Future of Payments and Retail
An Insider Take on the Future of Retail
Mediaplanet sat down with retail thought leader Darryl Julott to get his view on the key retail trends going forward.
Tell us a bit about your backstory?
I have taken an unusual path between my education and work experience (I was even a garbage man for a few years in Toronto).
Since I have always worked in the non-profit space and small business has always been in my blood, Digital Main Street (DMS) was the perfect opportunity to combine both passions and continue to help small businesses when they needed it the most.
The pandemic moved things around for many businesses. What is here to stay? How has the full conscious shift in consumer behaviour affected shopping local?
Seeing a conscious shift in how consumers embrace shopping local is one positive of the last few years and I do believe it is really here to stay. People realize the importance of these small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in their community. I also think businesses
have realized the absolute need to embrace digital transformation.
Do you see a future where brick and mortar and e-commerce create a singular in-store experience?
We are already seeing it, and regardless of size, the most successful brands are creating a seamless experience for their customers. This integration will be essential for retailers as they continue to fight for consumer spending and foot traffic. Innovation will be driven out of this as well, as brands continue to look for ways to differentiate and connect with their customers.
With digitization taking over, in your opinion, what are ways owners can keep their information and transactions secure? Is it by leveraging payment partners? POS system?
It’s more important now than ever. Master-
card notes that 50 percent of all SMBs have experienced a cyberattack. Most are not prepared to deal with it or the potential fallout. Ensuring you have a proper POS system in place is a great start, as well as ensuring you understand the risks from a cybersecurity standpoint and what products can provide the best protection for your business.
How has your work with Digital Main Street and Retail Insider created your vision of the future of retail?
I believe I have a well-rounded view of the retail industry by examining the industry through the lens of both the small and large retailers. DMS is helping SMBs prepare for the future, which is going to be critical as technologies that are already present in larger retail environments, such as augmented and virtual reality, and others, become more prominent and part of our day-to-day retail experiences.
Consumer financing tools like Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) have traditionally been a way to help customers fit purchases into their budget and for retailers to boost their sales. “What’s new is the digital aspect which lets people get the approval and do the purchase instantly through their phone,” says Steve Croth, Entrepreneur and Managing Director in Canada for Zip, a payments and consumer fi nancing fi rm founded in Australia eight years ago that recently expanded into Canada.
Providing a superior experience Using Zip’s BNPL technology purchasers can break a payment into four equal interest-free instalments spaced two weeks apart. “It kind of hits the sweet spot of that millennial shopper who doesn’t have a credit card or doesn’t want to use one because of the high fees, but is comfortable using a phone or shopping online,” says Croth.
With a consistently high Net Promotor Score (NPS), Zip is managing to not only satisfy but also delight its customers, something Croth attributes to three core pillars of its market approach — an obsession with customer experience, a customer-first mindset, and constant measurement.
“Keeping customers delighted really starts with the experience, so ours includes an easyto-use product that provides a frictionless transaction backed up by great customer support, with no late fees or penalties,” says Croth.
Zip’s customer-first mindset views customers as brand ambassadors, rather than simply people transacting using the technology. “As
Anne Papmehl Anne PapmehlThe exponential growth of e-commerce during the pandemic saved many small businesses and gave consumers a safer way to shop.
As we enter a new phase of the pandemic, this trend is expected to continue growing. “In Visa’s Summer 2021 Installments Pulse Survey, 55 percent of Canadians said they will stay with e-commerce habits adopted in the pandemic, and we see that trend reflected in the payments ecosystem,” says Maryam Saeed, Head of Risk, Visa Canada. However, with the rise in e-commerce, fraudsters are shifting their focus to take advantage of this accelerated digitization. Saeed says there are three core components as we think about threats: data, consumers, and infrastructure.
“We’ve seen an increase in account takeover activities due to weak security hygiene by consumers, such as clicking on links in unsolicited emails, using the same password for multiple accounts, and falling victim to romance and phishing scams,” she explains.
Fraudsters continue to target e-commerce websites with digital skimming, using malicious code or enumeration attacks to gain access to payment information as well as
brand ambassadors we know they’re going to go spread the word about us good or bad, so our customer-first mindset focuses on customer satisfaction, resolving their issues quickly, and being empathetic,” says Croth.
Finally, the company constantly measures and monitors its customer feedback. “We dissect all the reviews and comments and use that data to improve our service model,” says Croth.
