Join Magnus Danielsson, CTO of Worldline UK & I, the payment and transactional services provider, and Brian Coburn CEO of new payment orchestration service BRIDGE, on Wednesday 28th October at 11am as they discuss and share critical insights to help e-commerce businesses and merchants maximise the potential of their payment systems. To take advantage of transformational, innovative digital payment solutions.

The discussion will focus on the major shift and growth of online commerce and the strategic role of digital payments. How enterprises can ensure optimum payment success rates (revenue), meet increasing consumer expectations and compete and win in a highly crowded and competitive global e-commerce marketplace.

Magnus and Brian will be debating the key challenges facing e-commerce enterprises and counter strategies to optimise revenues and customer engagement.

Worldline and BRIDGE have established a partnership that will leverage their respective capabilities and services to create new disruptive payment propositions for e-commerce enterprises.

Join us on Wednesday 28th October at 11am for this (sure to be) lively debate and capture critical insights that will help you get ahead in digital payments.

Register here

One thing people say about the rapid, global growth of ecommerce is that it has levelled the playing field.

Billions of people now have direct access to online channels and sellers from all over the world. Ecommerce has broken down geographical boundaries and has the power to introduce consumers to products, services, and ideas in ways we never had before.

Technology is affecting what people can do, but people are also having a potent effect on what technology is being built.

Human demands and desires are forcing rapid digital disruption, and merchants who want to keep up with the pace of change need to understand the relationship between tech and customer experience that is the foundation for the retail ecosystem of the future.

Wherever you look, the world of commerce is changing, and the knock-on effect for consumers is that their expectations are growing. The fact they are buying something from the other side of the world shouldn’t impact the way they interact with a brand or, ultimately, make their purchase.

The playing field has levelled up.

Ecommerce retailers need to optimise their payment mix and keep track of an evolving payments landscape, both locally and globally. It’s too easy for consumers to ‘walk away’ if the point of purchase simply doesn’t feel right.

But how do retailers do that?

Ironically, as organisations scale they need to retain the agility they had when they were small. Competitive advantage and innovation lie in the flexibility to penetrate and respond to local markets. Local payment types, management of risk and a familiar buying experience help organisations to tap into customer preferences.

Unfortunately for many enterprises, they haven’t been built to function in this way:

“Traditional organizations—many of which exist today—are built around product ownership, effectively constructing siloes around the components that deliver on the customer experience.

These organizational silos have led to a fragmented product that likely has too many responsible stakeholders, which may further slow product launches.”

(Deloitte, Payments Trends 2020: Strategies to prepare for the future of payments).

This is where payment orchestration comes in.

One single integration that provides merchants with the flexibility and control to predict and navigate local markets at a global scale, as well as understand and respond to consumer psychology around payments.

Bridge is a payment orchestration service that empowers online merchants with access to a wealth of new digital payment services through a common integrated platform. It dramatically increases vendors’ resilience and flexibility to introduce new payment services and broader payment options to support growth, create new market opportunities and innovate at speed.

“No customer will reward you for responding to their demands; they will reward you for anticipating their demands.”

George Lawrie, Forrester

All of this means that payments, often seen as the last, and least important, step in the journey towards turning a person into a customer, is in fact a critical component of the ecommerce ecosystem of the future. A place where technology and nuances of human behaviour come together, where the competition for creating the best experience is most fierce.

Beyond 2020, ecommerce will continue on this growth trajectory, there is no doubt about that. And it will continue to be guided by both human behaviour and innovations in technology.

Merchants should recognise that the change in payments has only just begun, and those organisations that lack the agility to adapt at speed to the ongoing transformation, risk being left behind.

“The future of payments is guaranteed to become more personalised. If businesses don’t understand or respond to their customers, they will be pipped to the post, right at the finish line.

Technology needs to empower and enable organisations to do this, and that’s why payment orchestration will be a huge trend for the future of ecommerce.

Flexibility and control for the consumer and the merchant; this is where excitement and innovation will come from.”

Brian Coburn, CEO, Bridge.

Your product, your brand, the user experience of your online store, the efficiency of your supply chain, that upcoming sale and, of course, acquiring more customers.

