Worldpay Helps UK Music Retailer HMV Expand Payments Choice

British music and entertainment retailer HMV has tapped Worldpay to help it expand in Europe.

HMV will use Worldpay Omnichannel — a Worldpay and FreedomPay effort — to improve its omnichannel strategy across 34 markets, Worldpay said in a Wednesday (Dec. 20) press release.

“Worldpay Omnichannel allows merchants to operate across borders and Point of Sale (POS) providers, supporting both major and local card schemes, alongside local payment methods,” the release said.

“The solution covers many of consumer’s preferred payment methods and enables merchants to deliver a more consistent omnichannel experience across the retail landscape.”

According to the release, the solution allows for “synchronization and tokenization across multiple channels,” letting merchants operate more efficiently while innovating to address customer expectations and changing payment habits. The tool is live now on HMV stores in Antwerp and Dublin and will come to other European locations in the months ahead.

“We needed a solution that would enable us to provide our customers with a seamless journey across multiple channels, as well as bring us into new markets simply and efficiently,” Darren Houghton, head of IT at HMV, said in the release.

“Our new capabilities will speed our ability to innovate and better help our customers as we expand across Europe.”

Consumer payment preferences are an important consideration, as research by PYMNTS Intelligence finds that payment choice is the retail shopping feature that matters most to people all over the world.

And while choice is important, consumers don’t always agree on much else about their payment methods, that research found.

“Aside from the ability to use preferred payment methods, there is no consensus across countries on which feature is the most important,” PYMNTS wrote last month. “Ease in navigating online stores and shopping carts ranks second in 4 of the 6 reviewed countries, while the availability of refunds for digital purchases is key in India and returns are important to consumers in the U.S.”

Worldpay’s work with FreedomPay on this project follows the companies’ announcement in September that they had expanded an existing collaboration to provide “integrated payments and omnichannel technology” for businesses in sectors such as retail and hospitality.