More Payment Options, More Delegates

Having the right marketing strategy, creating the perfect buzz and offering an easy online registration method will not matter if you can’t close the deal instantly. One of the key causes behind abandoned online registrations is the inability to pay. Let’s clarify… your pricing strategy is not faulty and your tickets are not too expensive, the problem is that not every customer has MasterCard or Visa.

Most event websites offer only MasterCard and Visa as online payment options. And, while India’s credit card holding population is substantially larger then it was 5 or 10 years ago, it is nowhere close to the credit card databases that exist in first world countries like USA or Australia. Indian banks on an average have 56% active cards as against 80% in Australia and a low transaction frequency of 14.7 per active card per year as against 53.1% in the US. Furthermore, according to RBI’s latest data the number of outstanding credit cards in February 2009 declined to 2.55 crore as against 2.83 crore as of April 2008. (Source: RBI, ICC)

Moral of the story, if you want to close registrations online in India, you have to offer alternative payment options such as debit cards, direct debits, cash cards etc. in addition to credit cards. Signing up for all these payment options may sound expensive and time consuming and it would be, if you had to go out and tie-up with banks and financial institutions individually, every time you organize an event.

An advisable and financially feasible alternative to this problem is signing up with neutral third party solution. There are players in the market that offer a range of customized online event managementtools designed to maximize the reach and profitability of different types of events and an online payment gateway with a wide variety of payment options. This will enable you to manage your event easily and reach out and capture a larger audience cost effectively.

By offering multiple payment options on your event website, you open up your event to all types of audiences rather than limiting registrations to individuals possessing a credit card.