Over the years, as more and more companies decide they don’t want to be limited to just one platform – online or offline – omnichannel payment has become the most sought after tool for businesses.
While a large number of merchants are either looking to implement omnichannel payments or have already done so, many of them don’t fully realise the potential of omnichannel payments.
In this article, we will break down how companies can utilise omnichannel payments for different purposes. But before that, let’s understand why the future of shopping is omnichannel.
Why Omnichannel Retail is the Future
Today, consumers want to experience the best of both worlds – digital and physical. As the line between digital and physical shopping blurs, the term phygital, a portmanteau of physical and digital, has become more prominent in usage as well.
Omnichannel retail, a jargon term for phygital, is a strategy that involves creating a unified shopping experience across all channels, whether online or in-store. This means that consumers can move seamlessly between different channels, such as browsing products online and then picking them up in-store, or ordering online and having items delivered to their homes. The key to successful omnichannel retail is to provide a consistent and convenient experience for consumers, regardless of how customers choose to shop.
As an online retailer, you must be wondering what’s the need to go offline since it will require additional capital, manpower, etc. Well, there are immense benefits to having an offline presence. Even if you don’t fully invest in a brick-and-mortar establishment, you should consider having pop-up stores so that you can actively engage with your customers.
One of the successful stories of pop-up stores is smartphone maker Xiaomi’s innovative ‘Mi Store on Wheels’ to sell smartphones.
Additionally, you can consider using physical stores as distribution centres for online orders. This will make having separate warehouses redundant. Over time it can lead to significant cost savings, which can then be passed on to consumers.
Three Use-cases of Omnichannel Payments
Omnichannel payments is versatile and almost all industries and businesses can utilise it for their benefit. Right from healthcare and hospitality, to retail and groceries, omnichannel payments works in favour of every business.
Here are three use-cases of omnichannel payments that any type of business can leverage:
- Payments across channel
Customers today are giving preference to companies that take extra effort to create systems that let them browse and purchase products from multiple platforms. In fact, with the changing times every business should give their customers this kind of freedom.
Omnichannel payments is the answer to this.
Suppose a customer walks into your perfume store, but is unsure about which one to get. He is actually looking for a specific brand. You ask him to leave his email and phone number with you and promise to update him once you have that brand’s collection.
A week later, once you have the brand’s perfume, you send the customer an email and a message informing him that you have got what he was looking for. Along with the message, you also send a link which he can use to buy the perfume right from his phone. The link allows the customer to pay via his preferred payment method. Additionally, you can also give him the option to either pick up the perfume from the shop or get it home delivered.
- Easy refund and returns
Refund and return has become a very important feature for businesses. Very often customers first check the return policy of online and offline companies before buying anything. Over time, it has become one of the perks that businesses offer customers on almost all products.
However, the experience of return and refund is often broken if the customer uses more than one platform to communicate with the brand regarding refund. If a customer posts a negative review on social media of a product and the brand representative agrees to process the refund, the online or offline team will have no idea about this.
By implementing omnichannel payment you can solve this problem easily. With omnichannel payment, your customers can buy a product online and ask for a refund from your shop. Omnichannel will make the whole process seamless for customers.
- Loyalty programs
Companies spend a lot on coming up with loyalty programs. But very few of these efforts see the desired result. One of the primary reasons for low adoption of loyalty programs is that customers are forced to redeem them from one platform.
The day you offer loyalty coupons to customers that are versatile and can be used from offline or online stores, you will start seeing the result you wished for.
As you integrate omnichannel with your brand, your customers can use the coupons from their platform of choice. The ideal redemption of coupon codes with the help of omnichannel should look like this:
- Customer buys shoes online and receives a 15% discount coupon code for his next purchase
- A month later he happens to find your shop and decides to redeem the coupon as he needs a pair of footwear for his wife
- At the cash counter he shows the coupon code from the app and gets a 15% discount. Easy-peasy
Conclusion
When businesses hear or read about omnichannel payments, a lot of jargon is thrown around, which doesn’t make much sense. In the end, merchants are not fully convinced why they should be serious about integrating omnichannel payments with their business.
The use-cases mentioned above are not only practically possible to implement, but customers expect nothing less than that from brands.
Paytm for Business has a bevy of tools that can help you get the whole infrastructure ready and working in no time.
