The ecommerce universe is highly competitive and far-flung, making it difficult to attract and keep a diverse group of customers. At the same time, it can be challenging to get foot traffic into your brick-and-mortar store. Imagine how successful you could be if you could combine the two, turning your business into a multi-channel powerhouse. The good news is that today’s technology makes it possible.
Customers and data in one big picture
Integrated payment solutions are connected directly into your point of sale system, enabling you to access a comprehensive snapshot of your business at any time and from anywhere. The system goes beyond securely accepting customer payments. It also integrates with a suite of tools for managing customer relationships, employees, inventory, reports, and more.
When a sale is made, whether it occurs online or in-store, the system consolidates the data into a single platform. As a result, manual entry errors are eliminated while your administrative overhead decreases.
Better still, this consolidation enables you to obtain a complete picture of your customers’ buying behaviors and demographic data. Once you understand their preferences, you can offer promotions targeted just for them.
Even the most effective promotions can fall flat if inventory is out of stock when someone puts in an order. Fortunately, your integrated system has you covered. When you accept payments in-store for a product, your inventory count is updated right away across all channels. This gives you the chance to re-order if quantities are running low and prevents someone purchasing by phone or online from becoming frustrated.
Positive buying experience
Regardless of the channel they use, customers want their purchasing experience to be a fast, convenient, and positive one. With unified payments, checkout can even occur across channels. When the time comes for the customer to transfer funds from their account into yours, you can offer a wide variety of payment options. These include debit and credit, mobile wallet, buy now, pay later, recurring billing, and ACH bank transfer. This flexibility across all channels helps buyers to feel familiar and comfortable with the purchasing process.
Returns and exchanges are easy as well. You can accept payments online for items and then process returns or exchanges in-store with ease. This is because the system effortlessly tracks products and purchases across all channels, allowing you to provide maximum choice and convenience.
Efficient operations
With all of your customer, inventory, employee, and sales information securely stored in one place, you can look forward to streamlined operations with less administrative overhead. Creating a financial or sales report across your entire operation now takes just a few clicks. There's no need to juggle multiple spreadsheets or worry about errors and oversights.
Additionally, your efficiency is magnified. When you no longer need to manually track payments, organize employee schedules, or reconcile cash, you and your staff can devote more attention to the tasks that genuinely require human intervention. You might even have time to plan that next big marketing campaign or figure out how you want to expand your business.
With a comprehensive cross-channel system, you can also look forward to heightened security awareness. Centralized procedures that comply with PCI directives enable you to monitor transactions for potential fraud and to react immediately if a threat arises.
Finally, integration can actually save you money in the long run. Streamlining payment systems most likely means that you can cut back on duplicate software subscriptions. You might even save on processing fees.
With an integrated system, taking customer payments is just the beginning. Streamlining enables you to build a unified and positive buying experience for your customers while also enhancing the efficiency of your business operations.
North is a leading financial technology company that builds innovative, frictionless end-to-end payment solutions designed to simplify and grow businesses of all sizes. From the front door, to the back office, the developer world, and partnerships that expand the payments landscape, North offers proactive, comprehensive merchant services, in-house processing, and more.
