In spite of the fact that the methods of payment used in different parts of the world differ from one another, customers and retailers have a fundamental objective in common: They want payment methods that are quick, easy, and secure, regardless of where, when, or how they’re conducting business.
Retailers are faced with the question of which methods of payment they ought to be accepting at this time. Here are six other options for making payments that store owners should think about offering in order to continue drawing customers into their establishments.
Crypto Payments
Over the course of the last decade, many individuals have been surprised by the meteoric rise of the cryptocurrency sector. The immature sector has been successful in considerably altering the attitude of the general public, particularly in 2021, the year in which a large number of conventional financial institutions adopted crypto as payment method into their business.
While firms like PayPal, Mastercard, and Visa paved the path for the general public to use cryptocurrencies as a method of payment, some of the largest publicly traded corporations began adopting Bitcoin as a treasuries hedge.
Latest market trends & data indicate how crypto is rapidly being employed to buy things of everyday use. This is despite the fact that many industry professionals are still hesitant about the usage of cryptocurrencies as a method of payment due to the volatility of their prices.
Digital Wallets
The use of convenient digital wallets, either in person or online, is gaining more and more widespread. As a direct result of COVID-19, forty percent of customers are making significantly more frequent use of contactless cards and digital wallets.
And of those customers who used their digital wallets more frequently during the epidemic, 68% have the impression that they are safer now than they were before. Customers can benefit from the ease of simply swiping or touching their mobile phone over appropriate card-reading devices while they are shopping in-store.
This makes paying for purchases much simpler. 38% of customers throughout the world surveyed claimed that using a mobile wallet was their favourite payment option while doing online shopping. Digital Exchange enables merchants to connect customers with some of the most widely used digital wallets, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal.
Contactless Payment
Technology developments such as mobile cashless transactions have experienced a surge in popularity as a direct result of the epidemic. In point of fact, according to a survey conducted throughout the globe, 92 percent of businesses either already accept contactless payments or have plans to do so within the next year.
Eighty-five percent of those who were polled said that accepting contactless payments has increased customer satisfaction, and 78 percent of those surveyed said that accepting contactless payments has cut the average amount of time it takes to complete a transaction.
Not only do cashless payments improve the whole shopping experience by making it more efficient, but also 45% of people who responded to a poll of consumers from around the world claimed that they prefer using contactless payments rather than cash.
Furthermore, 82 percent of merchants polled worldwide said that contactless payments, which include tap & pay, are among their most popular methods of payment and were a significant component of their reaction to the pandemic.
Click to Pay
Secure Remote Commerce (SRC), which is more commonly referred to as Click-to-Pay, is gaining popularity. This payment method makes it simple for customers to check out after they are through making purchases online and encourages customers to return to the retailer.
Click-to-Pay is a service that eliminates the need for customers to repeatedly enter their payment information throughout the purchasing process by allowing customers to save their chosen payment methods in a digital wallet that is stored in the cloud.
In point of fact, the most common complaint that customers had when utilising guest checkout was that there was no opportunity to save their information for future transactions. This made the checkout process longer and required a large amount of manual data entering.
According to a survey of global merchants, nearly two-thirds (62%) of vendors said that they were very involved in this security feature. This is no surprise considering that even within countries where SRC isn’t yet available, the survey found that merchants were very interested in it.
Self Checkout
As an increasing number of companies look for ways to enhance their customers’ shopping experiences, one strategy that is developing in popularity is giving consumers the choice of using self service checkouts or paying at any point inside the store.
In point of fact, 87 percent of merchants polled stated that they have either adopted or plan to implement mPOS devices that enable payments to be made anywhere on their floor, and 71 percent of merchants stated that they have installed or intended to deploy transaction kiosks for self service checkouts.
Mobile point-of-sale systems are favoured by customers for a number of reasons, including a quicker checkout experience, convenience, the option to bag their own things, social distancing, and shorter lineups. mPOS also allows customers to bag their own items.
Buy Now, Pay Later
Customers have the opportunity to make a purchase right away and then pay for it in instalments over a predetermined amount of time, if they buy now, pay later payment plan is selected.
In the United States, the number of people who use BNPL has been expanding at a rate of more than 300% each year since 2018, and it is expected to reach 45 million users in 2021. As a result, more and more businesses are beginning to employ this approach.
BNPL enables customers to make purchases by presenting them with cost-effective financing options at the point of purchase. thereby enhancing the overall customer experience and fostering brand loyalty.
Faster Payment Methods
Both customers and business owners are becoming increasingly interested in the possibility of making payments in nearly real time. In the same vein as peer-to-peer (P2P) payment solutions for customers, retailers are increasingly adopting new functionality that enable speedier financial transactions.
Seventy-five percent of customers believe that being able to send or receive money in an instant would considerably enhance their overall experience. In point of fact, seventy-five percent of customers believe that the ability to instantly transfer funds would considerably enhance the quality of the customer experience.
And this was especially true for Millennials, who enjoy the largest participation in the gig economy, with 85% of them saying that it would enhance the customer experience. Millennials are the generation that has the highest participation in the gig economy.
Merchants should bear in mind that providing customers with the opportunity to pay using the payment method of their choice can be just as significant as providing ease and speed of payment, which are both critical aspects in determining the level of customer satisfaction achieved.
