Kiddicare allows shoppers to pay by cash

Baby products retailer Kiddicare, has recently introduced the option of cash payments on its website, by buying a voucher and entering the voucher number during the checkout process.

The vouchers will be available to purchase from more than 21,000 PayPoint outlets which includes many local shops and petrol stations. According to the retailer, this alternative payment method has been introduced as a result of customer demand.

Scott Weavers-Wright, partner at Kiddicare, explained the reason for the move to Silicon.com recently:

"We get about 400 or 500 calls a day and 300 or 400 emails a day we do get questions on 'is there an alternative payment?' and it's definitely increasing,"

This demand is partly driven by the recession, and the fact that some people may be unable to get credit cards to use online, but there are also shoppers who might prefer such a payment method if they are uneasy about giving out their card details online.

There are of course alternative payment options such as PayPal and Google Checkout, but the cash option does have the benefit of being relatively easy to set up and accessible to all. No refunds are available though; if goods are returned Kiddicare will only provide credit to purchase alternative items on the site.

It's an interesting move by Kiddicare, and it makes sense to make your products available to as many people as possible. If it works out, we may see other retailers following suit, though it did take some work to provide this payment method: the retailer had one developer working full time on the project for six weeks in order to integrate it into the website's IBM WebSphere system.