Best Practices for Merchants Using Wix Payments
6 min read
Wix Payments is not yet available to all users.
Welcome to Wix Payments. The following guidelines, tips and suggestions were gathered to help you maximize your business growth and prevent future issues/disputes with your customers.
Contact information
Having easy-to-find contact details on your site works to your benefit in many ways. Follow these communication guidelines to enhance your customers' experience with your business.
- If you don't have a contact form on your site to receive messages from customers, make sure to mention your phone number, email address and an estimated response time. That way, your customers aren't "left hanging" while waiting to hear back from you.
- Consider adding a link to your Facebook page where customers might get a quicker reply.
- Reply in a timely manner to show your respect towards your customers and your business.
- By allowing regular back-and-forth with your customers, you can prevent future problems that may come up down the line.
- Document every communication between you and your customers - this is a "must do" for cases like a dispute.
- The more contact methods that you provide on your site (e.g. email, contact form, social media links, phone number), the more your customers will trust you and your business.
- You must include the physical address of your permanent establishment/location in the footer of your site. If the business does not operate out of a physical location, include a mailing address for correspondence instead.
- To ensure your customers know the entity they're conducting business with, you must add the name of your legal entity / individual entrepreneur to your site or disclose your Doing-Business-As name (maybe your own name as a sole proprietor). We recommend adding this to the Contact Us section of your site but you may also add it your site's footer.
Clear pricing
Displaying clear prices with no hidden fees on your site is essential. Below are some tips that have proven themselves to be useful with merchants around the globe.
- Keep in mind that your customers view your site using different display modes (e.g. desktop, tablet, mobile). Your site should support a variety of devices so that customers can clearly view your products and their pricing.
- Verify that the text on your site is clear and that the colors "pop" off the page. Consider using colors with high contrasting attributes.
- Make sure any additional fee, e.g. shipping, is clear and easy to understand. This prevents questions and misunderstandings, not to mention the reason for the customers to feel that they were misled in some way.
Refund or return policies
This requirement is important for us to mention: removing, or even moving the refund policy to a different area on your site, making it less accessible or visible to your shoppers, could cause your account to be suspended.
Warnings aside, there are more guidelines you should take into account before making changes to the existing refund policy, a few of which are listed below:
- Your refund policy needs to be concise and easy to understand.
- Make sure your refund / return policy is visible on each product and service on your site. Alternatively, make sure it is visible across all pages. For example, you can add them to the footer that appears on every page of your site.
- Your refund policy needs to comply with all applicable laws and regulations.
- You can avert disputes and/or complaints by making your refund policy visible and easy to find.
- Offering a refund or assistance to your customer is a great way to maintain your good reputation as a merchant.
- It's important to keep your customer happy. Sometimes, refunding or replacing an item is the optimal solution - even if the customer has made a mistake.
- Reminder: many refund requests are submitted due to the item not being as described or because service/item wasn’t received.
Shipping and delivery information
Including information about shipping and delivery on your site is also a "must". Your business will reap positive feedback and great word of mouth if you maintain open and honest communication with your customers. Below are some tips regarding shipping/delivery information of either digital or physical goods.
Physical goods - what customers need to know
- Total cost of shipping - this needs to be clear and easily found.
- How will the item be shipped? Local post, UPS, Fedex?
- When will the item be delivered?
- Tracking information if available. This is crucial for locating items that weren’t delivered.
- If the item is not as described, are shipping fees returned to the customer? Is the customer liable for return-shipping fees?
Digital goods - what customers need to know
- Once payment is made, how will the digital product be delivered?
- Can the customer trace the download of product on their end?
- If the product isn’t as expected, what options are available to the customer?
A satisfied and happy customer will recommend your services/products to others. Unfortunately, that same can’t be said for an unhappy and dissatisfied customer. If you do not make the required information visible to your customers, it could lead to (amongst other issues) negative feedback about your business on various social media platforms, as well as suspension of your account.
Privacy policy, and terms and conditions
These 2 sections are also required pages on your site. Make sure they are both visible from anywhere on your site across all pages. For example, you can add them to the footer of your site which appears on all pages. Learn about:
Customer disputes
As much as you try to please your customers, unhappy customer experiences do unfortunately occur. Naturally, these experiences are not always avoidable and are part of doing business online.
If (for any reason) a customer is dissatisfied with a purchase made on your site, they have the right to contact their bank and dispute the charges and/or purchase made at your establishment. In the majority of cases banks do tend to side with their customers, but you can lessen the blow by following some important basic steps:
- Respond to customer calls and/or emails in a timely manner.
- Consider refunding to close the dispute - this is even more recommended when dealing with a digital product.
- Keep records of emails and calls with clients. These can be used in disputes and could become the deciding factor in your favor.
- If it’s a digital product and you can prove the item was downloaded and used, this is imperative in proving your case. Records of emails/calls to your business requesting support for a digital item can prove the item was received and that you have assisted the customer.
- If a physical product, receipts showing it was delivered and signed for are no-brainers for resolving disputes and stating your side of the "story".
- If the refund request was received in the first 7 days after its delivery, did you comply?
- The "the customer is always right" principle is even more relevant when it comes to online purchases made by electronic payment methods. Regardless of the facts, the bottom line is that banks want to keep their customers happy, even if they’re wrong - not necessarily fair, but true.
Chargebacks
Unfortunately, the result of a lost dispute is the dreaded chargeback. If you’ve been conducting business online for a while now, you most likely know about this. Just in case you've lucked out and have never gotten such a request, here is a brief explanation:
A chargeback is a demand by a credit card provider for a merchant to return the funds to a consumer, following a fraudulent or disputed transaction. Unlike a refund request, where it’s just between you and the customer, a chargeback gets the banks and the credit card companies (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc.) into the mix, and it’s not a good thing.
Any chargeback requires an investment of time and resources from the parties involved and, as such, if you receive a chargeback, you incur a chargeback fee.
With a chargeback the payment funds are taken from you and returned to the customer. However, you would not only lose the funds from the transaction, but also get "marked" by the bank. The more chargebacks you get, the more banks and credit card companies view you, the merchant, in a different light.
Your primary goal should be to keep chargebacks to a minimum and resolve customer disputes before they turn into chargebacks - hence our recommendation to refund customers.
Regardless of who’s right or wrong, chargeback "points" are never removed from your record. The more chargebacks you get, the higher your chances are of being labeled as a "risky" merchant and then suspended from Wix Payments and/or other payment providers.
Need more help?
Didn't find what you need? We are here to help you grow your business - that’s our primary goal! If you need additional information or have come across an issue that's not stated here, contact us and we’ll be glad to assist.
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