue, White)
2. Header – Here you need to place your logo (320 x 75 px is a good size) and a title name for the form “Secure Credit Card Payment Form”.

The code entered would be similar to:

<div style=”font-size: 18px;”><img src=”https://secure.authorize.net/mgraphics/logo_XXXXX.gif” alt=”" />
Secure Credit Card Payment Form</div>

Secure Credit Card Payment Form

Note: To show your logo you have to send it to Authorize.net by opening a support ticket and they will host it.   See http://www.authorize.net/support/merchant/Integration_Settings/Customizing_the_Hosted_Payment_Form.htm

3. Verified Merchant Seal – Yes we want to show this, check the box.

4.Footer – Here again we want to continue managing expectations, here is what we entered, yours should be something similar:

All set – the final result should something look like this:

Your credit card payment process is now optimized – congratulations!  Use your Google Analytics Goal Funnels report to evaluate the progress.  If you don’t have it set-up or aren’t sure if it is working properly you can request a Free Audit.

Additional Notes for Google Analytics

For those who have the Complete Analytics Package for X-Cart installed, your converting keywords information will still reported (it is not lost or overwritten by authorize.net sim).

If you are using Google Analytics (without the package) the reporting data is not affected by sending the customers to visitors to Authorize.net.  You may have issues with the tracking code itself, depending on what X-Cart version you have and how it was installed (many versions of X-Cart don’t have analytics installed correctly).  If you aren’t sure you can request a Free Analytics Audit here.

Best of luck!

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