Shopify Afterpay Setup Guide to Increase Your Conversion Rate

Want to entice your customers to shop in your store without compromising your product value, like giving a discount or bundling products to increase AOV? Founded in 2015 in Australia and launched in America in 2018, Afterpay, the best-known Australian leader in "Buy Now, Pay Later" payment offerings, allows even the smallest of merchants to offer flexible payment options at checkout, among other offerings.

The Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) financing allows shoppers to purchase an item they need/ want and pay for it in installment with an interest-free period and specific conditions. And this is known to be a more cost-effective method of financing purchases than credit cards. 

While such payment offerings have grown in popularity to attract more younger consumers, they also help merchants and consumers answer needs, especially in the pandemic. It's not just a trail of words; even payment analysts have noted that the BNPL trend is popular among Millennials and Generation Z, who are wary of taking on credit card debt.

What is Afterpay and how does it work? 

By breaking down repayments into 3 or 4 bite-sized amounts, with no surprises and no fees when paid on time, Shopify Afterpay lets its consumers (I mean "your customers") get what they need and want, increasing AOV by an average of 25%. From Business Equipment and Supplies to Art and entertainment to Clothing and accessories, Electronics, Pet supplies, Food and drink, Home and garden, Hardware and automotive, Health and beauty to Sports and recreation and everything in between. You name it, Shopify Afterpay lets you consumers have it. 

Over 43200 of the world's best retailers currently offer Afterpay payment options in their checkout funnel. While the Shopify Afterpay service is presently available in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom(called "Clearpay"), it has more than 7.3 million active customers globally.

Afterpay: Flexible shopping experience for merchants and your customers

• No one-timers, flexible options

  With flexible installment plans, up to 6 weeks at checkout, Afterpay merchants can enhance their store online buyer journey and increase in-cart conversions, average order values and repeat purchases.

• Empowering not entrapping

  As consumers seek low-commitment, straightforward solutions, Afterpay Site Messaging about split payments will drive customers through the conversion funnel.

• Paid upfront. Not latter

  Your customer choice of BNPL will not impact your revenue stream with Afterpay, as you get your payments settled upfront no matter which installment plan shoppers choose.

To add in, Afterpay now offers Afterpay Express Checkout, which streamlines your store checkout experience, eliminating numerous steps that involve accumulating and authenticating customer information. As Afterpay Express Checkout builds a better store-customer experience, you can see high conversions and more shoppers for merchants.  

Plus, during the Afterpay merchant account setup, Afterpay provides a business hub for all its merchants. You can get insights on your store's Afterpay performance, daily settlement reports, and various afterpay marketing best practices resources.  

Selling internationally just got easier with Afterpay Cross Border Trade. Yes, with Afterpay available for Shopify merchants with a store address in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the UK, you can get your business in front of millions of shoppers. While customers pay in their local currency for a purchase, you get paid the total amount (minus merchant fee) in your local currency. 

Key Takeaways:

• As consumer shopping habits evolve, the Shopify Afterpay setup and Afterpay express checkout will build a better customer experience. 
• Afterpay option isn't just available for your online store customers; you can also offer an Afterpay payment option to your in-store customers.
• While you need to pay some % during the Afterpay set up for business, you are credit/fraud-free as payments are settled upfront by Afterpay. 
• Also, with appropriate Afterpay merchant account setup and store setup, you can avail more marketing opportunities and drive more customers and sales. 
• Lastly, custom configuration of Afterpay site messaging and Afterpay express checkout will enhance your store customer experience without compromising your store design.

Afterpay+Shopify+Merchants

How does Afterpay strengthen merchant offering:

Post signing up as an Afterpay merchant, you will have to integrate Afterpay into your Shopify store checkout or business terminal to offer the Buy now Pay Later payment option. As customers make purchases using the Afterpay option, they shall get the opportunity to break down their payments as per their preferences. But Afterpay will make your payment within days, without any credit risk for you.  

In short, Shopify Afterpay setup helps you offer a more flexible way to shop a product and yet keep the bills clear. Plus, below are some of the impacts that Shopify Afterpay setup can bring in:

Increased sales:

With flexible payment options, upto six weeks, customers are more motivated towards purchasing than abandoning the cart.

High AOV:

With flexible payment options and your store offers, you can quickly drive customers towards increasing their cart value.

More Customers:

The Afterpay payment options help you build a better customer base than the one with multiple offers and discounts.

Decrease in cart abandonment rate:

Yes! You can narrow down your customers' purchase decisions with better financial management options.

