#2022trends: An Omnichannel Strategy

08 Dec, 2021
Market Views

By Ramesh Jairam, CEO, SmartPesa

Looking ahead to 2022: An omnichannel strategy will increasingly become an important game play among acquirers and merchants.

Compared to before, today’s consumers use an average of almost six touchpoints with nearly 50% regularly using more than four.1 Omnichannel strategies help generate around 80% of in-store visits, while as much as 74% of customers research their purchases online before visiting a physical store.2 Number of orders placed online and collected instore also grew 208% during the pandemic.3

Technologies for a Successful Omnichannel Approach

Offering customers an omnichannel experience involves making changes across the entire organization, from marketing, distribution channels, sales, operations, supply chain to IT. Various technologies have also emerged in recent years to support this.

  • IoT-Connected Devices: Increased usage of multiple smart devices by the average consumer requires businesses to build and share personalized content across multiple platforms and devices.
  • Artificial Intelligence in Customer Service: Automated customer service support such as Chatbots offers customers on-demand support, at any time of day.
  • Recommendation engines: Recommendation engines analyze past shopping behavior to serve up relevant content and product suggestions.
  • Headless CMS: Different from a traditional CMS which delivers content to a single website, a headless content management system allows businesses to integrate targeted content on any device and any channel, 24/7.
  • Omnichannel Payments: Offering digital payments at physical stores help to further bring that online shopping experience instore. From contactless, cardless, mobile payments to preferred local payment methods, there are a whole slew of digital payment options available to merchants and consumers.

 

What is Omnichannel Payments?

Omnichannel payment processing goes beyond offering multiple payment options to customers to ensuring a complete integration of payments processed across various channels and by multiple third-party payment providers. In addition to processing payment transactions, allowing for invoicing, recurring billing and other value-added functionalities further create a seamless experience for both customers and business users.

Benefits of an omnichannel platform include:

  • Streamlined operations
  • Easy deployment of new payment methods across markets and channels
  • Enhanced customer experience, beyond just transactions

 

Enabling Acquirers with Omnichannel Capabilities

At SmartPesa, we enable omnichannel payments by consolidating processing across all channels, markets, schemes, payment methods and platforms, thereby reducing the number of vendors, streamlining processes and ultimately, lowering costs.

We take care of the tech so our clients don’t have to with:

  • Highest security standards and compliance: Our solutions are PCI DSS Level 1, CPoC and SPoC certified with PIN on Glass certification by Mastercard and Visa.
  • API integration: Implementation can be done affordably and quickly. Our solutions are also futureproof by allowing easy adoption of new, popular payment methods or local schemes.
  • PIN on Glass: Our SoftPOS with PIN support allows for all transactions, even when above CVM limits.
  • Customized solutions for enterprises: We partner with acquirers to tailor solutions for Enterprise customers looking to innovate.

 

We have seen massive and rapid movements in the payments landscape in recent years, and it looks like this will continue into 2022 (and beyond).

 

>> See how SmartPesa’s payments platform supports omnichannel capabilities that follow a customer’s shopping journey, every step of the way here.

Reference

V12, 25 Amazing Omnichannel Statistics Every Marketer Should Know
Contentstack, Omnichannel Retail: 6 Technologies to Transform Your Strategy

1 See V12 (2021) for more information on statistics provided by Marketing Week.
2 See V12 (2021) for more information on statistics provided by Think with Google.
3 See V12 (2021) for more information on statistics provided by Adobe Analytics.

Image created by pch.vector – www.freepik.com

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