Optimising your business to enable omnichannel payments is one of the most important things you can do to prepare for the future. With technology handling almost everything, it’s quite important that you prepare to create systems that can handle the best of both worlds – physical and digital.
Omnichannel payments is well equipped in doing just that. Once you implement omnichannel payments, your business gains the ability to accept payments through multiple channels, such as in-store, online, or through a mobile device.
In this guide, we will outline the steps to successfully implement omnichannel payments for your business.
What does omnichannel payments mean for businesses?
At its core, omnichannel payments simply mean utilising a comprehensive platform that has all the payment solutions integrated across various channels, thus giving a unified view of customers’ transactions.
With the digital and physical world relying on each other, customers’ buying journey is not limited to just one platform. Very often they switch from one channel to another when they interact with a brand.
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For example, a customer might buy shoes online and later visit the store to exchange it for a better size. The new shoes might have a different price than the original one. The brand must have the ability to smoothly process the price difference and accept or refund the remaining amount to the customer. This will happen only when the brand adopts omnichannel payments.
Why is omnichannel the new normal for consumers today?
The goal of omnichannel payments is to provide consumers with a convenient and seamless payment experience, regardless of the platform they use. We have already started seeing behavioural change among users. Now customers browse products in store, pay for them via an app, and get them delivered to their doorstep.
Interesting Read: Why Omnichannel Is The New Normal
For example, sports brand Decathlon has successfully created omnichannel retail infrastructure in India. It allows customers to purchase products from their online store as well as from their experience stores in-person. Customers can then choose either to pick up their purchase from the store or get them delivered. One strong reason why omnichannel works for Decathlon is, because it has strongly connected omnichannel payments with its systems. It allows customers to seamlessly pay from any platform, check their past purchases, redeem coupons, receive refunds, etc.
This ease of purchasing and paying for products from any touch point is going to drive the industry, and merchants must prepare themselves for it now.
How omnichannel payments can help merchants
Right from healthcare and hospitality, to retail and groceries, omnichannel payments works in favour of every business. Considering how versatile omnichannel payments is, almost all industries and businesses can benefit from it.
Here is how omnichannel payments can help your business irrespective of the sector you operate in:
- Mobile payments: Consumers can use their mobile devices to make payments in-store, online, or on-the-go using mobile wallets or other payment apps.
- In-store payments: Customers can pay for their purchases using a variety of methods, including credit/debit cards, mobile wallets, and gift cards, at the checkout counter of a physical store.
- Online payments: Customers can make purchases online using their credit/debit cards, mobile wallets, or internet banking.
- Subscription-based payments: Consumers can use omnichannel payments to manage their recurring payments for subscriptions, such as monthly gym memberships or online streaming services.
- Contactless payments: Omnichannel payments can support contactless payment methods, such as near field communication (NFC) or QR codes, allowing customers to make payments with just a tap or scan of their mobile device.
- Beat competition: By offering omnichannel payments, businesses can stand out from their competition and attract more customers. Once you integrate omnichannel payments with all your touch points, you will automatically have an edge over your competitors. You will, by default, be one step ahead of the competition as you have closed the distance between you and your customers.
- Satisfied customers – Omnichannel payments help to create a seamless experience for consumers, bridging the gap between online and offline shopping. This helps to increase customer loyalty and engagement, and leads to higher sales for businesses.
How to create an omnichannel infrastructure with Paytm?
While omnichannel sounds like a magic wand that will solve all your problems, it’s not an easy task to implement it. The biggest challenge you as a merchant will face, is setting up a payment infrastructure that can handle customers’ purchases from different touch points.
To enable the right payments infrastructure, you need the right tech that can seamlessly work for online as well as offline payments. You will not get an integrated payments solution that can handle payments from all customer touchpoints. You will have to get two different payment solutions – one for online and another for offline payments.
Interesting Read: Make Omnichannel Payments Easier With Paytm for Business
Having an omnichannel strategy that works in your and customers’ favour requires you to fix your payment infrastructure. The core of your payments infrastructure should include the following payment solutions:
- Collecting payments without a website
If you don’t have a website yet and still want to collect money digitally, you would either message your phone number to customers or send a link. But very often when you are sending payment requests to a large number of people, there are high chances that every person would want to pay through their preferred payment mode. This becomes a challenge as your link would not support all payment modes.
There is also a trust issue with direct links sent by businesses to customers. There are high chances that the customer might not trust the link and think of it as a scam. Sending a payment link of a reputed brand like Paytm will ensure customers will trust your message and use the link to make the payment.
Paytm Payment Link is the easiest way to collect money when you don’t have a website but want to receive money digitally. You can create Paytm Payment Link from our dashboard and broadcast the link to any number of customers.
Whether you want to collect different amounts from customers or the same amount from everyone, Paytm Payment Link is versatile to accommodate everything.
- Collecting payments online
The primary challenge in building digital payments capability is that you will require a tech team to build the solution. Further, you will need to adhere to payment guidelines, get the regulator’s nod, and follow other compliance protocols.
On the other hand, if you partner with Paytm you don’t need to worry about compliance or any permission. Paytm Payment Gateway provides cutting edge digital payment technology that will get you started from day one. The onboarding process doesn’t take long. The API integration into your system is as simple as copy-pasting text from one platform to another.
With Paytm PG, you can seamlessly accept money from all payment methods, process refunds with a few clicks, and receive detailed payment reports and analytics from the dashboard.
- Collecting payments offline (in-store)
A large number of online merchants are already going offline. If not with full commitment of opening a retail store, then at least they are doing pop-up stores, setting up stalls in neighbourhoods and apartment complexes, etc.
But very often, instead of making sales then and there, they reroute prospective customers to go to their website and purchase from there. The main reason for this is that the company doesn’t have payment infrastructure to close the sales on-site.
Interesting Read: Four Payment Features Every Omnichannel Startup Should Use
If you do a lot of pop-up stores, you should consider Paytm’s in-store payment solutions. You should consider Paytm Card Machine to accept money from all payment modes including debit and credit cards, UPI, QR code, and Paytm Postpaid. In addition to this, Paytm also offers Soundbox and Dynamic QR codes. Paytm Soundbox is a truly innovative product – every time a customer pays online the Soundbox announces how much money was paid. The Dynamic QR code device allows customers to scan the code from their payment app and pay via UPI.
In addition to these benefits, you will be able to reconcile your payments from different sources from one place.
Conclusion
Implementing omnichannel payments can help you provide a seamless and convenient payment experience for your customers.
For businesses, omnichannel payments ideally should do the following:
- Support multiple payment options
- Ensure payment security
- Provide seamless access to payment information across platforms
- Provide on-time settlements
- Support international payments
As you embark on this omnichannel journey, you can trust Paytm to stand with you in every step. Paytm has cutting edge technology and relevant solutions that are unique in the market.
