How Adding New Ways to Pay with Coastal Pay Increased Revenue by 18% in 90 Days

Let’s Define the Growth Goal and Payment Problem First

The merchant in this case study is a mid-sized U.S. online retailer selling lifestyle and home goods, with an average order value of $94 and monthly card volume of approximately $180,000. They had been processing with the same gateway for three years: Visa, Mastercard, and a manually handled ACH process for a small number of wholesale B2B customers.

Their growth goal coming into the quarter was straightforward: increase monthly revenue by at least 15% without increasing advertising spend. Their customer acquisition cost was already high enough that incremental paid traffic was not delivering positive ROI at their margins. The team wanted to find revenue from existing traffic first.

Three pain points were flagged before any analysis was done:

• Mobile cart abandonment was consistently higher than desktop abandonment, with the gap widening over the previous two quarters.
• Customer service was receiving weekly messages asking for PayPal, Apple Pay, and the ability to “pay over time” for orders above $100.
• A recurring issue with card declines on first-purchase orders from new customers was causing an estimated 3 to 4 percent of transactions to fail at the final payment step.

The diagnosis was clear before solutions were even discussed: their payment mix was built for a customer who no longer existed at scale.

Here’s What the Original Checkout and Payment Mix Looked Like

Before Coastal Pay, the merchant’s checkout accepted Visa and Mastercard through their existing gateway, plus American Express at a higher interchange rate. ACH was available for wholesale accounts only, handled manually via emailed instructions. There was no Apple Pay, no Google Pay, no PayPal, no Buy Now Pay Later, and no way for a customer to split a $150 order into installments.

Baseline Metrics Before Coastal Pay

The qualitative signals were telling a consistent story: buyers were ready to purchase, but the checkout experience was not meeting them where they were. Over 60% of site sessions came from mobile devices, but mobile conversion was nearly a full percentage point below desktop. Customer support tickets referencing payment experience averaged 18 per month, with PayPal and “pay later” being the most common requests.

The merchant knew what customers were asking for. The obstacle was not knowing how to add those options quickly and cost-effectively to an existing WooCommerce setup without breaking workflows that were already in place.

What Changed After They Turned on Coastal Pay’s Alternative Payment Methods?

The merchant applied for Coastal Pay through the online instant boarding process and received approval in approximately 2 minutes. The Coastal Pay team connected the merchant’s WooCommerce store via direct integration from the 2,000+ software library, and configuration of new payment methods began within the same business day.

New Payment Methods Enabled

• Apple Pay and Google Pay: Enabled directly at checkout above the card entry fields on both product pages and the cart page. Buyers on iPhone and Android could now complete a purchase with Face ID, Touch ID, or a fingerprint without entering any card details manually.
• PayPal: Added as a prominent checkout option with a recognizable button in the payment selection step. This immediately addressed the most common customer service request and provided an additional trust signal for first-time buyers unfamiliar with the brand.
• Klarna and Afterpay (BNPL): Enabled at checkout and embedded on product pages for all items priced above $75. Messaging was added: “Pay in 4 interest-free installments with Klarna.” This directly targeted the abandonment pattern on orders between $90 and $180, which were the most common abandoned cart value range.
• ACH via the Coastal Pay Gateway: Automated ACH replaced the manual wholesale invoicing process for B2B accounts. Payment links via email were introduced for recurring wholesale orders, reducing the finance team’s manual follow-up workload significantly.

All four additions were live and processing within 6 days of the initial application. No custom development was required. The merchant used Coastal Pay’s WooCommerce integration to surface wallet buttons and BNPL messaging without rebuilding any existing checkout infrastructure.

“We had been talking about adding Apple Pay for over a year. With Coastal Pay it was live in less than a week and the impact on our mobile numbers was visible within the first two weeks. I wish we had done this sooner.” – Operations Director, anonymized mid-sized online retailer

Here’s How the New Payment Options Lifted Revenue and Conversion

Results were measured at the 30-day mark and confirmed at 90 days with consistent improvement across all tracked metrics.

Before vs. After: Key Metrics at 90 Days

What Drove Each Metric

Mobile conversion (+14%): Apple Pay and Google Pay were responsible for the majority of this gain. Within 30 days, 22% of all mobile transactions were completing via a digital wallet rather than manual card entry. The reduction in keystrokes and authentication steps at the payment step was the direct driver.

Average order value (+$22): Klarna and Afterpay drove the AOV increase almost entirely. Orders between $90 and $180 – previously the most abandoned range – became the fastest-growing segment once installment options were visible on product pages. Buyers who previously selected smaller bundles began purchasing at their intended basket size when a $150 item became four payments of $37.50.