Helping retailers convert budding shoppers into repeat customers
These three core pillars are also integrated with Zip’s merchant experience. “It’s about being a steward of their brand by representing their brand values and upholding the highest standard in customer experience, because their customers are our customers,” says Croth.
You need to plug the leaks first and our technology, tools and processes can give retailers certain efficiencies to do that and get people to successfully transact,” says Croth.
I find many e-commerce merchants tend to focus at the top of the funnel, but you need to focus at the bottom. It's kind of like a leaky bucket. You need to plug the leaks first and our technology, tools and processed can give retailers certain efficiencies to do that and get people to successfully transact.
The strong customer experience focus extends to helping retailers struggling with low customer conversion rates. “I find many e-commerce merchants tend to focus at the top of the funnel, but you need to focus at the bottom. It’s kind of like a leaky bucket.
With improved efficiencies, it’s easier for retailers to convert the casual shopper, the shopper on a tight budget or the shopper without a credit card. “We help retailers sell more stuff to more people by getting customers for them online, in-store, and in their sales funnel,” says Croth. The increased transaction volume in turn helps to improve the retailer’s efficiencies in key performance indicators like customer acquisition costs, return on marketing costs, and average order value.
With about ten million users of its app in 14 markets, Zip services 82,000 retailers globally. “I think by having one of the best products in the market from an experience and technology perspective really lets us deliver on our promise to retailers to drive top line, increase order values, and improve conversion rates,” says Croth.
ransomware — where fraudsters hold data and systems hostage for ransom. These activities remain a global threat with no signs of slowing down.
A trusted partner with the right solutions to minimize risk
Despite the complexity of this rapidly changing payment landscape, Visa’s payment ecosystem remains strong. Over the past five years, Visa has invested roughly nine billion dollars ($9B USD) globally in multiple fraud detection systems to help protect cardholders and the payment ecosystem. As a global leader in security and fraud prevention, Visa vigilantly monitors this ecosystem for a wide variety of threats and applies a three-pillar approach of people, technology, and process to assist the ecosystem participants in identifying, mitigating, and preventing these threats.
As a global network of networks with access to insight on global trends, Visa is committed to sharing this knowledge and expertise with Canadian businesses and consumers. Visa also works as a partner within the payment ecosystem, communicating fraud events and recommendations to its issuers and acquir-
ers to help protect cardholders. “We have a suite of products and services for our clients to help reduce fraud and prevent it before it even happens, and to combat against increasingly sophisticated fraudsters,” says Saeed.
Take steps to keep your financial information safe
According to the 2022 Visa Fraud Prevention Survey, Canadians aged 55 and above are the most vigilant in their financial transactions, with 55 percent reporting that they're more cautious than they were pre-pandemic.
“Be cautiously suspicious when giving out personal information. It's also very important to never disclose your PIN, banking login credentials or passwords. Common red flags in email phishing schemes are inaccuracies, spelling errors or missing information,” says Saeed. “Similarly, if someone calls you claiming to be your financial institution asking you to share personal financial information, either call your financial institution or ask questions to determine whether the caller is legitimate.
By protecting themselves, Canadian consumers can continue being our partners in helping to protect the payment ecosystem,” says Saeed.
Delivering the
Janice ToberHaving a flexible, customizable food service point-of-sale (POS) system has become a necessity in a competitive world where customer demand determines the future of hospitality. Givex is a company that can help restaurants adapt, evolve, and meet this challenge.
A POS solutions provider
GivexPOS is the platform of choice for some of the world’s largest brands, serving 113,000 locations in 110+ countries.
It provides merchants with customer engagement, pointof-sale and payment solutions in a single platform, which integrates with 1000+ technology partners.
The robust platform supports simple or complex gift card programs, customized loyalty programs, stored value or loaded tickets, a powerful omnichannel point-of-salesystem with options that include fully integrated payment processing, kitchen display systems, inventory controls, labour management, kiosks, handheld ordering tablets, and merchant-skinned online ordering websites.
Flexibility and customization are the key to success
A POS platform that supports clients by delivering on flexibility and customization is one of the most important features the food service industry needs in a fintech partner, particularly in a post-COVID-19 age.
Hospitality Technology’s 2021 POS Software Trends Report: Accelerating Innovation, notes that, when it published its 2020 report, “Restaurant operators and solution providers were pushing POS software toward digital and online like never before, seeking to deliver convenience and efficiency to customers, whether in the dining room or off-premises. The pandemic and economic downturn of the past year only accelerated that trend, as restaurants scrambled to pivot to off-prem and meet customer demand for contactless transactions and efficiency, while ensuring as much ROI as possible.”
