4 Things About Transactions in Online Payment That Make You Go Hmmm

I have written this article since 2019 but forgot to publish it. So instead of just laying it out there as a draft, I’m posting it right now. Because of that, the data displayed here is from 2019 data, but I think it still relates to the current time.

For 9 years of working in the online payment industry, I have seen how the industry grows tremendously fast. Each year shows a significant increase in terms of the transaction value. Based on data from statista.com, digital payment in Indonesia will grow around 20.94% by the end of 2019 (in 2018 digital payment transaction value is 26,828 million USD and the estimated transaction value in 2019 is 32,446 million USD, source: https://www.statista.com/outlook/296/120/digital-payments/indonesia#market-revenue).

Digital payment in Indonesia will grow around 20.94% by the end of 2019 (source statista.com)

It shows how exciting the growth of online payment is in Indonesia. Many new payment players appear, from local or even from overseas, some of them are global players that are already well known in the world. The technology is also more advanced, we have many new breakthroughs in payment processing. All aim to make the online payment process easier for people to use it.

With all those amazing things happening, I tried to take a look at our online payment data and found some interesting things. Maybe you already know this, but I will still share these facts:

Bank Transfer is still the most payment option used by many people

No matter how sophisticated the technology in card payment, with 3DS v2, that gonna be rolling out this year, people still choose Bank Transfer as their favourite payment method. It covers 60% of all transactions. If we add a similar payment method, where the customer gets a payment code to be input, that is Convenience Store payment, then it will add 20% more. So this will cover 80% of all transactions.

With the penetration of the emoney player which keeps increasing, probably it will change the game. But until that happens, many people right now like to do 2 steps for payment. First, you get the pay code, second, you pay using the pay code.

Many people make online purchases during business hours

When do you make the online transaction? At night, or after working hours, or when you work? If you answer the latest, then you are part of most people doing online transactions. Many transactions happen around 10 am, then the second position is around 11 am and the third position is around 2 pm.

You know, I try to imagine this. You come to the office, then the first thing you open on your computer or device is an online store or marketplace. Then you search for things that you want to buy, and you try to pay before 12 pm so the item can be delivered on the same day. If the process is not finished before 12 pm, then you continue after lunchtime, am I right? Pak Tung Desem will say like “Bener apa bener?”

Cheap items are still a favourite

It turns out that the items most people buy are having a price equal to or below 250,000 IDR. But the second position was for items having a price above 1 million IDR.

So it means either we buy something small that is not so expensive or we buy many things or just one expensive thing.

There are still many “PHP” buyers

The seller has nicknames for people who only reach the payment page multiple times without making any payment as PHP. It’s slang in Indonesia that refers to “Pemberi Harapan Palsu” or in English, it’s a hit and run buyer. For me actually is the right for the buyer (because I’m a buyer also) just to check the price, whether we will pay or not that’s another case :)

What amazes me is that some transaction shows a user can do like 30 or even 40 times try to go to the payment page but they don’t make any payment at all. Yes I know, same as you, I thought something was happening on the payment process, but at the same time another transaction from the same store is still running normally, and we don’t have any complaint coming from the store or the user.

So either there is a problem that only happens for this one transaction only or the customer just like seeing the price they have to pay but don’t want to do the payment.

Well, that was all, the 4 interesting things that I see from our data. So, is it reading this that makes you go hmmm?

Things that make you go hmm, hmm, hmm…

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.