“We have to offer the payment options that customers want to pay with” has been the mantra for retailers world-wide, but as the number of options increases monthly this no longer makes sense. What to do in today’s mixed offline and online world? How do you pick which ones to accept and which to reject and on which channel?

Shop anywhere at anytime

As the world moves to a mixture of offline and online business. It becomes critical to enable customers to shop anywhere at anytime. Michael Moeser, Director of Payments, Javelin Strategy & Research believes that, “Having a reliable payments solution that allows a retailer’s customers to shop ‘anywhere and anytime’ will bring in more revenues and easily make the business case for more funding.”

Merchants around the world understand this and are making progress in their journey to having omni-channel payment capabilities, as the chart from ‘Omni-Channel Payments for Merchants: Myth or Reality?’ report from Payments Cards & Mobile and ACI shows:

Source & Copyright©2016 - Payments Cards & Mobile and ACI

Offering new payment systems is essential

Offering new payment system options is, for many retailers, becoming essential. However, research by TransCentra shows that the annual cost of each payment system is some $90K, and the initial set up costs is at least double.

So for many retailers it could be cheaper and faster to use an omni-channel provider to overcome the technology challenges in offering omni-channel payment options:

Source & Copyright©2016 - Payments Cards & Mobile and ACI

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CTMfile take: Offering payment system options across all of your offline and online channels today is essential. Omni-channel payment providers, such as ACI, offer a cost-effective route, particularly as it allows retailers to find out whether a new payment system does open up a significant market or not.