Flexible checkout finance tailored to all merchant needs

Over the past eigh­teen months, the retail indus­try has expe­ri­enced the most pro­found peri­od of change since the emer­gence of depart­ment stores trans­formed the shop­ping land­scape over a hun­dred years ago. The move from in-store to online is now irre­versible, and the trend has been accel­er­at­ed by an esti­mat­ed five years due to the explo­sion in ecom­merce dur­ing the pan­dem­ic. How­ev­er, one fea­ture of this switch has cast a shad­ow: an increase in cart aban­don­ment. This needs to be addressed and, increas­ing­ly, ana­lysts believe the answer lies in pay­ment inno­va­tion that improves con­sumer expe­ri­ences
at check­out.

Flex­i­ble pay­ment options offer a solu­tion

41% of UK con­sumers have aban­doned a trans­ac­tion dur­ing online check­out, com­pared to just 24% of shop­pers who have walked away from a pur­chase in phys­i­cal stores. The range of check­out pay­ment solu­tions offered to online cus­tomers is often not var­ied or acces­si­ble enough to turn brows­ing into sales. Recent research shows, for exam­ple, that close to ten mil­lion Britons have avoid­ed buy­ing from mer­chants which don’t offer alter­na­tive pay­ment meth­ods at check­out. This rep­re­sents a con­sid­er­able loss of poten­tial sales for mer­chants who do not offer flex­i­ble pay­ment options.

In response, there has been increas­ing inno­va­tion in buy-now-pay-lat­er (BNPL) and check­out finance and this is accel­er­at­ing with ris­ing demand for more sim­ple, con­ve­nient, and seam­less pur­chas­ing expe­ri­ences. Ear­ly BNPL check­out offer­ings used straight­for­ward prod­ucts and a one-size-fits-all mod­el, but increas­ing­ly it’s clear that a more sophis­ti­cat­ed approach is need­ed. Specif­i­cal­ly, prod­uct flex­i­bil­i­ty tai­lored in line with busi­ness needs is cru­cial, and the next step in pay­ments inno­va­tion is being dri­ven by a need to achieve high­er lender accep­tance (and there­fore con­ver­sion) rates.

Role of mul­ti-lender BNPL in the future of retail

Despite soar­ing online retail sales fig­ures, turn­ing web­site vis­i­tors into pay­ing cus­tomers can be a chal­lenge as ris­ing cart aban­don­ment sug­gests. There­fore, mak­ing pur­chas­es more afford­able for poten­tial con­sumers is key. To ensure they don’t miss out on sales, busi­ness­es need to offer a wide range of pay­ment solu­tions that max­imise the chances of cus­tomers com­plet­ing their pur­chas­es at check­out.

The future lies in mov­ing away from rigid prod­ucts and fur­ther opti­mis­ing the under­ly­ing lender accep­tance rate. Plat­forms such as Deko’s, which is mul­ti-prod­uct and mul­ti-lender, are boost­ing flex­i­bil­i­ty and cov­er­age of finan­cial prod­ucts to address dif­fer­ent con­sumers and bas­ket sizes. They are also accel­er­at­ing inte­gra­tion capa­bil­i­ty, broad­en­ing sec­tor reach, and ensur­ing every­thing is avail­able through a sin­gle plat­form, giv­ing cus­tomers the best chance of pur­chas­ing the things they need.

The flex­i­bil­i­ty and range of lenders includ­ed in Deko’s offer allow the firm to help mer­chants pro­vide unique flex­i­bil­i­ty for their cus­tomers. This is because Deko aggre­gates mar­ket par­tic­i­pants across short-term BNPL and high­er val­ue and longer-term instal­ment finance, prime and near-prime lenders, as well as cred­it providers with dif­fer­ent sec­tor risk appetites.

This means con­ver­sion isn’t sim­ply bound by a sin­gle lender or its cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and there is a pay­ment solu­tion for any bas­ket, any­time, any­where – all at the speed of a click. By auto­mat­i­cal­ly guar­an­tee­ing the best match between con­sumers, mer­chants and lenders, our mer­chant part­ners gain an aver­age increase in sales of almost 30%.

Deko’s mul­ti-prod­uct, mul­ti-lender plat­form includes a breadth of finan­cial pay­ment prod­ucts mer­chants can offer while ensur­ing they get the right solu­tion for their busi­ness needs. Nev­er­the­less, the process of inte­grat­ing flex­i­ble pay­ment finance into an online or phys­i­cal store can poten­tial­ly be com­plex and dis­rup­tive. That is why Deko has ensured that its prod­ucts can be eas­i­ly inte­grat­ed into exist­ing busi­ness oper­a­tions. Its nim­ble solu­tions can be plugged into any exist­ing infra­struc­ture rapid­ly and seam­less­ly, mean­ing Deko can be inte­grat­ed with new busi­ness­es in just 24 hours.

A seam­less pay­ment expe­ri­ence to match new retail trends

Where mer­chants had been expect­ing to grad­u­al­ly estab­lish an online pres­ence to sup­ple­ment in-store shop­ping, the sud­den end to phys­i­cal retail prompt­ed by the pan­dem­ic forced busi­ness­es to seri­ous­ly invest in their wider dig­i­tal offer­ing. Cer­tain­ly, the upward trend in online retail is accel­er­at­ing, with near­ly 22% of all retail sales world­wide fore­cast to take place online by 2024. There is a more marked pic­ture in the UK, as the nation­al ecom­merce mar­ket is pro­ject­ed to grow by 37% until 2024.

These new retail habits deserve new pay­ment options. Inno­v­a­tive plat­forms such as Deko are opti­mis­ing not only the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence but cov­er­age and accep­tance too, reduc­ing the high­er bas­ket aban­don­ment rates that have accom­pa­nied the shift from in-store to online. Deko’s mul­ti-prod­uct, mul­ti-lender solu­tion caters to busi­ness­es of all sizes and sec­tors, help­ing mer­chants offer flex­i­ble check­out finance tai­lored to all their needs. The future of retail is here.

For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it dekopay.com

Spon­sored by

Deko