Pay by Link: extending payment journeys beyond the traditional checkout

The linear sales funnel, which waits patiently for the customer to click "Add to Cart" and then "Checkout," has become a major point of friction. Today, the Baymard Institute estimates that over 70% of shopping carts are abandoned before completion. Even more telling: nearly a quarter of these abandonments are purely due to a process deemed too long or complex.

This is where Pay by Link changes the game: it transforms this rigid funnel into a strategic shortcut. Rather than forcing the user to navigate your site to recreate their order or to settle the balance of a complex case already in progress, you send them a direct gateway to payment. It is the ideal closing tool, pre-configured with the correct amount, right where your customer is: SMS, email, or WhatsApp.

Why the classic checkout is no longer enough

In an e-commerce ecosystem, forcing a customer to return to a merchant site to rebuild their cart and go through the entire sales funnel again after an interaction (SMS, WhatsApp, or phone) is a major break in the customer journey.

Pay by Link does not remove the step of entering bank details, but it eliminates all the tedious preparation by addressing three critical challenges:

• The challenge of fluidity: Where a classic process is considered too long or complex, the link offers a pre-filled payment page accessible in one click. The result: an immediate reduction in the abandonment rate.
• The challenge of reassurance: To overcome security concerns, the link redirects to a natively PCI DSS-certified environment. It is a powerful trust-building lever: 93% of users have a positive perception of this journey (Deloitte study).
• The challenge of resilience: Unlike a standard checkout, the link is persistent. In the event of a card decline (limit reached or error), it allows the customer to instantly retry the purchase with an alternative such as BNPL or A2A transfer, ensuring real-time revenue recovery.

Did you know? Using instant bank transfers (Account-to-Account or A2A) via a payment link allows you to bypass credit card limits. This is a major advantage for high-ticket transactions in B2B or the luxury sector.

The Purse experience: when Pay by Link becomes an extension of your brand

At Purse, we believe that a payment link should be a seamless continuation, not a disruption. Our user testing shows that visual consistency is the primary driver of trust. If the landing page looks like a generic banking page, the customer will drop off.

UX consistency above all

The Purse Pay by Link interface is configured directly via your dashboard to ensure the experience remains identical, whether the purchase is made online or via a link sent by your customer support team.

Best practices based on our field experience:

• Previewing: Before sending, your agents can see exactly what the customer will receive. This puts an end to errors in amounts or descriptions that undermine your credibility.
• Custom branding: Beyond just the logo, customizing buttons and colors keeps the user within your trusted brand environment.
• Balancing customization: We designed the tool to be powerful without being a technical headache. The goal: deployment in just a few clicks.

Operations and security: managing the "life" of a payment link

Generating a link is easy. Managing its lifecycle without creating technical debt or security vulnerabilities is another challenge.

Granular role management

Not everyone should have the same access. In the Purse interface, we clearly distinguish between profiles:

• Admin/Finance: Configuration of routing rules and access to reconciliation reports.
• Customer Support/Sales: Ability to generate links and track their status (pending, paid, expired) without access to critical settings.

Managing technical contingencies

A good Pay by Link solution must handle degraded situations gracefully:

1. Link expiration: Crucial for limited stock. Once the time limit has passed, the customer is redirected to a clear, informative page.
2. Already processed payments: To prevent double billing if the customer clicks twice.
3. Persistence after errors: If a transaction is declined, the link remains active and immediately usable. The customer is not kicked out of the process; they can retry the transaction or select another payment method without having to contact the merchant again.

Use cases: from hospitality reassurance to B2B

Pay by Link excels where human interaction is involved. For a company like Gîtes de France, a customer booking a complex stay needs reassurance. Sending an enriched payment link with the booking title, dates, and a photo of the property turns a cold transaction into a premium service.

In the hospitality industry, payment links allow you to manage deposits securely by avoiding manual entry of bank details by your staff. While phone orders (MOTO) remain common practice, Pay by Link offers superior security: it allows the customer to validate their transaction via the 3D Secureprotocol. This strong authentication drastically reduces fraud risks and disputes, while simplifying your PCI DSS compliance since your agents no longer handle sensitive data over the phone.

Orchestration: the performance multiplier

This is where Purse makes the difference. A standard Pay by Link is often tied to a single payment provider. If that provider experiences an outage, the sale is lost.

With Purse orchestration:

• Smart routing: The link chooses the best acquirer in real time to maximize acceptance rates.
• Smart Retry: In the event of a technical failure, the system can seamlessly retry the transaction through a secondary provider.
• Unified reconciliation: All your financial data is centralized into a single stream, whether the purchase originates from the web checkout or a payment link.

Value analysis: The ROI of orchestration

Deploying an orchestrated Pay by Link solution is a major financial decision. According to analysis by RPGC Group, developing an in-house orchestration layer can cost up to $1.2 million in the first year with a dedicated team. In comparison, a SaaS solution like Purse allows you to cut these costs by six over three years, while ensuring immediate time-to-market.

The results observed by our clients are tangible. For Vertbaudet, using an agnostic payment infrastructure increased the acceptance rate by 4 percentage points for credit card transactions and gained 10 points on frictionless journeys (without 3D Secure).

Ready to turn your friction into cash flow?

Don't let your sales evaporate in the gaps of your traditional funnel. Orchestrated Pay by Link is the immediate growth lever your finance department needs.

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