The Retail Revolution Frontline Gets Real

Just about a decade ago, the checkout process at a retail shop was pretty simple — customers would wait in line to give their purchases to the cashier, who stood at a fixed point in the store, and then pay using cash or a credit card. Oh, how the times have changed. The retail industry has been “revolutionized” time and time again by the ever-evolving payments landscape. To learn more about the different obstacles retailers have faced, and what lies ahead, PYMNTS interviewed Dax Dasilva, CEO of Lightspeed, a company that helps businesses embrace EMV and other payments innovations with cloud-based systems that integrate in-store and online sales into one omnichannel database.

Here’s a sneak peek:

Dasilva said he expects payments to become more mobile, allowing retailers to complete purchases from anywhere in their brick-and-mortar locations in order to provide a better experience for their customers, and he expects EMV to be a big part of that.
 
“I think it’s in our merchants’ interest to want to create those memorable experiences in-store,” Dasilva said. “Sometimes that’s being behind a counter and ringing up a sale and that’s a great experience. But, sometimes you can really blow the customer away by having a conversation on the showroom floor with an iPad with a payment acceptance device,” he said, then added that EMV poses a challenge to that seamlessness.
 
“Pre-EMV we had a lot of card swipes that would attach to iPads or mobile devices and, like at the Apple Store, you could do a checkout process from anywhere on the showroom floor,” he explained. “So, that’s taken a little bit of a step back with EMV,” which means that “retailers that want to create a personal relationship in the store, they don’t have some of the same tools with EMV.”

Around the world of PaaS

As payments methods continue to evolve, customers increasingly expect a full-service checkout experience. Many companies partnered or collaborated over the past month, in order to combine services offered by two distinct companies into one comprehensive solution.

Starmount, an omnichannel solution provider, announced it would partner with payment solution provider Aurus, Inc. for a new omnichannel payment service that will enable consumers already using Starmount solutions to roll out an omnichannel payment solution for both online and in-store purchases. Similarly, CardFlight and Miura recently came together to debut a new mPOS solution, manufactured by Miura, that will operate on the CardFlight mPOS platform, called the Bold B550.

Apriva and iPayment also announced they would collaborate to help small businesses make the jump to EMV card acceptance with a new series of EMV-based mPOS solutions. And cloud-based restaurant automation provider HotSchedules and hospitality software service provider Agilysys rolled out a workforce management solution designed for the hospitality industry, designed to help hospitality businesses save on labor costs, streamline operations and improve user experience.

The May edition of the Payments as a Service Tracker™ features the latest news and analysis across the Payments as a Service industry. It also contains profiles of 30 players, including 6 new provider profiles, that not only enable payment processing of new and old technologies, but also integrate with other features that make the merchant’s experience easier.

To download the May edition of the Payments as a Service Tracker™, click the button below.

About the Tracker
The PYMNTS.com Payments as a Service Tracker™, in collaboration with Cayan, is designed to give an overview of the trends and activities of merchant platforms that not only enable payment processing of new and old technologies, but also integrate with other features to improve the merchant’s experience, including customer engagement, security, omnichannel retail experience, analytics, inventory management, software and hardware management, and more.