For all its challenges, the pandemic has opened the way for some exciting business opportunities. Merchants of all shapes and sizes have a once-in-a-generation chance to seize upon massive shifts in consumer behavior. Businesses that provide consumers with deeply personalized, contextual digital experiences will set the benchmark for commerce in this new era.
Through an openness to experimentation and meaningful partnerships with organizations that help them stay agile, merchants can capture the latest wave of digital consumers and deepen their relationships. Those that can adapt quickly to changing demands will continue to grow their revenue exponentially.
Making Payments Your Competitive Edge
Digital payments sit at the heart of this opportunity. With today’s accelerated digital transformation, payments have boomed as consumers ditch cash for cards and digital local payment methods. Nearly 420 billion transactions worth $7 trillion may shift from cash to cards and digital payments by 2023 and as much as $48 trillion by 2030, Accenture estimates.
Even the smallest improvement in payments performance can significantly boost the bottom line of a business. That’s why companies like Uber and Deliveroo have shifted their payments from a necessary cost center to a strategic function within the business, with a place in the boardroom.
Payments are much more than a mere business necessity—they can offer a competitive advantage. Merchants that can use better data and garner deeper insight into their payment flows can unlock more revenue, launch innovative new products, and create more memorable customer experiences.
But unlocking that revenue requires a payment service provider (PSP) that can facilitate these advantages by offering the customizable solutions, full data transparency, and consultative service that help such innovative, fast-growth companies as Farfetch, Coinbase, and Klarna achieve optimal payment performance and revenue generation.
The Data Dilemma
“Data is the lifeblood of our operation,” says Emina Zahirovic, head of Payments for North America at HelloFresh. “I cannot do my job and drive payments performance without it.”
But payments leaders even at fast-growing companies are seeing that driving these improvements isn’t easy. Most businesses are in the dark as to what happens after their customer clicks “pay”: they might see that a payment was approved, or they might see that it failed but have no idea why. Often, payments providers aren’t equipped to provide that data, or they can only provide the most basic of insights using consolidated data sets.
To provide full, robust data for insights and analysis, the provider must be a “unified payment provider” that owns the entire payments chain and can act as the gateway, acquiring bank, and payment processor all in one.
“The data that is returned by third-party partners is very, very critical for extracting the most value and increasing your ability first to optimize conversion, and then to reduce the cost of payments,” Andrew Row, former managing director of Uber Payments, said in a recent Checkout.com report.
“The worst, most expensive mistake you can make,” Row says, “is to lose a customer when they initiate payment when you’ve spent so much on customer acquisition.”
Prioritizing Data Visibility
Payments data is equal in its power and its complexity. Understanding it is as much an art as a science. And that’s why businesses are increasingly leaning on their PSPs to be their guides to help them understand the data they have and figure out what actions they can take to drive the optimal impact in payments performance.
Of course, knowing the value and the nuance in the payments data is only half the story. If you can’t collect and visualize the data in a meaningful and timely way, then the value is just theoretical.
A lack of access to actionable data is a significant challenge for many organizations. Forty-one percent of merchants don’t receive any actionable analytics from their payments data.
The PSP you work with must prioritize data visibility. Whether you need a payment platform to integrate into a broader suite of solutions or to operate in a stand-alone fashion, your payments data must be at your fingertips whenever you need it.
Yet even many modern PSPs can’t provide the data organizations need to use their payments as a strategic lever for growth—either because they don’t have direct scheme integration and direct acquiring, or because they are not set up with deep data in mind, and so they consolidate this data and simplify it rather than help their clients use it to make more informed decisions. Businesses wanting to access their complete data need to work with providers that own the end-to-end payments flow and provide access to the granular data they need.
The Value of the Right PSP Partnership
Your business needs to determine whether your PSP has the resources and expertise to provide you with all this support. The PSP experts you work with should be there for you when you need them, to help guide you through the data and provide the insights you need to build your strategy and grow your business.
Checkout.com offers a white-glove service with the deep global expertise and knowledge of regional nuances to provide you with insights on local payment methods, regulation requirements, and trends that can help your business create best-in-class checkout experiences.
Without this data transparency and service, obscured payments data, such as consolidated decline codes and transaction costs, can stifle a growing company’s ability to optimize acceptance and drive more revenue. Checkout.com offers the most transparent payments data, like 150+ decline codes, and the expert service to leverage it.
Today, payments is at the center of business performance, revenue generation, and the best-in-class customer experience that the market expects. Forward-looking business leaders will look to redefine payments as a competitive advantage that can yield big bottom-line results.
Learn how Checkout.com’s platform and expertise can empower you to unlock more value in every transaction.