Orchestration Helps Merchants Avoid ‘Payments Chaos’ When Expanding Cross Border

Andy McHale, senior director, product and market strategy with Spreedly, told PYMNTS there’s the temptation to view credit cards as the primary method of paying for things — at the in-person point of sale or online.

“But that doesn’t work for every individual, or every ecosystem or across every region on the planet,” McHale cautioned.

Each market has its preferences and might have a significant segment of the population that is less banked than seen elsewhere. Cash might be dominant, or alternative payment methods may take root in place of traditional credit lines. Zoom out a bit, and we’re seeing a rise in digital wallets and transactions done through the PayPals, the Apple Pays and the Google Pays of the world.

Buy now, pay later offerings are gathering momentum.

“All of this is being driven by the consumer demand for ways to pay that fit their lifestyles,” McHale said. The merchant who offers everything in terms of payments options winds up offering nothing if they don’t take a targeted, efficient approach to each market.

The checkout page laden with payments options can be confusing and, ultimately, a turn-off for consumers.

Avoiding the Chaos

That consumer-level demand opens the door for merchants to realize new revenue opportunities and increase conversion and acceptance rates as they embrace the right alternative payment methods. To do so efficiently (and with minimal costs), a payments orchestration platform can help solve the “chaos” of entering new markets.

“There’s a ton of green space for these methods to grow,” he said, adding that “the platform can create a single place for the merchant to access all of these different options” on a market-by-market basis.

By embracing the platform approach, he said, merchants can also avoid the technical heavy lift to integrate local payment methods with their checkout pages, ensuring a smooth consumer-facing experience. The direct integrations also ensure compliance with local data protection regulations and PCI compliance.

“The consumer has that trust of knowing they’ve used this payment method in multiple places and their data is secure,” McHale said.

“An orchestration platform can help merchants integrate, through a single API, with the providers that have that best mix of capabilities for their unique business need.”

Along the way, he said, merchants’ payments strategies can evolve — carefully and in real time. They can test out payment methods on checkout pages and see conversion rates, and fine-tune their efforts.

“We can look across the portfolio, with all of our partners and understand volumes of payment methods — almost like a take rate, if you will, at checkout,” McHale explained. “We can say ‘X percent of checkouts happen with credit cards, X percent happen with a banking solution, X percent happen with a buy now, pay later option.’” That means brands can select the right options in each market “rather than throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.”

As he told PYMNTS, “orchestration’s part in offering this breadth of payment methods. We will continue to see different and diverse types of payment methods pop up in regions — even where credit cards already dominate.”