Today, Applause, a provider of testing and digital quality solutions, released the results of its first Digital Payments and Localization Survey, revealing that 76% of consumers are likely to abandon a transaction if their preferred payment method is not accepted. The survey also found that 68% of consumers prefer to use mobile/digital wallets to pay for goods and services, but only 56% of providers accept them. Another 41% of respondents stated payment issues prevented them from making a purchase within the last three months; negatively impacting retailers, merchants and other businesses.

The global survey of 6,700 consumers, software developers and QA professionals explored digital payment and localization testing strategies as well as user behaviours and preferences. Despite developers’ investment in best practices, the study revealed that they’re not meeting end user expectations for facilitating payments on apps and websites.

In addition to payment issues, the survey revealed that 52% of consumers have abandoned an app due to poor localization. Effective localization – particularly translation accuracy – is critical to retaining users. Respondents shared the top localization issues they have encountered: 48% of app responses used incorrect words or syntax, 40% assumed local knowledge with which they were unfamiliar, and 38% had misspellings.

Developers are focused on localization but continue to test by "dogfooding" which limits coverage and introduces bias. While 66% of organizations surveyed are working to adapt their customer journeys and checkout processes to regional and cultural norms, more than half (59%) rely on in-house developers and QA staff who are native speakers to test apps for each language.

“Choice and speed are top of mind for consumers. If they can’t quickly make a purchase with their preferred payment method, they’re not going to continue on with the experience,” said Luke Damian, Chief Growth Officer, Applause. “Digital payments is a complex landscape. Beyond transaction processing, developers need to think about returns, exchanges, receipts, rewards programs and more. Every aspect of the customer journey is an opportunity to drive customer satisfaction and retention, which is why expanding test coverage through crowdtesting is so critical.”

He added: “Innovators like Accor, one of the world’s largest hospitality brands, come to Applause for payments and localization expertise and experience high ROI. Community-based testing ensures the user experience is optimal, no matter where their customers are located or what payment instrument is used.”

“As an international business, Accor relies on Applause to ensure customers all over the world can seamlessly book and pay for hotels through our e-commerce platform,” said Rémi Lakmeche, VP E-Commerce Engineering, Accor. “Applause’s global community of digital experts enables us to perform live payments testing in real scenarios with real payment instruments, so we can identify and address potential issues quickly. It gives us a high level of confidence about the quality of our product to our customers.”