E-wallets and how they can support your business

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: E-wallets and how they can support your business.

Retailers are continually trying to maximise sales, deliver a seamless customer service experience and store cardholder data securely. However, Sean Young, Field Sales Executive, YESpay, explains that to meet all these expectations retailers need a flexible and secure payment solution that supports both the customer and merchant alike.

The continued growth of multi-channel retailing, despite the economic slowdown, means businesses need to ensure that they are constantly delivering on their customer promises.

Latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index show that, despite the recession, UK shoppers spent over 4.67 billion online in December. However for retailers to ensure they are getting their share of this market, as well as the MOTO market (mail order/telephone order), its essential that they make the payment process for their customers both simple and straightforward. However, its equally important that they protect customer data and ensure that transactions are not only dealt with swiftly, but also securely.

The introduction of an E-wallet solution managed by a third party can improve how both customers and merchants manage accounts.

From the viewpoint of a cardholder this offers a number of benefits. It gives consumers the ability to create a secure account to hold their credit or debit card details. Once logged onto their account, cardholders can make multiple purchases through the merchant website using their stored credit or debit card details without the need to re-enter their details. Only security data such as postcode and the three-digit security code on the back of the cards needs to be entered as they are not stored in the E-wallet.

The wallet account can be created during an E-Commerce transaction and the first transaction for the cardholder will be authorised before creating the wallet. Cardholders are then provided login details to their Wallet account so they can view their transactions.

The technology also offers a host of benefits from the merchants viewpoint. For example, if a customer is paying for a service over 12 months on a month-to-month basis, rather than contacting the customer every month for their bank details, the retailer can use the stored credit or debit card details in the E-wallet (without actually accessing the card number) by presenting a unique access code linked to the card to perform repeat purchases.

Also retailers cannot afford to take the money and then fail to deliver the goods as this would result in a poor customer experience and ultimately lost business. However, by using the wallet retailers can pre-book orders in and only take the payment from the wallet once the right stock has arrived in and been dispatched to the customer.

Likewise, it also offers the merchant the ability to take orders even though some of the items may not currently be in stock. For example, if a customer orders five items, but only two are in stock, instead of losing the sale, the payment for the additional three items can be processed when the goods arrive in stock. This means the merchant doesnt need to contact the customer again for payment. Again they would use the credit and debit card details managed by the E-wallet.

However, for this to succeed as a service, the issue of security must be given the utmost importance. Its important that retailers seek a complete end-to-end secure (PCI-DSS approved) e-commerce payment service for authorising and settling high-volume online payment transactions originating from retailer websites. The benefits of this type of solution include; high speed secure web payments, multiple payment options that are stored on their secure wallet user account, process payments through links to financial institutions, billing and prepay systems, electronic top-up of a prepaid virtual account and integrated 3-D Secure and EMV transaction handling.

The buying process

If retailers make the buying process as simple and straightforward as possible for their customers it is likely that this will lead to repeat purchases as they dont have to enter their card details for every purchase.

It can also help retailers provide a better offering to customers. For example if a retailer marks something as being out of stock in its MOTO or online environment, the chances are shoppers will not return to make that purchase or will not bother to keep an eye on when an item comes into stock. By offering a deferred payment facility it is likely to help build a better long-term relationship with customers.

By easing the burden of data management by outsourcing to a payments expert, retailers can concentrate on their own challenges of running their operations, safe in the knowledge that the customer has a smoother and more secure shopping experience.

About YESpay

YESpay is a global payments services company providing highly secure and scalable EMV Chip & PIN, contactless and magnetic credit / debit card, e-commerce and gift card payment processing services to independent and multi-chain merchants. It provides outsourced management payment services anywhere in the world to traditional high street stores, hospitality, leisure, fuel, mail order and web environments.