As retailers respond to increased customer demand for convenience and personalised experiences while shopping, switching to a seamless payment process has become critical in building a more streamlined operation and gaining a competitive edge.
At the forefront of this transformation, new payment systems are now advancing the way retailers handle transactions and manage their businesses. Instead of manually inputting sales into separate payment terminals after processing them on their point-of-sale (POS), retailers are now increasingly turning to systems that sync their POS with their payment processors, allowing transactions to seamlessly flow between the two platforms. These setups are commonly referred to as integrated payment systems.
“When you’ve got separate systems, you get mistakes,” says Andrew Fraser, MD Apac for Lightspeed, a leading provider of unified POS and payment solutions. “That can be quite costly for a business in terms of the financial cost of keying errors on the payments terminal. It also creates time issues, when every time you enter sales into separate terminals you get a duplication of effort for sales staff and for the customer. Then there’s a further time cost when payments aren’t automatically reconciled and synced to accounting. All of this together can be a pretty subpar experience for the customer when you get friction right at the point of sale.”
Where Lightspeed takes things a step further is in conjoining these linked systems into a single, comprehensive platform that combines POS and payments, allowing every aspect of the transaction process to be seamlessly synchronised. Beyond the transactional benefits, Lightspeed’s unified approach streamlines bookkeeping while simplifying support and providing comprehensive reporting capabilities.
As Fraser explains, unified payments not only offer convenience and simplicity to retailers, they empower them to make data-driven decisions that drive the business forward. With the entire payment ecosystem seamlessly embedded into a single platform, retailers can focus on what matters most – providing exceptional products and services to their customers.
“I’d say any retailer operating a physical brick-and-mortar location will be able to benefit from a unified solution,” says Fraser. “It’s really those big things – hassle-free reporting, saving time, reducing manual errors – making it so easy to tie together in the store. It’s also the streamlined bookkeeping and support – one account manager, all-in-one bill, and payments all in one place. But the key advantage of our platform is that by focusing on unified payments, our innovation and research spending can go into faster release of new product innovations. We can double down on investment in the platform, adding features, analytics and insights so that we can save retailers time and give them more peace of mind. That means an even better experience for these store owners going forward.”
Retailers are warmly responding to the process of onboarding these systems and experiencing the conveniences of a unified platform. One Lightspeed customer – White Earth, operating three locations across Australia – has adopted the system to enhance customer experience and eliminate time-consuming and manual administrative tasks.
“Using Lightspeed Payments is definitely improving accuracy,” says White Earth founder Liz Anderson. “It absolutely takes the error issue away and it also makes it seamless for the customer in store. We are looking at growing the business, so that is one issue that has resolved many of the smaller problems, so I can now focus on other areas of the business to grow.”
For retailers in Australia seeking to sign up, the installation process is designed to be as painless as possible – including free hardware, integration and training where needed, without any initial outlay.
“We know that retailers are busy running their businesses and adding a new platform isn’t really a top priority,” says Fraser. “So we’ve tried to make it as seamless and frictionless as possible, meaning no additional cost to customers, free terminals and free on-site installation. We will buy out existing contracts if they have one, and we believe that our rates are competitive as well.
“In more than 80 per cent of cases, customers get instant approval for Lightspeed payments; there are no delays, no additional forms to fill in. This means most customers are up and running within days of getting in touch with our team with minimal delays for the business – which we know is the most important thing for all of those retailers.”
To learn more about Lightspeed, visit https://www.lightspeedhq.com.au/.