Recurring customers:

With Afterpay, the leading Buy Now Pay later payment provider, the rate of repeat purchases are high as they are then familiar and comfortable with your store/checkout

Reduced fraud/credit risk:

With Afterpay making an upfront payment, the risk of credit card fraud is reduced and opens up the opportunity for small Shopify businesses to offer flexible payment options.

Which businesses are using Shopify Afterpay?

Every business is unique; whether you are selling a product or creating custom services or anything, your business is simplifying things. Despite your store catalog size, you need to make a meaningful connection with your customers (B2B or B2C). The Shopify Afterpay setup for business will help you grow your business and carve your path despite your targeted industry, quarter goals, or strategies.

In 2021, Afterpay supported more than 26,000 US businesses which includes small to medium businesses, to generate revenue and decrease operating costs like 

• Reduce customer service costs;
• Reduce customer acquisition costs;
• Lower return rates;
• Reduce marketing costs.

Technical configuration of how to add Afterpay to Shopify

As Afterpay is becoming more popular, especially with more ecommerce stores offering this payment service, more customers are seeing the Afterpay payment option. Even if a customer is new to this payment option and wants to opt in to pay in installments, it's pretty easy with Afterpay. 

While Shopify Afterpay setup lifts conversions and raises the value of each transaction, you can be sure of the impact only after giving it a try. And below are the ways you can get started with Shopify X Afterpay. 

How to add Afterpay to Shopify 

To add Afterpay to your Shopify store, complete the quick start steps as mentioned below:

1. In Afterpay set up for business, you need to first set up Afterpay Merchants account with this link get.afterpay.com
2. Follow the screen instructions and input the necessary values as required. 
3. Once setup is done, copy your Afterpay Merchants account credentials and paste it into your Afterpay Shopify app.
4. Now you are all set to offer an Afterpay flexible payment option to your customers.
5. Connect with our Shopify experts for any custom Shopify checkout integration support. 

Shopify Afterpay set up:

Getting started with Afterpay Shopify is pretty simple only if you are good at integrating and configuring Shopify Apps and other third-party apps. To ease your understanding and take a step further, we have noted below some of the Afterpay set up for business steps where you can get started effortlessly. First, there are 3 points you need to address to complete the setup of Afterpay in your Shopify. 

Getting started:

Finding your store address and currency

1. Navigate to your Shopify Admin -> Settings -> General
2. Under 'Store Address,' the 'Country' must correspond to the Afterpay account region.
3. On the same terms, under 'Standards and formats,' you must set up the 'Currency' accordingly.

Configuring the payment settings:

• By default, the Automatic option is selected in the Shopify Afterpay Payment Settings, where the customer's payment method is authorized and charged accordingly.
• If you want to enable the "Manually capture payment for orders" by following the Shopify Manual capture instructions, you'll have to manually capture the payment within the authorization period.

Shopify Afterpay payment configuration:

In the below Shopify Afterpay merchant account setup, you shall learn to add Afterpay as a payment option on the Shopify Checkout page.

1. Head up to the Shopify App store and integrate the Shopify Afterpay App into your store. You can get started by clicking on the following link: https://accounts.shopify.com/store-login?redirect=settings%2Fpayments%2Falternative-providers%2F1057655 
2.  Now, follow the screen instructions like click "Connect" to link your Afterpay account.
3. Next up, to grant Afterpay permission to process orders & refunds. Click "Install app" to continue.
4. Post installing the app, select the country of your Afterpay account and verify your identity with your Shopify Afterpay merchant creation credentials.
5. Once verified, you will be redirected to Shopify payment settings, where you need to click "Activate Afterpay (New)." And you're done. ( Tip: Do not enable the test mode option, the integration will not work)

Afterpay Site Messaging

In the below Shopify Afterpay merchant account setup, you shall learn how to add Afterpay Site Messaging to your product and cart pages in the below steps. By completing the steps below, you shall position the Afterpay Product Page assets on your Shopify website. Also, the display may differ depending on the site-specific theme and layout.

1. Copy the code and head up to your Shopify Admin

   Shopify-Afterpay JavaScript

   <!-- Begin Shopify-Afterpay JavaScript Snippet (v1.0.12) -->

   <script type="text/javascript">

   // Overrides:

   // var afterpay_min = 0.04;            // As per your Afterpay contract.

   // var afterpay_max = 2000.00;         // As per your Afterpay contract.

   // var afterpay_cbt_enabled = false;   // As per your Afterpay contract; change to true to display Cross-Border Trade artwork (for AU/NZ).

   // var afterpay_logo_theme = 'color'; // Can be 'color', 'black' or 'white'.