All things that keep you awake at night.

But payment fraud is one thing that can be a complete nightmare. The risk of excessive chargeback fees, lost merchandise and irreparable brand damage mean that online sellers go to great lengths to ensure they have the right fraud prevention measures in place to protect their business.

When setting these up, you are faced with two possible approaches. Do you:

1. Use one set of fraud parameters per payment channel, or
2. Implement an enterprise level fraud management system across all channels consistently?

There isn’t necessarily a straightforward answer. So let’s give it some context.

The last few months have (unsurprisingly) driven significant growth in global ecommerce sales. With new year-on-year records being set, a steady increase in real-time payments, and sellers responding to rapid growth by focussing on operations, the stage is set for an explosion of fraudsters and cybercrime.

But you can’t just go into defence mode and lock everything down. Businesses need to protect their loyal customers and legitimate buyers, at the risk of losing them forever. They need to be more tuned into the process of fraud management than ever before.

So, what is the best way for merchants to protect themselves and how do they decide between being channel-specific or channel-consistent?

For small organisations with a relatively straightforward payment infrastructure, it is perhaps simpler and more cost-effective to take fraud management as a specific service. And an online store set up to sell products at low value and high volume, may just accept the chargeback fees as a manageable cost.

But high value, complex payments will need something more flexible and reliable. These businesses are already balancing multiple payment pathways, perhaps across different geographical territories, or to suit different customer preferences. Being able to orchestrate all of this through one platform is the optimal efficient way to manage and control it all safely. 

On top of that, whatever the size of your business or the value of your products, you need to consider the implications for your brand, because experience breeds trust. 

Bridge is a payment orchestration service that provides one single point of truth. Integrating seamlessly with your enterprise level fraud management tool and sitting across all payment channels, it provides a coherent experience for customers, clean visibility across the board, and automatic reconciliation of reports.

This means you get the benefits of consistency, cost-effectiveness and efficiency. In fact, it can change the way you manage your business. Multiple fraud tools across multiple channels require a team of people to analyse activities, consolidate and reconcile reports. A single management tool brings everything together, making the process of identifying and preventing fraud faster, more effective and requiring less manual intervention. 

There is no single right or wrong answer to the way that businesses choose to manage fraud. Complexity, flexibility, customer experience and customer value are all factors to take into account. 

But for ecommerce enterprises that would benefit from the operational efficiency of consistent fraud management and reporting, harmonising payment risk parameters with payment orchestration saves time and money.

Most importantly it secures your business, and your reputation.

Business growth can be driven by new market opportunities, and with the adoption of ecommerce, international expansion becomes a possibility for almost everyone.

An Accenture study has shown that the overall value of cross-border payments is expected to rise by 5.6% annually, with the C2B segment experiencing the highest growth rates (at around 25% a year) as a result of high growth of the cross-border ecommerce trade.

The digital landscape has moved from local to global, and that includes payment methods. Credit and debit cards, e-wallets, buy now pay later, money transfers; we have greater choice than ever before.

More choice requires more control.

Businesses that want to expand their offer online, reach out to new markets, or simply stand out from the competition need to get their payment systems right. But what does that look like?

Consistency

Businesses will invest a lot of money into the research and development of beautiful and effective onsite user journeys. They work hard to grow brands based on recognition, relatability and trust, with omnichannel content that tells a compelling story.

Then it can all go wrong.

Once the customer is at the critical point of payment, they are moved into an unbranded, inconsistent and unrecognisable space. The spell is broken and the trust is gone. 

Businesses need to ensure that, no matter how complex their payment infrastructure is, the end-to-end customer experience is as considered as the shop window.

Personalisation

As businesses think globally, they cannot forget the importance of local market knowledge. One size won’t fit all, and that isn’t just about using local currencies.

Cross-border ecommerce involves the management of multiple providers, and that can get complex. But customers want to see the payment options that are right for them

Improving conversion at checkout is firstly based upon accessing and understanding data around abandonment rates, but then crucially about implementing flexible and customer-first ways to pay.

Relevance

The organisations at the forefront of cross-border commerce are able to micro-manage payments automatically, without manually disrupting the system.

