Multichannel Merchants Face Payment Process Complexity
Mercator Advisory Group’s report, ‘Multichannel Merchants Face Payment Process Complexity’, examines the complexity facing multichannel and multinational merchants with diverse (and consequently inefficient) payment infrastructure. Merchants selling retail goods through multiple channels – in stores, online, through mail or phone order, at kiosks, etc – face myriad challenges when devising rational, cogent strategies for payment process management.
Managing multiple vendors is also a common challenge for multichannel merchants, since the systems supporting in-store payments are often drastically different from those for online retail activities. Different platforms and payment products typically have inconsistent reporting tools and output formats, creating further demands on merchant operators to rationalise a variety of data feeds.
This report covers these complexities in detail, identifying inefficiencies and potential challenges to merchant profitability as well as the need for increased visibility. It discusses solutions’ features and functionality broadly and examines key features of significance for the multichannel merchant market. The conclusions are geared toward solution providers hoping to improve functionality of their products and potential merchant users who need to establish a business case for a product purchase or who may be considering an upgrade or vendor change.
“Merchant payment and e-commerce managers at e-retailers, digital content providers, subscription services providers, and other business types are familiar with the many moving parts involved in converting sales into payments, and solutions providers have begun to step up their development efforts to tackle these problems as their customers expand into new markets and channels,” said David Fish, senior analyst at Mercator Advisory Group and author of the report. “However, with expansion comes an additional layer of complexity, and thus the vicious cycle persists.”