Approval rate (+2.1%): Adding PayPal and ACH as alternative rails meant that buyers whose primary cards were being declined or flagged as high-risk on a first-purchase basis could complete their order through a different method. The 2.1-point improvement in approval rate translated to approximately 40 additional successful transactions per month that would previously have been lost.

Net revenue effect: The combined impact of higher conversion, higher AOV, and improved approval rates produced an 18% increase in monthly processing volume from $180,000 to approximately $212,400. On a net basis, processing fees with Coastal Pay’s flat rate were lower per transaction than the previous gateway, meaning the net revenue lift exceeded the gross volume improvement.

What Can You Expect If You Expand Your Payment Mix Like This?

The 18% revenue lift in this case study is a strong but not unusual outcome for merchants who move from a cards-only checkout to a full alternative payment mix. Here are realistic benchmark ranges based on common patterns across different business types.

Results depend on your starting payment mix, the proportion of mobile traffic, your average order value, and whether you sell primarily B2C, B2B, or both. Merchants who are already offering wallets but not BNPL will see a different impact than those starting from a cards-only baseline. The Coastal Pay team can review your current statement and traffic mix to suggest which additions are likely to move the needle most for your specific situation.

Here’s How to Roll Out More Payment Types with Coastal Pay in Four Simple Steps

The merchant in this case study went from application to live payment methods in under one week. Here is the same four-step process you can follow.

1. Step 1 – Map Your Current Performance

   Before adding anything, identify where your revenue is leaking. Pull your current checkout conversion rate, mobile vs desktop split, cart abandonment at the payment step, payment decline rate, and average order value. If you are on Coastal Pay, the centralized reporting dashboard shows all of these in one place. If you are switching from another processor, bring your most recent statement and your platform analytics to the onboarding conversation.

2. Step 2 – Enable Core Wallet Methods First

   Apply for Coastal Pay’s instant boarding and get approved in approximately 2 minutes. Enable Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal immediately. Surface these buttons above the card entry fields in your checkout, not buried below. This is the fastest-return change for any store with significant mobile traffic and can show measurable conversion improvement within two to three weeks.

3. Step 3 – Add BNPL and ACH Based on Your Order Profile

   If your average order value is above $75, activate Klarna or Afterpay next and add installment messaging on your product pages. If you have B2B customers, wholesale buyers, or any recurring orders above $500, activate ACH through the same Coastal Pay Gateway and introduce payment links via email for those accounts. Both changes are available in the same gateway account without separate merchant agreements.

4. Step 4 – Monitor, Keep, and Prune

   After 30 days, review payment method usage percentages, conversion rates by method, and any chargeback or dispute data in Coastal Pay’s reporting. Keep methods that show meaningful usage or clear conversion gains. Remove or de-emphasize methods that contribute under 1% of orders without a clear strategic reason to retain them. Run this review quarterly to keep your checkout clean and high-performing as buyer behavior evolves.

Key Takeaways: How More Ways to Pay Turn Into More Monthly Revenue

The 18% revenue increase in this case study did not come from spending more on ads or discounting products. It came from removing friction at the final step of a purchase that buyers had already decided to make. Every abandoned cart at the payment page represents a buyer who wanted to complete the purchase but could not do so on terms that worked for them.

The lessons that apply broadly across the merchants we work with:

• Digital wallets fix mobile conversion. If over half your traffic is mobile and you are not offering Apple Pay or Google Pay, you are leaving a measurable percentage of would-be buyers at the door every day.
• BNPL fixes high-AOV hesitation. Klarna and Afterpay do not just add a payment option – they shift the psychological frame from “can I afford this?” to “can I afford $37.50 right now?”
• ACH fixes the B2B friction point. Manual invoicing and emailed bank details are not a payment system. Automated ACH through Coastal Pay closes deals faster and reduces your team’s follow-up workload.
• More methods means more approvals. Alternative payment rails rescue transactions that card networks decline, turning lost sales into completed orders with no additional marketing spend.

The right payment mix is not the same for every business, but the process of finding it is consistent: start with your customer’s behavior, match payment types to specific friction points, and measure the impact methodically. Coastal Pay provides the gateway, the integrations, and the support to make that process fast and straightforward.

Ready to see which payment methods will drive the biggest revenue lift for your business? Get approved with Coastal Pay in 2 minutes or call 888-266-1715 to talk through a tailored payment mix with a specialist.

More ways to pay. More revenue captured. No extra ad spend required.
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