Why the checkout experience defines retail success this holiday season

Donal McGuinness, CEO of Prommt, explains why checkout optimisation and fraud prevention are central to delivering a seamless holiday shopping experience for retailers across both online and in-store channels.

As Christmas approaches, retailers are gearing up for the busiest trading season of the year, a period that can determine the success or failure of their entire year. Black Friday is closely followed by the holiday season, so this period is no longer just a few days of stand-alone deals. It is now a month-long – or longer – shopping event, where brands go above and beyond to stand out and attract customers. Key sales days, such as ‘Super Saturday’ (the Saturday before Christmas), add additional pressure on retailers.

Logistics, inventory management, and customer service are critical elements that ensure shoppers have a smooth experience. During the 2024 UK holiday season, online shopping saw significant growth, with total UK ecommerce sales reaching GBP 127.41 billion for the year – a 3,4% increase from the previous year. In addition, sales in November and December experienced a 55% increase compared to September 2024.

The shopping experience has evolved over the years, and it no longer comes down to just pricing and logistics; it’s about the overall journey with a focus on client satisfaction and retention.

The hidden star of a successful customer journey is payments. From fraud prevention and security to delivering a seamless, branded payment experience, the way customers pay can make or break conversion, especially under peak pressure.

Flexible payments for hybrid shopping habits

Modern retail journeys are rarely linear. A customer might visit a store to view a product, take time to research, and then decide to complete their purchase remotely, a pattern that’s now common in sectors such as consumer electronics and home furnishings.

Retailers need the ability to continue that journey seamlessly, offering a secure way for customers to pay once they’re ready. For example, a shopper visiting a furniture store might pay a deposit in person and receive a secure, branded payment link to settle the balance when delivery is ready: first by card, and perhaps next time via Pay by Bank. This kind of flexibility accommodates today’s hybrid buying habits in addition to ensuring that every interaction, whether in-store, online, or over the phone, remains consistent, secure, and on-brand.

Additionally, payment systems and internal teams must be ready for the surge – they need to test for scalability and uptime, ensure gateways, APIs, and payment links can handle spikes in traffic, and confirm that all retail teams have access to the right tools to help them process and fulfil orders faster, reducing delays and customer queries.

Maintain a consistent payment experience

Equally important is maintaining a consistent payment experience across all channels, whether in-store, online, or any remote customer interaction. The payment stage is the whole reason for the customer journey, and any disconnect – whether design, tone, or trust – can cause hesitation and drop-off.

The checkout should feel like an extension of the retailer’s own environment, reflecting its look, feel, and attention to detail. Customers today are highly attuned to cues of trust, and even subtle inconsistencies can undermine confidence at the point of payment. By delivering frictionless, fully branded payment journeys, retailers can protect conversion rates at the final step and reinforce brand perception, which is especially relevant for premium or higher sales tickets.

Protect against fraud

The holiday season, like any major sales event, brings a surge in online and remote transactions – and, with it, an inevitable rise in fraud attempts. UK Finance figures show that criminals stole a total of GBP 629.3 million in the first six months of 2025, with 2.09 million confirmed cases across both authorised and unauthorised fraud. This represents a 3% increase in losses and a 17% increase in cases compared to the first half of 2024, meaning retailers must be prepared to protect themselves and their customers.

Brands should strengthen authentication and monitoring, as well as remove the need to handle card data directly. If they are collecting payments remotely, as part of a consultation with a store associate, they should ensure that all remote payment requests are verified, PCI-compliant, and sent via secure and trackable channels rather than over the phone.

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) and 3-D Secure (3DS) play a vital role in protecting both retailers and customers. 3DS adds an extra layer of verification at checkout, ensuring that the person making the payment is the legitimate cardholder. While this can introduce friction if poorly implemented, modern 3DS flows help balance security with a smooth customer experience, something retailers should test carefully ahead of peak season. Furthermore, introducing 3DS can significantly reduce the occurrence of chargebacks.

Another important layer of protection lies in velocity and anomaly checks. That is why retailers need to partner with payment providers that include built-in protection to detect and block repeated fraudulent payment attempts directed toward a specific link.

Some platforms can automatically limit the number of failed payment retries (for example, more than five consecutive attempts). This also helps to eliminate card testing attacks, a common type of fraud where stolen card details are tested for validity through small or repeated transactions. Halting excessive retry behaviour at the paylink level safeguards the merchant account and reduces risk exposure.

This proactive approach helps maintain payment integrity without interrupting legitimate customer journeys.

Introduce Open Banking

With margins under pressure and payment processing fees rising, retailers must look to diversify the payment options they offer customers. Introducing alternative payment methods, particularly Pay by Bank, into the payment mix is becoming both a strategic and financial advantage, as instant bank-to-bank payments, for instance, are highly secure and offer real-time settlement.

Once seen as an emerging innovation, Pay by Bank is now rapidly entering the mainstream, supported by major UK and Irish banks and widely adopted by leading retailers and service providers. Its appeal lies not only in lower costs and instant settlement but also in the smoothness of the experience, since customers no longer need to enter card details or risk declined payments.

By presenting Pay by Bank alongside traditional card options at checkout, retailers can give customers genuine choice, reduce friction, and future-proof their payment strategy against the evolving economics of digital commerce. Moreover, by keeping customer satisfaction and the payment journey at the forefront, retailers can engage with shoppers in a more meaningful way to meet their demand for not just the best deal, but the best experience.

Prommt helps leading retailers and brands deliver secure and on-brand payment experiences across card and Open Banking channels.

About the author

Serial paytech entrepreneur Donal McGuinness is the CEO of Prommt. He studied Information Technology at DCU and Telecommunications Engineering at DIT and spent the early years of his career in the telecommunications industry. Donal’s experience over the last 25 years crosses over mobile payments, B2C and B2B payments, money remittance, ID verification, and loyalty platforms. He has a passion for payment innovation and believes the next two to three years will see a rapid acceleration of innovation in payments.

 

About Prommt

Prommt, a leading advanced payment link platform, is trusted by global brands and enterprise-grade businesses across hospitality, luxury retail, automotive, builders’ merchants, and professional services. With broad integrations to the world’s leading payment gateways and seamless connections to ERPs such as Oracle OPERA PMS, Prommt enables merchants to securely collect remote payments while flexibly offering both card and Open Banking payment options. By streamlining the remote payment process, Prommt helps businesses save time, reduce costs, improve security, and elevate the customer payment journey. For further information, please visit https://www.prommt.com/