Identity theft and fraud attempts are global problems. Since 2005, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse estimates that more than 500 million records containing sensitive data have been breached. To combat this threat, the big five credit card companies (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and JCB) partnered in 2006 to create the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
For those conducting business online, complying with these standards is crucial to protecting your organization and your customers.
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Filed under data security standards, PCI, SAS 70, US-EU Safe Harbor
Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Boleto Bancario. Raise your other hand if you know what Ãœberweisung is. Take the day off if you know what iDeal is! Just kidding about that last one, but people who know e-commerce know that local payment methods are a vital piece of the conversion puzzle in international e-commerce. How you present payment methods significantly influences how successful those payment methods are.
Payment methods are the variable du jour in today’s digital goods e-commerce. When you talk to people in the industry, it’s like an arms race to see who supports the most payment methods. The reason is simple: if your customers prefer to pay in a particular way, you should offer that payment method to reduce friction in the purchase process.
For historical, legal and accounting reasons, different payment methods have proliferated in different countries and regions. Countries like Germany where consumers are taught to buy within their means results in wire transfers as the most important local payment method. In Japan, where population density is great and visits to convenience stores are frequent, the Konbini payment method is a popular alternative. Even the Internet itself gave rise to PayPal as an increasingly popular payment method in many countries.
With credit card sales booming, selling only in U.S. Dollars and the English language is a thing of the past for digital goods. Most companies have dramatically added to their list of payment options over the last few years as local payment methods like Konbini, Boleto Bancario, iDeal, WebMoney, MoneyBookers and others have increased awareness outside of their regional homes. Yes, this is a good thing. However, long payment method lists have created a problem in the checkout process, which you can see in the following real-life example:
Long Payment Method List
How long does it take you to read all of the options that are listed in the drop-down of nine? Are there REALLY nine legitimate payment methods for you in YOUR region? What happens if more payment methods are added? This becomes extremely cumbersome. Giving customers too many choices is often worse than a one-size-fits-all mentality.
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Filed under boleto bancario, cart conversion, credit card, E-commerce, konbini, payment methods, PayPal
When selling products internationally, it’s critical to be aware of the slight differences between regions. In a previous post, we examined the differences between U.S. sales tax and E.U. VAT presentation. Similarly, date formatting is one of the most common, yet easily solved mistakes made when companies have their virtual passports stamped to sell globally.
In the U.S., the month is typically displayed before the day when writing (MM/DD/YYYY). If you are using a U.S. computer, look at the format of the date display and you will see a date such as 9/15/2010. Clearly there aren’t 15 months in a year so it’s rather obvious that the month is first, day second and year third. However, Europeans will likely see the reverse with 15/9/2010 (DD/MM/YYYY) in the display.
This may seem innocuous enough, but what happens when you have a date such as 3/9/2010? Look at the following example of software maker Whitesmoke:
Whitesmoke Cart Landing Page
This capture was made on August 31, so what they likely meant as the Offer ends date was September 3, but to a U.S. viewer, this looks like March 9, 2010! Is this offer already expired? Don’t make your customers stumble over such trivial details.
Similarly, in Japan, the date is written with the year first, then month, then day. This adds additional complexity when selling into Japan. Here’s a screen shot of the Amazon software store with only the numbers shown. Luckily, 99.7% of all Japanese citizens are Japanese, or else there could be confusion in how Amazon is handling the date.
Amazon Software Store with Date Format Highlighted
Wikipedia has a list of all the countries and common practices in those local countries. Check it out and use these guidelines for date formatting.
Common Date Formatting by Country - Wikipedia
In Western countries there is a simple solution to smooth the rough edges when it comes to date formatting. If you always spell out at least part of the month field with letters, no one will get the wrong idea.
We recommend the following formats:
- 3rd September 2010
- Sept 3rd, 2010
- Sept 3, 2010
- 3 Sep 2010
Of course, you must handle Asian countries differently. Be sure your marketing and e-commerce platforms supports all of the local nuances to prevent marketing campaigns from underachieving!
Keystone: Attention to detail is extremely important when selling internationally. Spell out some part of the month field whenever including a date online because you never know where your customer is coming from.
Do you have any other examples where you’ve been confused when buying online? Often times, companies aren’t even aware that they are losing sales! Tell us your stories.
Filed under Amazon, date formatting, Japan, Whitesmoke
