Digital wallets are the future, but how can your business make the most of this new payment frontier?

The way we pay for goods and services is evolving at a rapid pace. The sheer number of options consumers have when considering how to pay is growing substantially. As retailers, it’s essential to consider how to keep up with your customer’s preferences — a necessity when focusing on increasing sales and building relationships. How can you decrease the number of cart abandonments taking place on your online store? How can you ensure your customer visiting from overseas can pay for your services without getting their credit card flagged for fraud?

Though the answers to these questions may seem complicated and overwhelming, the solution is simple. Digital wallets have been growing in popularity in recent years and understanding what they are, how they work, and how to accept them will ultimately help increase your online and in-person sales.

By expanding your payment processing system, you can keep up with the preferences of your existing customer base and reach a whole new market of international consumers and of the younger, tech-savvy generations who tend to gravitate towards these alternative forms of payment. Read on for more information about accepting digital wallets and what expanding your payment processing system could mean for your business.

Step 1: Uncovering the (HUGE) World of Digital Wallets

Let’s take a look at digital wallets and why we would want to accept them in the first place. In general, when identifying your target customer, you may think about an individual or demographic who can — and is willing to — access your brand either physically or digitally. An often overlooked but important piece of the puzzle is understanding how your target buyer wants to pay — both online and offline. 

The way consumers want to shop has changed dramatically in recent years — especially Asian consumers. Today, China has the largest digital buyer population in the world, amounting to more than 710 million people. 

Tapping into this huge number of consumers can dramatically increase sales. So, how do you make it attractive for these buyers to shop with you? You have to make their shopping experience seamless. One way to do this is by enabling your customers to use their preferred form of payment, no matter where or how they are making their purchases. The number of global consumers who prefer to make purchases using digital wallets rather than credit cards totals nearly 2 billion with mobile payments expected to surpass $250 billion by 2024. 

Accepting digital wallets by integrating a payment processing software is the first step.

Step 2: Accepting Digital Wallet Payments

Let’s dive into the streamlined, simplified world of digital wallets to understand how to accept them as a form of payment for your goods or services.

Simple, Streamlined Convenience

Accepting digital wallet payments as part of your retail strategy can streamline your point of sale (POS) with one simple integration. The popular app PayPal is used widely by US consumers, and today, there are nearly 400 million active account holders. While the majority of transactions that take place involving PayPal happen online, imagine the possibilities that would open up if you were able to accept PayPal in-store. 

One common pain point for retailers is that they cannot easily accept the same forms of payment in-store as they do online. Paypal, for example, is an easy integration to add to your online payment processing system. But, what do you do if your customer who used your online store to purchase an item wants to return that item in your store? In most scenarios, you would be able to refund them easily. Now, what happens if they used PayPal to purchase that item? How do you process their refund in person? A simple answer to this question is that you need to ensure you have the ability to process PayPal or any other digital wallet both online AND in-person. In doing so, you will minimize the friction a customer experiences with your brand. 

While historically it has been easier to integrate and accept digital wallets online, this is no longer the case. It has never been easier to expand on your existing POS and begin accepting digital wallets in-person. Below we detail the process of integrating a payment processing system like Pockyt into your omnichannel retail strategy.

Security

Your customers’ privacy is of the utmost importance. Of course, this is a given, but what can you really do to protect your customers’ data — and ultimately your reputation? Did you know QR-generated digital wallet payments are the most secure form of payment? QR-codes cannot be hacked and there is no chance of data manipulation or interception attacks on individual QR-codes. 

When a payment is initiated from a QR-code, Pockyt tokenizes, encrypts, and verifies the transaction to ensure security and hide the customer’s details. No sensitive customer information is stored or transmitted during this transaction which prevents the risk of fraud. The same cannot be said for other forms of payment. Using or accepting a credit card as a form of payment opens the door to numerous hackers and data mining.

Cost

Perhaps one of the most attractive aspects of broadening your POS is the minimal overhead cost associated with accepting digital wallet payments. You can easily accept in-store payments from digital wallets by integrating Pockyt with your existing POS — no additional hardware is necessary. 

Additionally—and perhaps the best part— you don’t pay anything unless your customer completes a transaction using a digital wallet supported by Pockyt’s payment processing software. And your customers will thank you because, unlike credit cards, the fees — especially international transaction fees — associated with digital wallets are low, less than half of an international credit card. 

Step 3: The Integration

The important thing to remember about accepting digital wallets as a form of payment is that you are not replacing your existing payment processing system, software or point of sale (POS). You are simply expanding on it. Integrating Pockyt with your existing online and in-person POS is simple and quick.

Online Payment Processing

Accepting your customer’s preferred form of payment is an easy online integration. Pockyt is already integrateds to the world’s leading eCommerce Platforms and supports four online checkout solutions to accommodate any and all of your needs: out-of-the-box solutions for the leading e-commerce platforms; Configurable Integrations; Pockyt-Hosted Page; Pay-by-Link. This means you can keep your existing, branded checkout process and your customer can complete their transactions seamlessly using their preferred digital wallet.

In-Store Payment Processing

Pockyt can easily integrate with your physical POS since it is more than likely that you already have the hardware necessary to process digital wallet payments. Once integrated, you will have three contactless ways to accept digital wallet payments: Customer-Presented Dynamic QR-Code; Merchant-Presented QR-Code; Merchant Receipt QR-Code. By making these options available to your customers, they will be able to pay with their preferred payment method in-store in one fast, streamlined process. 

Now, more than ever, it is important to keep your employees and customers healthy and safe. By accepting contactless payments in person, you are minimizing physical contact while streamlining the checkout process. This allows everyone involved to remain physically distanced and moving through the process quickly. 

Providing a seamless experience from shopping through checkout and delivery helps build confidence in your brand and improves relationships with your customers. Wherever your customer is shopping, you want to ensure they have a frictionless shopping experience. 

Why Pockyt?

You want to increase sales and build brand awareness while adapting to the changing world. Your customer wants to pay for goods and services quickly, easily, and the way they want. Integrating Pockyt into your payment processing system will help you provide a streamlined checkout experience while expanding your reach to billions of shoppers. All while keeping your costs low and your branding intact. Talk about a win-win!