Working with an adaptable cloud-based POS system was one of the few ways merchants could quickly pivot their businesses to include omnichannel delivery, efficient third-party integration, and modules to allow for expansion and change.
During the pandemic, Meltwich, a Toronto-based fast casual chain with close to 30 locations, quickly moved to online ordering to meet customer demand for off-premises dining. It did so seamlessly, integrating Givex’s POS system into its delivery platform, offering uninterrupted service to its customers. And, because Givex’s platform provides customizable reports, campaign management templates, and an easy-to-use analytics tool, Meltwich was able to gain insights to enable it to implement system-wide changes efficiently.
A POS system that delivers on speed and quality Clients have also found that working with a single source provider not only delivers customized solutions, but it also saves time and is cost-effective when the provider has all the resources needed to support the business under one platform.
Canadian coffee chain Second Cup, with more than 200 locations across Canada, was already using Givex for gift cards, loyalty programs and POS when Foodtastic — an operation with 650 restaurants across 21 brands — acquired it.
“When I joined Second Cup, I had only known Givex as a gift card solutions provider,” said Tom Hogan, VP of Foodtastic and Second Cup Canada. “As I started to integrate
myself into the platform, I realized that a great point-of-sale system was just the tip of the iceberg.”
Givex worked to add historical data from the operation’s previous provider, offered full inventory management solutions, and integrated third-party providers into the customized platform, all within a tight deadline.
“Our existing POS was not supporting the growing needs of our business,” recalled Hogan. Givex was given a deadline of December 31, 2020, to complete the project. “With having to source, train and deploy technicians across the country, deal with different infrastructure at each location, and manage different cafe partner expectations, I'm sure there were some sleepless nights for the team at Givex. Through it all, they remained steadfast in hitting the mark.”
Since project completion, Hogan has seen a significant uptick in efficiency and speed of service across Second Cup’s stores.
A bright future
In the fall of 2021, Foodtastic selected Givex as its pointof-sale and customer engagement platform across all its 21 restaurant brands. Rolling out Givex’s POS system and Customer WebSuite (CWS) solutions across its brands was a massive, yet successful, undertaking.
Andy Huang is the chief operating officer of The Captain’s Boil, another Givex restaurant client with over 20 locations. “For more than five years, GivexPOS and other Givex technologies have helped improve our operations, from the kitchen display system ensuring that our food is served hot, to the robust inventory and recipe application helping control our food costs. In addition, its system seamlessly integrated with a third-party app to help manage our labour costs, and we’re very pleased with the preliminary results of the loyalty program we recently implemented with Givex.”
By demonstrating its ability to adapt to the changing landscape and offer flexible and innovative technology throughout the COVID19 pandemic, Givex was able to expand its robust tech suite and partner with new international clients over the past year, increasing its total number of customer locations to more than 100,000.
“It’s important for us to be able to provide our clients with up-to-date, innovative technology that makes the most sense for their immediate needs,” said Mo Chaar, Givex’s Chief Commercial Officer. “That includes offering our clients complete flexibility to ensure our solutions work with other vendors, as well as ensuring that we can offer seamless integration with those products — a move that is unprecedented within the industry.”
In 2021, Givex announced the launch of GivexPay, an integrated payment processing solution, enabling the company to enhance its service offering, gain access to the latest payment innovations, and scale globally with one integrated system.
“With this launch, we can better serve merchants looking for an all-in-one management solution that includes gift card programs, customized loyalty programs, kitchen display systems, inventory controls, kiosks, handheld ordering tablets, online ordering apps, POS, and now payment processing, with the support and scalability they need to grow,” commented Chaar.
All in all, Givex provides owners and managers with a seamless and completely customizable POS experience. The same factors that make Givex easy to use and implement mean that scalability comes naturally for the systems.
Visit givex.com/ contact-us/ for more information on this industry-leading platform or to request a demonstration. This article was
How Retail Can Step into the Future Without Leaving the Best of Itself in the Past
D.F. McCourt
What a strange time it is to be a retailer. Just a decade ago, with online shopping on a steep ascent, everywhere you looked it seemed there was another breathless article foretelling the death of brick-and-mortar retail. Soon, they proclaimed, we would buy everything on the web and never step foot in another actual store. Today, coming off two years of intermittent lockdowns, it’s clearer than ever that no one actually wants that. We crave the human connection, the social interaction, the simple sneakers to floorboards experience of in-person shopping.
