• Nikhita Hyett, Managing Director - Europe at BlueSnap


• 21.12.2020 12:15 pm
Ecommerce

Even before the pandemic, consumer brands were beginning to establish their own online marketplaces as niche alternatives to Amazon and eBay. Why?

Imagine that you’ve bought a new vehiclefrom your favourite car maker. You want to add a ski rack for up top, a bicycle rack on the spare tyre and upgrade the floor mats. Today, you might visit Amazon to find compatible options, which can be incredibly time-consuming because you need to know, and possibly enter, huge amounts of information about your vehicle.

But what if the car manufacturer had a marketplace where complementary brands sold accessories guaranteed to fit its vehicles, including yours? In exchange for providing the marketplace and access to customers, the carmaker would receive a small portion of the revenue from each sale, just like Amazon. Consumers would benefit from the curated selection of goods, sellers would have a new sales channel and the carmaker would establish a new revenue stream.

Marketplaces are no longer reserved for big automotive companies and other Fortune 500 firms. Payment technology now makes it possible for even small or mid-sized brands to launch affordable marketplaces quickly rather than build them from scratch. For many e-commerce sellers, this could be an easy way to increase revenue and build customer loyalty – expect to see more marketplaces launch in 2021.

With the Rise in Online Commerce Comes a Rise in Fraud

E-commerce fraud tends to increase proportionally with the volume of shopping taking place online. Cybercriminals may steal and use payment information, hack into e-commerce accounts to make unauthorised purchases and even steal, resell or use loyalty points. If you accept payments online, use a payment platform that has built-in fraud prevention to minimise fraudulent activities without limiting your ability to authorise legitimate sales.

Heading into 2021, there’s a new type of fraud to confront: merchants milking COVID-19 fears with counterfeit products and misleading claims. If you happen to sell COVID-related goods, don’t make medical claims about your products without disclaimers or genuine certifications.

Similarly, if you run a marketplace, you need to be sure the vendors selling on your website are not making any fraudulent statements about their products in relation to their effectiveness against coronavirus. And, if you’re shopping for COVID-related items, exercise caution.

Merchants Need to Offer Localised Payments to Compete in Cross-Border Commerce

COVID-19 has not slowed the boom in cross-border commerce, which is expected to grow by nearly 13% year-on-year in Europe by the end of 2020.

Merchants are particularly eager to grow cross-border sales in Asia Pacific, where disciplined management of COVID-19 has led to a V-shaped recovery in key markets. To be competitive in Asia, merchants must localise payments, working with providers that can intelligently route payments to local acquiring banks.

This eliminates cross-border exchange fees and increases credit card authorisation rates by 3% to 6%. Offering local payment methods like Alipay, a must-have in China, and accepting local currencies is a must in 2021 and apply to anywhere merchants are looking to sell.

BlueSnap is a global payment services provider that works with businesses to handle all elements of their payments processes, including online stores, cross border sales, invoice payments and subscriptions. Recently, the company has been vocal about what the industry can learn from the Wirecard fallout, in terms of regulation and multi-acquiring specifically. BlueSnap provides an All-in-One Payment Platform designed to increase sales and reduce costs for B2B and B2C businesses. Our Platform supports online and mobile sales, marketplaces, subscriptions, invoice payments and manual orders through a virtual terminal. With a single integration to our Platform, businesses can accept any payment with ease. The Platform includes access to 110 payment types, including popular eWallets, built-in world-class fraud prevention to protect sales and detailed analytics to help businesses grow. Based in Waltham, MA, BlueSnap is backed by world-class private equity investors including Great Hill Partners and Parthenon Capital Partners.