Chapter 2. Payment Request Workflow

When your customer decides to purchase an item that is offered in your app, it is your responsibility to give the user a smooth, fast, and pain-free payment experience. Thankfully, Apple has taken the brunt of this effort by implementing Apple Pay. Users do not have to dig up their credit cards and enter shipping addresses to complete an order, even if it is the first time that they use your app. By asking only for the information that is strictly necessary to perform a transaction, you provide your customers with a compelling purchasing experience, which will encourage subsequent purchases from your app.

This chapter describes the things that your app needs to do to give its users a pleasant shopping experience, one in which the barrier between desiring something and having this product shipped to your doorstep is reduced to the gentle touch of a smooth, round button. At the same time, you reduce or eliminate the need to ask for and store your customers' payment information, which is a sensible approach in light of the notable increase in breaches of computer systems to obtain information on active payment cards. You will probably also welcome the marked increase in purchases from the same customers who, in addition to having a better purchasing experience than the ones offered by other apps, have confidence that their payment information will not be compromised (because their card information is not stored in their phones). Having a seamless payment experience will place your app high in its users' list of loved and highly liked apps, and apps that they would readily recommend to their family and friends.

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Providing an overview of a simple inventory web service that provides inventory information to its clients
• Describing the implementation of a product card that displays essential product information and either an Apple Pay button or a regular Buy button depending on the availability of Apple Pay on the user's device
• Walking through the process of creating a payment request and displaying a payment sheet with order information for the user to authorize payment (when Apple Pay is available)