At the same time, consumers have grown accustomed to the convenience, the personalization, the agility, and the flexibility of digital storefronts, so their expectations of the shopping experience have shifted and grown more discerning. And, in an era of aggressive online price-matching and personal financial uncertainty, they aren’t willing to compromise on the sticker either, putting pressure on the already thin margins of many stores. All this while the cost of labour is skyrocketing and retailers are still struggling to make up revenue lost during the pandemic.
In short, customers demand that the doors stay open and the prices stay low while the shopping journey undergoes a thorough digital transformation. Simple, right?
In fact, it can be.
Where we’re going, the old maps won't take us Surely it would be too much to ask that a single unobtrusive technology could lay the foundation for a complete revamp of the retail experience, meeting all the expectations of the modern digital shopper without
obstructing the charm (or hurting the bottom line) of even the coziest shop. Right? Well, let’s talk about Digital Smart Labels™, the technology that strikes at the heart of retail’s hidden engagement problem.
The labels in the store, whether they’re price tags or sales announcements or in-store navigation aids, are the informational hooks of the retail voyage, and comparing Canadian innovator Danavation’s micro e-paper Digital Smart Labels™ to traditional labelling is like comparing a full-featured modern internet-enabled GPS navigation system to a torn and coffee-stained folding roadmap bought at a gas station in 1992. Either might get you there, if there aren’t any unexpected surprises, but one is going to have you in a very different mood when (and if) you arrive.
The way information is packaged and delivered matters. Danavation’s Digital Smart Labels™ ensure that prices are always accurate with instantaneous point-ofsale synchronizing. They create an environment where the right information can always be presented in the right place at the right moment. They provide a context-appropriate gateway to remote resources like product reviews, inventory updates, and loyalty programs. But it’s not just the content they display. To quote Marshall McLuhan for a moment, the Digital Smart Labels™ are the message. They tell the customer by their very presence that this is an environment where
information is vibrant and reliable. This is a store they can engage with on their terms.
“Today’s customers are getting younger, smarter, and faster,” says Danavation’s founder and CEO John Ricci. “They rely a lot on technology, and they’re very sharp and price-sensitive. As a retailer, you have to fi nd a way to impress and engage them.”
An engaged customer is an empowered consumer
The little things make a big difference. And, though most labels are small, they play an outsized role as conduits of information. Out of date flyers, incorrect prices, mislabelled shelves, missing product information. Any one of these things can break the fl ow of shopping and send the customer to their phone, or to another store. Digital Smart Labels™ remove all these stumbling blocks in one fell swoop, while simultaneously cutting costs by easing the workload of employees, shrinking the carbon footprint of the store, and increasing the agility of operations. And interactions that were once a point of frustration and uncertainty become an opportunity for engagement, right there at the shelf.
“Engage customers at the shelf and they will buy more,” notes Ricci. And that’s not a trick. It’s what people want. They have spent enough time in their homes, shopping online. They’re getting back out into the world and going into stores now very much on purpose. People are there to shop, to engage, to buy. They just want it to be easy.
Technologies like Digital Smart Labels™ make the little things easy, so that your business can focus on the big things. Because that’s where you shine.
Embracing Payments Modernization and Open Banking Is Good for Business
As the payments landscape evolves, financial institutions and other organizations must strive to stay consumer-centric and competitive.
The payments industry is currently undergoing significant disruption. Financial institutions, fintechs, and other organizations are all competing to keep up with customer expectations and to make payments faster, easier, and more convenient. This requires core infrastructure transformation, new product innovation, and adhering to the new regulations and legislations popping up to accommodate the industry’s transformation. Payments modernization has never been more important or diverse in strategic opportunity, choice for participation, and positioning organizations for the future.
Industry-wide disruption
“If you look back 10 or more years, the payments experience was characterized by quite a bit of friction for the end-user,” says Geoff Rush, Partner and National Industry Leader of Financial Services at KPMG in Canada, a leader in financial and payments services. “It took a lot of effort to complete a payment and often a lot of time for it to clear. What we’re seeing now is a lot of innovation to take that friction out of the process.”
