The online travel agency MisterFly entered a very competitive market in 2015, with the strong challenge of differentiating themselves from other offers. According to Frédéric Pilloud, Digital Director of Digitrips (the group to which MisterFly belongs to), “payment is a lever in this differentiation”. Since 2015, MisterFly and Payplug have shared the same flight plan: offering a payment experience which is both differentiating and high performance.
Payment methods appropriate for a European client base
Each market has its specificities and, above all, consumers have their payment habits. This is why MisterFly has widened its choice of payment methods throughout its European expansion strategy: Bancontact, their Belgian clients’ favourite payment method, was integrated in 2017, while SOFORT and Giropay have been reassuring German clients since 2019.
Payment by Chèque-Vacances Connect is going to be added to the range in 2023, as it represents a potential 1.7 Bn€ accessible to the 11 million French employees1 benefiting from this payment option. MisterFly will be one of Payplug’s first clients to roll out this payment method online, thus offering a fuller payment experience to its French clients.
Moreover, split payment (Buy Now Pay Later or BNPL) is an essential lever for attracting clients in the travel sector where average baskets can sometimes be very high. “BNPL payments can represent up to 80%2 of Digitrips’ transactions for some of our brands” Frédéric Pilloud confirmed.
Expertise at the service of payment performance
For the travel sector, requests for exemptions in strong authentication are limited due to high average baskets, while the risk of fraud - and therefore chargebacks - is high. Being cautious, the MisterFly agency has adopted a “full” 3DS approach by systematically requesting strong authentication from issuers in order to guarantee the security of its transactions.
With Payplug, it has a double strategy to optimise the performance of its payments:
- controlling the risk of fraud with a customised rule engine to block the maximum amount of fraudsters and therefore defend themselves against chargebacks;
- maximising authorisation thanks to our Smart Retry tool: in case of an authentication decline or failure linked to 3DS servers, Payplug can replay the transaction almost instantly and transparently for the purchaser.
Payment methods adapted to client profiles, a sharp definition of fraud rules, automatic retry in case of payment failure: three pillars on which MisterFly can rely in pursuing its development with Payplug.
1 Source: ANCV (French national agency for chèques-vacances)
2 Source: Digitrips data
