When it comes to buying goods and services online (and in-store), customers want to have the best shopping experience. For tech-savvy buyers, time is one important factor and quality of service is another— in short; they need speed and convenience.
Recent news reports say people are slowly withdrawing from the old brick-and-mortar shopping style while e-wallets are increasingly becoming popular in the U.S. According to a survey by PPRO research, they make up an entire 20 percent of payments in America. On the global front, local payment methods— popularly known as APMs or Alternative Payment Methods— are likely to perform better than other means of payments.
Data from Worldpay predict that the adoption of e-wallets will go up 46 percent by 2021 from 18 percent in 2016. During the same time, most old methods of payment including cards will go down. This means that sellers who fail to add these options to their payment alternatives risk losing lots of revenue.
Today shoppers want an enjoyable buying experience— with speed, value, and convenience. Most of them carry around smartphones and love to compare online and physical store prices. This habit has led to rapports between consumers and merchants thereby opening several channels. Apart from visiting stores, buyers can now intermingle with brands via websites and on social media which is transforming into an everyday market for selling and buying goods.
E-commerce merchants are becoming increasingly essential to everyday shoppers, but malls are never fading away any soon. However, for big box stores to come back into the game, merchants must ensure an Omnichannel experience. Let’s find out what this looks like?
Omnichannel Engagement
A well thought out Omnichannel experience means the merchant must interact with buyers in a reliable, flawless way across all platforms, i.e., physical, digital and social media. In the long run, with facial recognition and artificial intelligence (AI), shoppers that either “added to the cart” or “liked” a product posting could be welcomed and greeted by name by a vendor.
Once they step into the store, the buyer could get product suggestions and offers on related goods. What’s more, buyers can pay for these items in store using their e-wallets. The goal is to streamline the shopping experience further and avoiding tiresome queues at all costs. On top of that, merchants get to reduce staff creating more floor space to improve customer experience further.
In conclusion
The many alternative payment methods will facilitate Omnichannel engagement, global trade, and ensure security. For instance, during high-risk credit card processing, tokenization may occur when confidential data like login details are substituted with an IP address unknown to the merchant. In other words, online merchants will be able to relate to their customers.
Author bio:Electronic payments expert Blair Thomas is the co-founder of high-risk payment processing company eMerchantBroker. His job includes helping merchants set up high-risk credit card processing. He’s just as passionate about his business as he is with traveling and spending time with his dog Cooper.