Higher customer expectations are driving the trend. “Customers are expecting more on the service level, which includes the cost, efficiency, and visibility of their payments," says Edwin Isted, Senior Manager at KPMG in Canada. And the non-traditional entrants into the payments ecosystem, big tech or fintechs, are shaking up the ecosystem significantly, forcing incumbent fi nancial institutions to evolve and innovate.
Full-service payments support
With organizations striving to meet customer expectations, stay competitive, and futureproof their businesses, they’re also now having to contend with new regulations and legislative changes around payment service providers, new digital currencies like crypto, and other disruptions. These compounding factors are driving an accelerated pace of innovation in payments, says Rush. That’s where KPMG comes in.
“We’re one of Canada’s largest professional services providers,” says Rush. “We’re well-known for our advisory, technology, and analytical services.”
Included in KPMG’s fi nancial services management consulting business is its payments practice, which helps organizations manage risk, enhance regulatory compliance, optimize customer and digital strategies, and improve operations.
“Our payments team is industry-agnostic,” says Cody Greer, Senior Manager at KPMG in Canada. “We help both traditional payment clients — such as wholesale banks, commercial banks, investment banks, retail banks, central banks, card associations, and payment
market infrastructures — as well as non-financial institutions like retailers, technology companies, fintechs, transit providers, and governments with payments transformation.
Embracing open banking
“One of the trends we’ve seen and which the Canadian market is about to embark on is open banking,” says Isted. Open banking refers to banking that provides third-party financial service providers open access to consumer banking, transaction, and other fi nancial data from banks and non-bank financial institutions through the use of application programming interfaces (APIs).
“Open banking is very interesting because we’ve seen a variety of models to enable it,” says Isted.
“On the one end of the spectrum, you’ve got a pure legislative requirements-driven approach, while on the other end, you've got a purely market forces driven approach, and then you have something in the middle which is sort of a hybrid of both. Open banking isn’t just about payments. It’s a fundamental change to many organizations in terms of how they view their data assets internally.”
“This is again about reducing friction and making lives easier for the end-customer,” says Rush.
Encouraging innovation
to verify their digital identity becomes key.”
“To put this in place therefore requires some massive changes — changes to regulation, changes to incumbent players, technology infrastructure and processes, and even education and changes to consumer behaviour,” says Rush.
Prioritizing payments modernization
Payments modernization is therefore a critical priority, and organizations must work quickly to evolve their payment models and core infrastructure, adopt digital channel experiences, and innovate.
“We focus on three primary areas: payments modernization, getting financial institutions ready for the SWIFT mandates around ISO compliance, and strategy around payments across multiple industries,” says Isted.
What really separates us is the calibre of our people on an individual level. We're the friendly firm and not only do we bring really great insights and help our clients achieve great results, we're also great people to work with, and that's hard to replicate.
“Modernizing the Canadian payments infrastructure can have enormous benefits to all Canadians, and other countries are already there,” says Rush. “At the core, what we’re trying to do with open data sharing is to create a more innovative and competitive payments landscape.”
“Open banking and payments modernization aren’t separate things,” adds Isted. “They’re both bringing more efficiency, lower costs, and require greater integration than before.”
From enabling real-time payments for both businesses and consumers to increasing operational efficiencies and boosting revenue for financial institutions, there are many benefits to open banking and payments modernization.
Open banking adds complexity, however, which the Canadian market is currently grappling with. “There are things that need to be in place to enable open banking, such as the surety of the actors involved,” explains Paul Jackson, Director of Payments Modernization at KPMG in Canada. “Being able
“The new international data standard (ISO 20022) and open banking aren’t small transformations that organizations can just plug into,” says Greer.
“These often require years of planning, testing and execution to ensure that they are ready on time. And compliance is only one half of the journey. At the same time, they need to consider the competitive and customer impacts in their new reality."
KPMG assists its clients with a broad range of services related to payments transformation, from payments strategy and implementation to process reviews, automation and digitization, payment products, market research, risk assessments, and more.
Leading the way
For organizations looking to tackle these changes and thrive in the payments landscape of the future, turning to a leader in fi nancial and payments services like KMPG is a smart move.
“As a national industry leader, we’ve got some extremely talented professionals who are very deep in their areas of expertise,” says Rush. “But what really separates us is the calibre of our people on an individual level. We’re the friendly fi rm and not only do we bring really great insights and help our clients achieve great results, we’re also great people to work with, and that’s hard to replicate.”