SMBs Face Pressure to Match Big Retail’s Digital Game

The pandemic sent us all online to get the goods and services we needed — and if we weren’t comfortable using a mobile device to scroll and click through to a purchase, that discomfort fell by the wayside with haste.

In the post-pandemic world, we’ve gone to the stores while still maintaining a foot in the online world, and so we demand that merchants be omnichannel — leveraging brick-and-mortar and eCommerce offerings with equal aplomb. The goal (and the expectation) is that companies deliver a unified commerce experience, where digital can find its way into stores, and the data that traverses mobile devices can accompany consumers into the tactile realm.

Minding the Gap

But as detailed in the “Global Digital Shopping Index: SMB Edition” report commissioned by Visa Acceptance Solutions, PYMNTS Intelligence, which surveyed 18,468 consumers and 3,464 merchants across eight countries, found there’s a gap between smaller firms and larger enterprises when it comes to crafting that unified experience.

At a high level, physical stores are the primary sales channels for many small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). In fact, as many as 15.9% of smaller firms sell only through physical stores, compared to a relatively miniscule 4.3% of larger companies. And 40.6% of SMBs sell through both channels, trailing the 47.4% of enterprise-sized companies that do so.

Despite the widespread of mobile shopping, less than half of SMBs offer mobile-specific apps or through their own website.

Globally, SMBs are 45% less likely to offer a seamless cross-channel shopping experience than large merchants. SMBs offer eight fewer digital shopping features, on average, than large merchants — but we found shoppers want to use the same digital shopping features regardless of channel or merchant size.

The gap comes as the broad swath of the population across the eight countries we surveyed engage with their devices with frequency. Nearly a third of shoppers said they browse their phone daily, or nearly daily; nearly 28% said they did so a few times a week. Only 11.6% of respondents said they “never” browse their phones when it comes to shopping. Also, 23.7% of consumers used a phone to support in-store shopping and 24.3% said they use a phone to complete an online purchase.

In terms of closing the gaps, consumers want to be able to use their phones to pay and they want to know which payment options are accepted. The data show merchants should support stored and auto-filled payment credentials, as well as biometric authentication, to create a better payment experience without friction.

“With the limitations of the physical point of sale, merchants of all sizes would benefit from additional support offering in-store capabilities. Given little variation in in-store payment processing capabilities, SMBs — whose size allows quicker business decisions and implementation — are positioned to outperform large merchants if they innovate in this area,” the report noted.

Fifty-five percent of the consumer population we surveyed said that where they choose to shop is impacted by the availability of their preferred payment methods. SMBs have a 15-point “gap” here when pitted against larger competitors.

The gap between SMBs and larger merchants. can be winnowed down, too, by using third-party partners can accelerate time to market with new payments offerings and digital features.