• Nikhita Hyett, MD, Europe at BlueSnap


• 09.09.2020 05:15 pm
Smart checkouts

New figures from Juniper Research have revealed that smart checkouts, where the fixed checkout process is replaced by frictionless tech, will process $387bn in transactions by 2025, up from just $2bn this year.

These figures from Juniper perfectly illustrate the overhaul of the payments industry that is currently taking place, driven by changing consumer expectations, the uptake and accessibility of new digital technologies and an attitudinal shift in terms of how we pay and get paid. Nearly $150 trillion in worldwide B2B and B2C transactions occur every year, but until now only a tiny portion are digital and the COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses to rethink the entire payments ecosystem. Before 2020, none of us would have thought anything of physically entering a PIN on a Point of Sale (POS) device or exchanging cash by hand. But amid heightened safety and hygiene concerns, those businesses that have been able to quickly pivot, or to retrain their customers to leverage technology they already had, are seeing the best way through the current situation.

Expanding your digital presence via an ecommerce platform or mobile app, for instance, will be key to maximising the potential of frictionless payment tech and regaining traction with customers as businesses strive to recover and thrive in this new setting. Retailers will be looking for innovative ways to maintain trust but also make their payments processes as seamless as possible for both staff and customers, such as allowing the use of a mobile app in-store as an option for contactless payments. Another good example of the innovative tech available to retailers is eWallets. Most smartphones today natively offer Apple Pay, Google Pay or other eWallets, which can then be used for paying on a website, in a mobile app or via an in-store NFC reader. In addition to being contactless, this increasingly popular payment option is convenient for increasingly smartphone-dependent consumers.