There was a time in the not-so-distant past when merchants built omnichannel environments so they could compete on experience. These forward-thinking merchants engineered convenient customer engagements, allowing shoppers to browse products or menus on their website or apps, order and pay online, and start purchasing journeys on one channel and complete it on another, such as “buy online, pickup in-store” or returning or exchanging online orders in person. Leveraging digital engagement and transactions, they designed well-planned processes to create the most seamless, frictionless ways for customers to do business with them. Now, in the middle of a pandemic, digital engagement is no longer only about convenience and delighting customers. It is also vital to meeting the demand for contactless customer experiences.
THE VAST ONLINE MIGRATION
The number of digital shoppers in the U.S. has steadily increased, growing from 209.6 million to 224.1 million in 2019. Although retail sales are expected to decrease overall this year due to the impact of COVID-19, Adobe Analytics reports that in the first seven months of 2020, online spending totaled $434.5 billion and at that pace will exceed 2019’s total by early October. Merchants equipped for e-commerce were well-positioned to capitalize on this demand. Others, however, scrambled to establish an online presence and enable digital transactions.
Challenges continued as the economy reopened after shutdowns, and consumers were more aware of potential health risks in public spaces. Although merchants have done what they can to facilitate social distancing and barriers, in-person checkout experiences typically continue to have an element of touch that many consumers aren’t comfortable with. For example, a customer may still need to hand a card to a cashier, use a PIN pad, handle cash, or accept a paper receipt.
For software developers, 2020 has meant an overwhelming number of requests to help merchants do business online or enable contactless payments. Fortunately, Betterpay has the answer you need, especially for small merchants that aren’t looking for complex shopping cart solutions.
COLLECT CHECKOUT
Collect Checkout gives you an easy way to create checkout links or buttons for merchants with only a four-step process:
- Add products to the merchant’s control panel. To create a “buy now” button for digital purchases, choose the product the merchant wants to sell.
- Create a security key for the product.
- Whitelist the URLs where the button will take customers, so no one can interfere with that process. Typically, the button will take the customer to the checkout page.
- Add the code to the merchant’s website; Collect Checkout provides sample code and tips to make the process quick and easy.
Collect Checkout also gives merchants the option to save customer data to a vault, display a receipt, redirect the customer back to their website, or send shipping information. You can also customize where to direct customers after a successful purchase or what to display for customers who abandon the sale.
Collect Checkout takes customers to a prebuilt, SAQ-A compliant payment page, so the merchant never sees or interacts with payment card data, minimizing their PCI scope. Additionally, Collect Checkout gives merchants or nonprofits the ability to accept a payment in which the customer determines and enters the amount, rather than only accepting fixed-price transactions.
IN-PERSON, CONTACTLESS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES
In addition to online payments, Collect Checkout gives merchants the versatility to accept additional types of payments. Just as you can enable a “buy now” button on a website, you can also provide merchants with a link they can provide to their customers in an email or on social media.
Another option is to use the payment solution to create QR codes that a user can scan with the camera on almost any iOS or Android mobile device. A Collect Checkout QR code takes the customer to the checkout page, the customer completes a simple form, often with data saved to the device, completes the transaction, and receives a digital receipt.
Moreover, the software company that provided the solution just enabled contactless payments without requiring the customer to download an app or integrate a card reader for the merchant. Customers can simply scan, pay, and go.
Literally overnight, you can help merchants transform their business from purely brick-and-mortar to an omnichannel operation with Collect Checkout. In the post-COVID-19 era, you can also provide your clients with an easy way to deliver the contactless payment and checkout experiences that their customers demand. And, their new-found business agility will surely be an asset as they navigate the changes that lie ahead.