They can move in an agile way to adapt to local market changes, campaigns or demand for innovation. Staying relevant at a global scale means having the flexibility to react quickly at a local level, otherwise brand connection can be lost and opportunities to maximise revenue missed.

How can you make sure you aren’t missing out?

Bridge is a payment orchestration service that enables businesses to cater for different payment models, markets and currencies, with a customisable common framework across all payment service providers. 

So brands can create consistent, personalised and relevant payment experiences that cater for local markets, optimise for specific customer preferences, and still look beautiful.

To make it easier for businesses to embrace new market opportunities, Bridge enables you to connect to foreign exchange services via an API, automating trading in foreign currencies. This gives the customer the flexibility to select their preferred currency, but allows the businesses to receive money in the bank in their chosen currency too.

Bridge delivers the flexibility and the freedom to innovate, with no integration complexity. But most importantly, it gives your existing and potential customers the very best shopping experience, all the way to the ‘thank you’ page.

Peter Drucker (1909-2005) one of the most widely-known and influential business thinkers famously said: “You cannot manage what you cannot measure”. 

For organisations looking to grow or expand, there is nothing more important than customer insight. How much do you know about them? Their behaviours, preferences, actions and irritants? How easy is it to access and interpret this information?

Many businesses that are selling online find it a challenge.

Their digital and payment platforms may have evolved over time, perhaps through a developing product line, geographical expansion, or channels using separate payment providers.

This has created fragmented customer journeys and experiences.

Any insight that could be gained at a macro level to impact business growth and success becomes unreliable or inaccessible. Manual intervention is required; different payment stacks exist for different markets (and none of them talk to each other); hidden data points create a lack of visibility on any single customer view. 

All of this makes it difficult to leverage opportunities. Time and money is wasted, and customers don’t receive an optimal, joined-up experience.

So, what’s the solution? 

For the vast majority, ripping it all up and starting again simply isn’t an option.

Instead, payment orchestration provides flexibility, insight and control. 

A connection through a single platform that opens up payment choices for each transaction. It enables businesses to operate multiple brands, business lines and channels through a single 1:1 integration with separate payment providers. Which means greater choice for every customer, regardless of location or payment preference.

If you can route payments based on your own business rules, not only do you get a more resilient infrastructure for all your payments, but you can ‘tidy up’ the complexity of payment pathways, and join up customer interactions to create a more personalised service.

All of this will have a significant impact on ecommerce businesses with complex payment requirements, but where does critical knowledge and insight come into it?

One of the biggest issues for ecommerce enterprises comes from abandoned carts. In fact, over 37% of UK consumers abandon a purchase at checkout because their preferred digital payment option isn’t available. And in some age groups, “nearly half of consumers have abandoned a transaction due to lack of digital payment options” (Source – OnePoll/ Modularbank – UK 2000 consumers 2020)

By bringing together all of your payment information into one place, you can attribute your abandonment rate, highlight behaviours, identify trends and adopt changes or innovations swiftly. 

But if you have no way of knowing what’s going wrong, you can’t even begin to fix the problem.

In an increasingly digital world, businesses are having to adopt a ‘think global, act local’ mentality when it comes to the management of payments. With elevated customer expectation, and pressure increasing on ecommerce organisations to deliver consistent branded experiences regardless of channel, one size clearly cannot fit all. 

Flexibility and choice will become differentiators for consumers. And for businesses, the opportunity to expand and innovate will always be based on their ability to truly know and understand their customers.

We’ve all been there.

“There is a problem with your payment.”

“Please contact your card issuer.”

“We are unable to process this transaction.”

“Error 404…”

It’s frustrating enough when you are on the receiving end of these messages, but what about the businesses that are losing or alienating customers every day with inconsistent and ineffectual payment processes? They want your transaction to go through but can’t control it.

The impact can be devastating. Generic customer interactions and broken payment journeys can jeopardise revenue, and reduce trust in the brand.

Businesses and customers expect more. And, with a global pandemic pushing more and more organisations to consider online payment alternatives, the pressure is on for ecommerce to create effective payments, end-to-end.