   // var afterpay_product_selector = '#product-price-selector';

   // var afterpay_cart_integration_enabled = true;

   // var afterpay_cart_static_selector = '#cart-subtotal-selector';

   // Non-editable fields:

   var afterpay_shop_currency = {{ shop.currency | json }};

   var afterpay_cart_currency = {{ cart.currency.iso_code | json }};

   var afterpay_shop_money_format = {{ shop.money_format | json }};

   var afterpay_shop_permanent_domain = {{ shop.permanent_domain | json }};

   var afterpay_theme_name = {{ theme.name | json }};

   var afterpay_product = {{ product | json }};

   var afterpay_current_variant = {{ product.selected_or_first_available_variant | json }};

   var afterpay_cart_total_price = {{ cart.total_price | json }};

   var afterpay_js_snippet_version = '1.0.12';

   </script>

   <script type="text/javascript" src="https://static.afterpay.com/shopify-afterpay-javascript.js"></script>

   <!-- End Shopify-Afterpay JavaScript Snippet (v1.0.12) -->

2. Under Sales Channels > Online Store > Themes, Navigate to ‘Actions’ > ‘Edit Code’.

   

3. Under the 'Layout' folder, click on 'theme.liquid'. And scroll to the bottom of the theme.liquid file and paste the copied code. 

   

4. Click Save, and navigate the website to review the product and cart pages for Afterpay assets.

   A.U Merchant Example	U.S Merchant Example

Custom Shopify Afterpay site messaging configuring

Afterpay site messaging: Fonts and size setup

By default, Sans-Serif is the font used in Afterpay site messaging. If you want to use a different font according to your brand, you can specify the change in the CSS rule.

afterpay-placement { font-family: Your preferred Font; }

If you want to change the size of only the Afterpay badge, assign a value to the CSS variable --logo-badge-width. But if you want to change both the badge and font size, assign the value to the data-size attribute. The accepted values for the data-size attribute are xs, sm, md (default), and lg.

Afterpay site messaging for unavailable items

You can set the Afterpay site messaging for unavailable items on both the product page and cart page. To set up accordingly: on the product page, add the attribute data-is-eligible to the <afterpay-placement> tag and assign its value to false. Similarly, on the cart page, add the attribute data-cart-is-eligible to the <afterpay-placement> tag and assign its value to false.

Product Page	Cart Page
<afterpay-placement> data-is-eligible="false" data-locale="en_US" data-currency="USD" data-amount="120.00"> </afterpay-placement>	<afterpay-placement> data-cart-is-eligible="false" data-locale="en_US" data-currency="USD" data-amount="120.00"> </afterpay-placement>

Configuring Google Analytics : Shopify Afterpay setup

Usually, you will see portal.afterpay.com as the last domain visited in google analytics. Don't worry; this is because whenever customers pay with Afterpay, they are redirected to the Afterpay portal page during the checkout flow before returning to your review or confirmation page. 

To avoid your Google Analytics incorrectly attributing the referrer to Afterpay, you need to add portal.afterpay.com to your referral exclusion list. This step allows google to identify the real referral source correctly. If you need any help setting up this Referral Exclusion List or any other support with the Afterpay configuration in your store, you can connect with our experts. 

Delivering more customers to merchants - Afterpay Ads

Unleashing the power of Afterpay popularity among the growing base of millennials and Gen Z shoppers, Afterpay announces Afterpay Ads, a suite of advertising products. With Afterpay Ads, you can accelerate customer engagement, acquire new leads and reach better shoppers across the Afterpay ecosystem. 

The steps to get started with Afterpay Ads are pretty simple - you can place featured ads across the Afterpay app and amplify your promotions products and get to go for a pay-for-performance model. This way, you can easily promote specific products and collections and pay only when a shopper engages with the ad. 

Isn't it an excellent opportunity to explore? Especially with early results, advertisers show a 20 percent lift in sales on average when brands promote their products within the Afterpay app.

Conclusion:

As the Afterpay payment option provides consumers (Your customers) with several key benefits, including budgeting support,  affordable consumption, express checkout and a  convenient alternative to credit, you, as a merchant, can set a  minimum purchase amount and increase the AOV. 

From driving sales to increasing average order values to attracting new customers to Afterpay express checkout, Afterpay merchants can benefit more than the mentioned advantages. Also, with Afterpay, merchants can leverage Afterpay's marketing support, technical support, and others.

In a few words, the Shopify Afterpay setup in your checkout will help you improve your store experience, creating accessibility to all types of consumers. And the best part is that you can capture a customer with Afterpays cost-free interest rate for a lifetime. 

To enhance the customer buying experience, Afterpay built various services and flows -  Afterpay site messaging, Afterpay express checkout ,  that help merchants grow their business. And that is not all; by getting your store listed in the Afterpay online marketplace, you can drive more traffic and improve your brand presence.