The Indian retail industry ranks fourth in the world in terms of its size and makes up 10% of the country’s GDP. Its market size is expected to reach INR 96.43 trillion by 2024 (Source). However, unlike any other industry, the highly competitive market is mainly dominated by the unorganized retail segment that includes around 13 million kirana or provision stores.
While the unorganized sellers can be considered the archetype of retailing in our home country, a lot has changed since the occurrence of the Covid-19 pandemic. The exponential rise in e-commerce and digital adoption has disrupted both organized brick-and-mortar and traditional retail models. Various e-commerce players and digital-first companies have emerged to meet the changing consumer demands with the help of technology and supply chain optimization.
Amidst the rising consumer expectations, technological improvements, and dominance of the e-commerce sector, traditional retailers can be found planning to pave the way for both sustenance and growth. If your business is affected by the changing face of retail, narrow margins, and heightened cost pressures, it’s time to give paramount importance to the payment experience of your customers.
Most customers seek an efficient, seamless, and secure way to pay for their purchase, irrespective of the channel they buy things from. This requires you to focus on investing in omnichannel payments for the greater good in these competitive times.
Indeed, omnichannel retail is the need of the hour for various types of businesses in India. But how do omnichannel payments relate to this need? Let’s find out.
What Do Omnichannel Payments Mean?
At its core, omnichannel payments simply mean utilizing a comprehensive platform that has all the payment solutions integrated across various channels, thus giving a unified view of customers’ transactions.
For businesses adopting an omnichannel retail strategy, the underlying perspective says that customers are likely to switch from one channel to another during their interaction with a brand. Suppose a buyer purchased a shirt from an offline store and then wants to return it because of sizing issues. He expected the brand to provide the facility to accept the product return request online through its website or app and then process the refund once the item is picked.
Wondering if this is possible? Indeed, with an omnichannel payments platform.
Such a platform supports:
- Multiple payment options at every customer touchpoint and maintains a cohesive report of every transaction
- A holistic view of the payments that can help streamline repayments and provide insights related to the payment trends
- The process of delivering a personalized customer experience\
What Do Indian Businesses Expect From Omnichannel Payments?
Indeed, the Indian retail industry is quite unique in terms of its specific requirements in terms of payment solutions. These include:
Easy integration and onboarding
When you want to switch from a single channel to an omnichannel business strategy, you would want to get the required payment solutions integrated timely. In terms of the process of integration, most merchants in India want the integration to be developer-friendly.
Besides this, you would want the merchant onboarding formalities like KYC verification, business detail sharing, and merchant history verification to be done quickly.
Paytm for Business ensures a 100% online and hassle-free onboarding experience for all merchants.
Multiple payment options support
Do you think your customers will pay you using the only payment method supported on your offline or online retail store?
Being a retailer, you should understand that you cannot control consumer behavior. It also means that a buyer can simply walk away from your store without buying if you do not accept payments via his preferred payment option(s).
Hence, it is important that you consider the availability of maximum payment options for both offline and online channels before selecting an omnichannel payment solution provider.
Payment security and compliance requirements
Amidst the rising cases of payment fraud in the country, it is obvious that you want to benefit from a payment solution provider that ensures payment security. When there are several sales channels supporting your business, the security of payments processed at every touchpoint is essential. Besides this, business-related or industry-related compliance may also shadow the payment acceptance side of your business.
This is why you should look for a payment solution provider that helps you adhere to various compliance and data security guidelines.
Timely settlements
Particularly for small retailers that constitute a big part of the retail industry, receiving timely payments is crucial to maintain the cash flow. In most cases, the payment solution providers settle the payments received from customers to the merchant’s bank account based on their default payment cycle. If this cycle takes a long time, it can create a bottleneck for to the financial flywheel of many businesses.
This is why you would want the omnichannel payments provider to have a shorter default payment settlement cycle.
International payment support
From starting to sell via one channel, then two, and more – it might have taken a lot of time for you to expand your reach to the target audience via different touchpoints. If that is limited to the geographical boundaries of our country, you can plan to take it forward and sell your offerings to potential customers across the globe.
To make this vision a reality, it is important the chosen payment tools you select are in line with your business expansion plans. It should help you accept payments in multiple currencies and then simply convert them to INR for settlement into your account.
Ways to Enable Omnichannel Payments for Your Business
Opting for an omnichannel payment solution provider can streamline the way you collect payments via different channels. Here’s how this can be done:
On your official website or mobile app
This will require you to integrate a payment gateway to allow you to accept payments via multiple payment methods. Depending on the payment gateway you select, you can benefit from its features like international payments, payment analytics, split settlements, recurring payments via subscriptions, and more.
Without a website or app
As a part of your business, you might need to collect payments remotely from some of your clients. You can benefit from using payment links and sharing them with your clients to accept payments online. There is no restriction on how you share these links with the payees. You can send the links via WhatsApp, SMS, or any preferred messaging app.
For your offline brand store(s)
You can benefit from accepting payments in your retail stores with the help of a QR or Quick Response code. Store visitors can scan this code using their preferred payment apps to make payments for their purchases. In offline markets, QR codes have become an alternative to paying in cash.
Also, as a merchant, you can benefit from using both static and dynamic QR codes for your business.
Other than QR codes, you can also invest in POS or Point of Sale devices to allow the customers to pay via debit or credit cards while also helping in centralized monitoring of online and offline payments.
FAQs
Can I integrate omnichannel payments for my business?
For this, you first need to understand that omnichannel payments mean providing all sorts of popular and most preferred payment facilities to your customers across channels. This also gives a combined view of all the transactions at one place, thus making reconciliation easier. Indeed, you can switch to omnichannel payments using Paytm for Business. Find out more about our payment offerings here.
Is accepting omnichannel payments possible without a website?
You can enable this type of payment using Paytm Payment Links – a perfect solution for remote payment collection for businesses like yours. You can simply share the payment link with customers at your convenience and get paid via their preferred payment option.
Why does payment security matter for businesses?
Customers want to buy from renowned brands that can ensure a secure payment experience. Amidst the rising risk of cyber crimes and payment frauds, it has become essential for businesses to process payments via safe and secure payment solutions only. You can provide payment security benefits at every customer touchpoint with the help of a unified payment solution provider.
Do I need to worry about settlements related to omnichannel payments?
In both online and offline business spheres, settlements of payments when processed through a third-party payment provider can occur differently. A payment solution provider may settle the funds within a day while the other performs batch settlement on every alternate day. On the other hand, omnichannel payments means providing a seamless buying experience to customers. As you can see, both these aspects merge at the selection of the payment solution provider for your business.
Omnichannel payments simply mean Paytm for Business in India
Indeed, maintaining an omnichannel retail experience is one of the pressing priorities for a majority of businesses. Supporting these experiences with the required payment infrastructure is equally important. Look no further than Paytm for Business as your omnichannel payments partner. We have a wide range of payment products available to streamline the payment side of your business. Want to know more? Read this.