All of this is happening as the world of payments gets ever more complex, and with that, ever more opportunities to deliver optimum experiences. Competition is raising the game.

But still payments fail with a card not present, and not simply because the network is down. PSP outages, technical disruption, ineffective fraud parameters, authentication failure and security issues can all contribute to loss of sales.

The solution is to take control of your payment processes and build in better resilience.

For many organisations digital channels are often established in an evolutionary way, which can lead to channel and payment silos. In turn, this can result in multiple 1:1 integration with payment providers, creating complexity, inflexibility and limited control when it comes to customer insights and financial management. In other words, the customer journey becomes fragile and uncontrollable.

Payment orchestration creates a dynamic payment experience that is seamless for the customer, without requiring action on the side of the seller, all based on business logic. Automatic routing to the correct PSP depending on geographical location, preferred payment method, campaign or product, as well as avoiding PSP outages. Enabling businesses to act locally, as they grow globally.

So, it’s not just about reliable experiences, it’s about better experiences too.

Bridge gives ecommerce enterprises access to a wider pool of customers, whilst maintaining control of the critical part of their business. A common dashboard provides insight into why people have been declined across payment providers and why a payment has been routed, assembling different ports from different providers into a single view, and reducing technical and operational costs along the way. 

With a resilient payment infrastructure you can rely on you can be sure that, wherever the payment takes place, intelligent routing will find the optimum pathway for it to process. 

Because the message you really want your customers to see is:

“Thank you for your purchase, we look forward to seeing you again soon”.

Over the last decade the payment industry has seen incredible growth and transformation. New providers, new platforms and new payment tools are emerging every year. Even in the past two months, we have seen dramatic changes.

In response to customer anxiety over physical spaces, increased screen, retail therapy, and the very real need to move entire businesses online, some sectors have had an abrupt kickstart into ecommerce.

As much as we all want to see the back of this pandemic, it is unlikely we will see a full retreat from the payment solutions that have been established during this period.

But what does all this mean for people doing the selling? 

We should look at where we were, before it all kicked off.

Many organisations already had evolved ecommerce propositions, but needed to ensure they were keeping pace, and standing out.

As they did so, they were looking for robust security and the freedom to innovate, to respond at pace to changing customer needs. None of this was simple or straightforward, especially with so much choice for customers in terms of payment preferences, and the complexities created by processing silos.

Then we developed payment orchestration. 

Payment orchestration provides a central point of control for the e-commerce business – putting them in control of how their payment systems work. It opens up the world of payments to online sellers, breaking down restrictions, barriers and silos, and enabling payments to be routed intelligently according to customer preferences or geographical location. It means for example that, should a payment processor experience an outage, there is no need for transactions to be missed, as the payment simply switches to a different provider.

And as the world keeps on changing, we can test and learn using payment orchestration. 

Trial specific campaigns or payment pathways for specific regions or customer types, and utilise the right payment service provider (PSP) for the product or audience. So you can enable ‘buy now pay later’ for loyal customers at large-scale grocery stores, or switch on new ways to pay on Black Friday for agile campaigns.

Most importantly, you can extract all the data you need from one place, so you can understand what has worked, and why.

This all means that the business value of payment orchestration is tangible. From reducing costs and increasing efficiency, to providing a reliable and resilient infrastructure with improved experience for customers shopping online. 

As we look towards ‘what next’ for payments services, the priority for sellers will be gaining competitive edge. And this is where a one-size-fits-all approach just won’t cut it anymore.

When it comes to online purchasing, customers want speed, convenience, personalisation and trust.

That’s why we decided to bridge the gap between clunky, manual and restrictive payments systems, and a seamless, reliable and optimal payments journey for businesses and their customers. Enabling ecommerce enterprises to take control, embracing freedom, flexibility, resilience and the opportunity to innovate. Bridge is a payment orchestration service for the future of ecommerce, enabling businesses to level-up, and taking them from limitation to liberation.

With Bridge we are already helping major organisations adapt their payment systems in order to remain ahead of the competition and avoid payment obstacles, bringing online businesses and consumers closer together than ever before.

In the ‘new normal’, as it was in the ‘old normal’, this will be vitally important to the ways in which people choose to shop and engage online.