Data and Updated Technology Lead Must-Have List for Omnichannel Payments

The great digital shift of the pandemic has given way to omnichannel commerce, as consumers clamor to do at least some of their shopping on site. PYMNTS Intelligence and Visa Acceptance Solutions found earlier this year that four in 10 consumers want a digital experience in store.

And most consumers want to use their preferred payment method while they shop, wherever they shop.

Omri Dubovi, senior vice president of product at Nuvei, told PYMNTS in an interview that building out an integrated online/retail solution rests on four pillars:

Flexible hardware, which supports the next generation of both in-house and external devices;

Cross-channel tokenization, which ensures customers (and their payment preferences) are recognized in online and in-store environments;

Real-time data, which is essential in allowing merchants and other enterprises to interact with customer personas and transactions;

And consolidated reporting, which gives firms the ability to synthesize data across eCommerce and brick-and-mortar channels to provide as seamless a continuum of experiences as possible.

A Comprehensive Omnichannel Offering

The conversation came against the backdrop where, last month, the company said it had significantly enhanced its international omnichannel commerce offering for platforms and merchants.

The solution provides merchants a seamless integration to Nuvei’s card-present and card-not-present technology for eCommerce, mobile and in-store transactions. This allows merchants to improve customer experiences by offering them multiple choices on how to interact and purchase the way they want to.

With an omnichannel payment solution consumers can buy or add products to the checkout basket through one channel while amending purchases or requesting a refund through another. In addition, merchants can implement channel-specific pricing, loyalty and incentive programs based on their specific business needs.

Dubovi noted in his conversation with PYMNTS that Nuvei has the ability as a payments provider to customize the end-to-end payment lifecycles based on the business needs of merchants, allowing merchants to streamline operational processes and offer improved customer experiences.

With Nuvei’s omnichannel solution, merchants benefit from keeping the “core technology and the core experiences in-house,” while having the flexibility to leverage sophisticated, Android-based terminal solutions where they can craft value-added applications tailored to their needs.

The solution is flexible, supporting hardware that is in place at present, and even older hardware that may be nearing the end of its useful life. It also offers “bring your own device” functionality that is increasingly important as client firms target new markets and a broader range of payment options, he said.

As Dubovi remarked, “these four pillars … consist of a unique ecosystem that relies on unified commerce and APIs that clients need to integrate only once.”

And with that integration in place, said Dubovi, a range of customer use cases coalesce around “endless aisles” as clicking and collecting payments wind up being vastly improved in a multichannel environment. Verticals such as the hospitality and travel industry can — and will — see business transformation as various customer and merchant pain points are addressed.

For example, a vacationing customer can use the same payment card/device throughout their holiday as they move from cruise ship to hotel to outdoor excursion, Dubovi said. Separately, merchants operating in the subscription economy can facilitate the “first” transaction during an online or in-store interaction, with a token, which then remains in place throughout the life of the customer’s relationship with that merchant.

Asked by PYMNTS about the go-to-market strategy in place for the months ahead and for the longer term, Dubovi said the enhanced omnichannel payments solution is in the pilot phase in the United States, Canada and in the United Kingdom, the latter representing the initial market Nuvei is targeting in Europe. The company is also targeting verticals as diverse as retail, restaurants and gaming.

As he told PYMNTS: “The omnichannel value proposition of combining the online and in-store worlds is vertical agnostic.”