Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are feeling pressure from consumer demands that trend toward faster, easier, and more convenient experiences. ISVs and VARs can relieve some of that pressure—and give their clients a competitive edge—by providing them with the technology and guidance they need to modernize their SMB commerce strategies.
What’s Driving Consumer Behavior?
According to IBM’s 2022 Consumer Report, consumers see digital tools as necessary for the shopping experiences they prefer. Some shop on a single channel. However, many blend physical and digital shopping, including 36 percent of Gen Z that has adopted hybrid shopping as their primary method. Consumers also want more autonomy in their shopping experiences; 58 percent of consumers have used and plan to continue using in-store self-checkout kiosks.
Additionally, only six in ten shoppers are satisfied with how well-equipped an associate is for finding items in-store or online. Optimal SMB commerce requires the right tools for associates so they can access up-to-the-minute information wherever they’re assisting customers.
How to Make SMB Commerce the Go-To Choice for Consumers
To meet consumer expectations, SMB merchants, like their larger counterparts, must implement these digital shopping solutions.
Online Ordering
Whether researching and browsing retail products, then choosing to purchase online and pick up in the store or trying a new restaurant and having the option to take time exploring the menu on its website, consumers expect the choice to engage online, regardless of the size of the business.
SMB retailers need to offer online ordering. However, they need the right technology, including online payments, to manage it. Show them how to accept payments online easily and securely with hosted payments, and help them adapt processes and reallocate staff to manage online ordering efficiently.
Mobile POS
The point of sale has evolved from a designated location in the store to anywhere a customer needs assistance. Mobile point of sale (POS) technology makes it possible. Customers appreciate the ability to checkout as soon as they are ready without waiting in long lines. Additionally, associates can look up inventory availability and product information to help answer shoppers’ questions. Store associates can also use mPOS to efficiently manage curbside pickup or BOPIS orders and update inventory in real time.
Self-Service
The self-service demand is increasing. Although consumer demand is a significant growth driver, self-service solutions are also helping merchants provide service during the labor shortage. Kiosks, especially self-checkouts equipped with unattended payments, allow customers to engage on their own–and merchants to reallocate labor to more complex tasks.
How Payments Tie SMB Commerce All Together
From online ordering to mobile POS and self-service kiosks, optimizing SMB commerce is much more effective with omnichannel payments. Integrating POS software with an omnichannel payments solution gives merchants benefits, such as:
- Streamlining End-of-Day Processes
Integrating payments streamlines end-of-day processes so merchants spend time working on their SMB commerce businesses instead of in it. Sorting credit receipts, reconciling multiple reports, and manual data entry (and re-entry) become a thing of the past.
- Simplifying Reporting
Integrated payments helps to create an accurate view of purchase trends, inventory, and consumer behavior. An omnichannel payments solution provides a consolidated view of activity on all channels.
- Providing Consistent Payment Experience
Consumers shopping online want the ability to use loyalty rewards or a gift card at check-out, just as they do in-store. Similarly, in-store, they may want the ability to use a mobile wallet to make purchases digitally. Consistent payment experiences on any channel are key to effective SMB commerce.
- Enabling Processor Choice
For SMB retailers, a processor-agnostic payments solution will provide the most flexibility to the merchant when it comes to controlling payment processing fees and payments functionality.
Think Outside the Box and Add Value to SMB Commerce
While online payments, mobile POS, and self-service have become table stakes for businesses focusing on meeting customers’ expectations for digital engagement, your clients may see opportunities to differentiate their businesses by leveraging technology. They may turn to you for guidance to implement facial recognition or cashierless checkouts, collect data and analyze it with artificial intelligence to learn more about traffic patterns and shopper behaviors, or automate inventory management to reflect purchases on all channels.
Listen to your SMB clients’ challenges and understand their visions. Then leverage your expertise in their market or niche and provide the technology that delivers great CX, supports business processes, wins more customers, and makes SMB commerce more competitive.
To learn how to make omnichannel payments a part of a successful strategy, contact us.
