2020 was a year to remember. From multiple Zoom calls every day to baking sourdough bread at home, people have quickly adapted to the “new normal.” In retail, to implement safe in-person interactions, many businesses are turning to mobile solutions and other innovative technologies. This allows them to accept payments securely and drive better engagement models between consumers and employees.
The payments industry is going through a significant transformation in the US. The COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed many technology & market trends (such as contactless, curbside pick-up) that would have taken longer to be fully adopted by the broader industry. Back in January, we showcased our as-a-Service program among other innovations at National Retail Federation’s Virtual show. After the show concluded, our conversations around the as-a-Service program have continued and we see growing interest in this idea.
The idea of paying with your phone or your watch at a store almost seemed laughable a decade ago. The typical US consumer was so accustomed to using cash or their credit cards, they had a hard time trusting the reliability of this payment method. Contactless payments have had a slow growth in the U.S. compared to other developed parts of the world – if you look at consumers in Canada and many European nations, they have been used to contactless payments for years and the U.S. has had to play catch up since.
You may remember loyalty programs in their earliest form: the punch card. You’d carry this card around until, 10 star-shaped punches later, you earned a free sandwich. Although this traditional reward method persists, many merchants are looking to get more out of their loyalty program and engaging in new ways with the consumer. One way they’re doing this is through integrating services into mobile wallets.
Innovative applications that integrate payment acceptance simplify one of the most critical business processes – accepting electronic payments. If retail stores today had to constantly switch between their POS app and the one that accepts payments, the margin for error is likely to increase. Staff can become inefficient causing delays in checkout, billing inaccuracies could increase, etc. But most importantly, it will affect the shopper’s overall experience.
