Payment Gateway Errors That Are Costing You Sales

How Many Sales Are You Losing Without Knowing?

Here is something I see constantly: a store has good traffic, good products, competitive prices... and a dismal conversion rate. The owner blames the pricing or the product. But when we dig into the data, the problem is at checkout. Payments are failing and nobody notices.

The payment gateway is the most fragile link in your online store. And in Chile, with the quirks of Transbank, Flow, and MercadoPago, the same errors repeat from store to store.

The 6 Most Common Errors

1. Not Having All Card Types Enabled

Transbank lets you accept credit, debit, and prepaid cards. But sometimes the integration only activates credit. If a customer tries to pay with debit -- the most widely used payment method in Chile -- and the transaction bounces, they leave.

Fix: Check your Transbank dashboard to confirm that credit, debit (Redcompra), and prepaid are all active. If you use an app or plugin, verify that it supports all three types.

2. The Checkout Redirects Poorly on Mobile

When the customer taps "Pay," they get redirected to the gateway. If that redirect does not work well on mobile -- a blank screen, an infinite loop, a button that does not respond -- the sale is lost.

Fix: Place a test order on your phone once a month. Yes, pay with your own card and then refund yourself. It is the only way to know it works.

3. Not Displaying Accepted Payment Methods

The customer reaches checkout and does not know if their card is accepted. Or worse: they assume you only take credit cards and leave because they only have debit.

Fix: Show the logos of accepted payment methods in the footer, on the product page, and at checkout. It sounds obvious, but many stores do not do it.

4. Expired or Misconfigured SSL Certificate

If your store does not have HTTPS (the green padlock), the gateway may reject transactions or the browser may display a security warning.

Fix: Verify that your SSL certificate is current. On Shopify, it is automatic. On other platforms, check it manually.

5. Wrong Currency Configuration

Your store must be set to CLP (Chilean pesos) for the gateway to process correctly. I have seen stores accidentally configured in USD where transactions fail silently.

Fix: Check Settings > Currencies and make sure CLP is the primary currency.

6. Not Offering Alternatives

If you only have Transbank and it goes down (which happens several times a year), you lose every sale during that period.

Fix: Have at least two gateways. Transbank + Flow, or Transbank + MercadoPago. If one fails, the customer has a Plan B.

How Do I Detect a Problem?

• Check your checkout abandonment rate in Google Analytics. If more than 40% drop off at the payment step, something is wrong.
• Set up alerts. Flow and MercadoPago can send you notifications when transactions fail.
• Review your gateway reports at least once a week. Look for patterns: do debit payments fail more often? Do mobile transactions fail more?

The payment gateway should be invisible. The customer chooses, pays, and that is it. If there is friction there, no marketing campaign in the world will save you.

Suspect your gateway is failing? We can run a quick diagnostic of your checkout and pinpoint where you are losing sales.