Overview
The payment link is a shareable link which a merchant can use to collect the payments from the customers. It is a simple form where they input the “Purpose of Payment” and “Amount”. This Link is then shared with customers who make the payment using their choice of online payment options like a credit card, debit card, net banking, UPI, etc.
We believed that merchants across categories will use Payment Links for more of their payments if we give them the power to customize & send the link easily.
For that, we had to create a version of payment links with advanced options that target certain use-cases around specific customer personas.
Problems
We found out that the default payment link is only usable for certain personas resulting in lower usage. We got many suggestions and requirements from the customers when we contacted them. Most of the customers who sell services were using our Online Store. It was also not an effective solution for them.
Objective
Create an advanced version of the Payment link for all platforms that is customizable and caters to cover the most common use-cases.
Research
These are some of the comments we got from our customers:
Then created a few personas from the data and feedback we got from the customers.
Results from the Research
- Requirement for more customizations like link expiry, Open payment, etc
- Don't have an option to do Business Branding
- Can't share using multiple methods
- Option to describe the link or product is not available
- Collecting payments for physical products and events payment links are not flexible.
- For collecting donations. NGO's were requesting for 'Open amount' feature
Working on the Solution
With all this information and suggestions I started ideating by creating concepts of advanced payment link. We planned these features that will cater to the needs of various personas:
- Add an option to make the amount editable for the user.
- Expiry by date or number of payments.
- Customise the link by adding a cover image or color.
- Text field to ask GST and other business informations
- Text field to add thank you note.
After evaluating all the results and inputs from the stakeholders, I started working on the solution. I interviewed a number of our key stakeholders and conducted a brainstorming session with the product design team and lead product manager.
1 ) We decided to split the payment link into two: Quick Links & Smart Links
Renamed “Payment Links” to “Quick Links”. They were quicker to create than the Smart Links. Even though by adding advanced features to Smart Links we can increase the user base, we were ignoring the existing users and users who need to create only a simple payment link. We could come up with several features within the current payment link, but we didn’t want to overwhelm the seller.
2 ) We divided the “Smart Link” into 3 steps
Step 1 - Features that have a bigger business impact took first priority.
Step 2 - Features like collecting additional customer data, changing the colors, were optional. It doesn’t have a drastic impact on the business itself and the sellers can choose to skip this step.
Step 3 - The third step would enable the sellers to use and send the Link on multiple places.
Then I started prioritizing these features:
User Flow Diagram
Then I created a wireframe prototype and shared it with growth, marketing, and analytics teams and other stakeholders. Refined the prototype again by including the suggestions from them.
Low Fidelity Wireframe
After getting the confirmation from the stakeholders and other teams, I started working on the final mockup for Responsive Web & Android.
Smart Link - Buyer Flow
Final Mockup - Android
User Testing
First, we released Smart Link to a focused group from specific use-cases.
- Education
- Travel
- Services, Consultants, and Freelancers
- Niche Product Sellers
The results were positive and most of these features were found to be very useful to these users.
Conclusion
Smart Links adoption was better than we expected. About 10% of our active user base adopted Smart Links within 90 days from the launch.
- 42% of all Smart Links have a thank you note.
- 27.9% of Smart Links have a description.
- 19.7% of all Smart Links collect Shipping addresses and 19.5% expire based on time.
- 20.7% of Smart Links redirect the customer to a different page.
Below is the video of Smart Link live on the web.
Smart Links Live on Web
