Providing a fast, easy checkout has become table stakes for e-commerce, particularly in order to reduce cart abandonment. Today saw the launch of Fast Checkout, a new solution by fintech company Fast that offers a one-click purchasing experience for users at any merchant enrolled with the service.
Backed by Stripe and in partnership with BigCommerce, Fast launched today with several retailers and is now available to all online sellers and users of its partners. This gives it an edge against other one-click solutions that are available only at individual companies; once a user has signed up with Fast, it unlocks one-click checkout at every retailer that offers the solution without the need for additional logins.
“More than ever before, people are shopping online out of necessity,” said Domm Holland, co-founder and CEO at Fast. “Ensuring fast, easy and safe online checkout for everyone, of all ages and backgrounds, is not a luxury — it is an imperative.”
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Recent data analysis by customer experience platform Barilliance found that the U.S. saw a cart abandonment rate of 72% in 2019. With e-commerce sales rapidly accelerating in 2020 and reaching $211.5 billion in Q2 nationally, cart abandonment is a more valuable issue than ever, and one of its leading causes is experiencing friction at checkout, according to experts at payments solution Sezzle.
With Fast, consumers are asked to sign up with their email address and register their payment information, billing and shipping address. Once saved, this information is encrypted for security purposes, which allows the company to do away with passwords or other login processes. When a Fast user visits the e-commerce page of any enrolled merchant, they are able to conduct one-click checkout from that point onward.
“The most painful situation for any online seller is when a customer leaves an item in their shopping cart,” said Zack Fleishman, COO at skateboard brand Shark Wheel. “Too many of our customers weren’t completing their online purchases because the checkout process was frustrating and tedious. Since we added Fast Checkout, there has been a dramatic increase in our sales.”
Orders made through Fast are available to review and track through the software’s Fast Buyer Dashboard. By storing all purchase information in one place, Fast is aiming to simplify the process of tracking multiple orders from multiple retailers; currently, many shoppers may find themselves having to manually conduct email searches.
Fast is free to use for shoppers. Instead, merchants are charged a small transaction fee, which Fast CEO Holland says is matched against the rates of competitor checkout solutions. The platform also removes the need for shoppers to update their account information with each merchant they shop at; once the Fast profile is update in-app, this is synced with all retail partners.
The Fast Checkout solution joins other e-commerce purchase products like Nate. As the company’s $20 million Series A funding round earlier this year was led by fintech giant Stripe, Fast has a built-in partnership with one of the leading e-commerce solutions in the market and this may give it an advantage in terms of mass-adoption.
