The Green Sheet Online Edition

December 12, 2025 • 25:12:01

What do merchants really want - Part 3

This article is the third and final installment in our multipart series exploring the payment-related pain points merchants are raising most urgently. In Parts 1 and 2, industry leaders shared what they're hearing about rising costs, chargebacks, integrations, support expectations and the expanding range of payment options at the point of sale. Here, we continue that conversation by asking a new group of experts to respond to the same five questions, providing additional perspective on where merchants are feeling the most pressure and where providers can make the biggest difference.

1. What payment-related challenges are your merchants talking about most often right now?
2. Are shoppers asking for faster payments or new options at the point of sale, or are other issues more pressing?
3. How do merchant concerns differ depending on their size or vertical market?
4. Beyond speed and payment options, what improvements would make the biggest difference for your merchants (e.g., lower costs, fewer disputes, easier integrations, better service)?
5. If you could name one thing merchants wish the industry would fix, what would it be?

Featured in this article are Dale Cardarelli, enterprise sales director at Shift4; Robert Kraal, co-founder, business development at Silverflow; and Erick Tu, CEO of BLogic Systems; and in an accompanying essay, Patricia Carlin, co-founder and CEO of Deposyt.

1. What payment-related challenges are your merchants talking about most often right now?

Robert Kraal, co-founder, business development at Silverflow (www.silverflow.com), stated that the primary concerns he hears from merchants revolve around a crippling lack of visibility and control, often rooted in outdated infrastructure. "Payments have moved beyond a simple back-office utility; they are now a strategic lever, but legacy systems are holding them back," he said.

Kraal mentioned the most common frustrations fall into three areas. "First, a pervasive lack of transparency over fees and transaction data, which makes reconciliation and cost optimization nearly impossible. Second, poor acceptance rates and high numbers of false declines. Merchants are losing billions annually when legitimate transactions are mistakenly flagged as fraud, damaging both revenue and customer loyalty. They need smarter fraud management tools, not just stricter ones.

"Finally, outdated systems that stifle innovation. These older platforms, maintained through patches and workarounds, lead to slow onboarding, inflexible contracts, and poor technical support, preventing merchants from adapting with the agility their business demands. They are looking for cloud-native infrastructure that provides real-time data and flexibility."

Dale Cardarelli, enterprise sales director at Shift4 (www.shift4.com), cited fees, fraud and chargebacks, fragmented payments or technologies, and reporting and data analytics as primary concerns. "Being able to reduce costs is always a top priority," she stated. "Optimizing interchange qualifications and transparency are always top of mind for merchants, as well as costs to maintain legacy technologies and wanting to add surcharging or supplemental fees to tickets to offset some of their operational costs."

Regarding fraud and chargebacks, Cardarelli said merchants are looking for solutions that provide a secure checkout experience while also helping to prevent potential chargebacks and mitigate friendly fraud (employee fraud) and other bad actors.

Cardarelli spoke of the pain of fragmented payments or technology, noting that Shift4 merchants want to see multiple providers consolidated across different channels; integrated payments; payment orchestration; buy online, pick up, or return in store; and the ability to seamlessly accept all payment types across all channels.

When it comes to reporting and data analytics, she has found simplifying reconciliation, real-time data and reporting, and insight into shoppers' spending habits are top of mind for merchants.

Erick Tu, CEO of Blogic Systems (www.blogicsystems.com), said, "Honestly, the biggest challenge isn't a specific payment type, it's system reliability. The number one fear we hear from operators, especially in food service and retail, is downtime. You can call it 'death by Wi-Fi.' They're frustrated with systems that freeze, slow down, or stop working entirely because of an internet outage or even just a network slowdown, especially during peak business hours.

"When a POS goes down during a Friday night dinner rush, it's not an inconvenience; it's a direct hit to revenue, staff morale and customer loyalty."

Beyond that, Tu noted, merchants are frustrated with rigid, one-size-fits-all solutions. "Merchants need solutions designed to their business-specific needs, but they are often stuck with generic software built by the big boys that can't adapt to their unique workflow," he said.

2. Are shoppers asking for faster payments or new options at the point of sale, or are other issues more pressing?

"While the industry loves to talk about crypto or other innovations, shoppers and merchants are far more concerned with the fundamentals," Tu said. "A customer's main desire is convenience and a fast, consistent experience. Nothing is more frustrating for a shopper than a frozen or lagging terminal. "Merchants know this. Their most pressing issue is ensuring the checkout process is seamless every single time." Tu pointed out that local processing, for example, delivers lightning-fast checkouts because the transaction isn't dependent on a round trip to the cloud. "That's the speed that matters to 100 percent of customers, not just the small fraction asking for a niche payment option. Reliability trumps novelty," he said.

According to Cardarelli, shoppers want speed. "Every second counts, so if it takes too long to check out and make a payment, the shopper is more likely to abandon their purchase," she said. She has also found that shoppers are asking for contactless and preferred payment methods at checkout, including the convenience of digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay; instant payments; and buy now, pay later (BNPL).

"Crypto and stablecoin are becoming more popular for higher-ticket purchases," she noted, adding that omnichannel is another expectation. "Shoppers expect consistency and a frictionless experience across in-person or online channels," she said.

"While consumers certainly drive the demand for new payment options—from BNPL and A2A transfers to various mobile wallets—the pressing issue for merchants isn't the consumer speed itself, but the speed of integration and the time-to-market for these options," Kraal said. "Merchants know they must stay relevant by supporting the methods their customers actually use."

Kraal pointed out, however, that legacy payment providers often create significant bottlenecks here. "If integrating a new payment rail takes months and requires complex API workarounds, the merchant is immediately at a competitive disadvantage," he said. "What matters most to merchants is a provider's capability to onboard these new payment types quickly and seamlessly, acting as an enabler rather than an obstacle.

"This agility is crucial for growth, especially for digital-first businesses looking to expand into new global markets where local payment preferences are diverse and constantly shifting."

3. How do merchant concerns differ depending on their size or vertical market?

Cardarelli has observed that enterprise merchants tend to use multiple systems, which creates more complexity. "For a retail vertical, they typically use an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, plus a point-of-sale (POS), inventory, accounting, and customer resource management (CRM)m" she said.

"For a lodging merchant, they may use multiple solutions across the property: a POS in the restaurants, bar, and retail outlets; a property management system (PMS) at the front desk; and a reservation system for the spa and salon," she added. "International and cross-border adds another layer of complexity. Supporting local payment methods, currency conversions, and regulations adds cost/complexity." Cardarelli additionally noted that coordinating any payment implementation requires extensive planning across all stakeholders, including IT, finance, operations and project management. "Ensuring a seamless, efficient integration of new payment technologies is critical and often complex," she said.

She also highlighted that a small or medium-sized restaurant business may have a less complicated ecosystem and only require domestic payment acceptance. "Online ordering is more prevalent with third-party delivery service integrations such as Uber Eats and Door Dash," she said. "Implementing an integrated solution or maintaining omnichannel solutions can be challenging in terms of resources and costs." Tu has found that concerns definitely differ, though reliability is a universal theme. "QSRs (quick service restaurants) are all about speed, efficiency and throughput," he said. "An internet outage that halts the flow of orders to the kitchen display system or stops mobile payments is a speed bump of doom. Any lag in the system directly impacts their bottom line."

On the other hand, he noted, independent restaurants and small retailers are sitting on a gold mine of data that they are desperate to use effectively. "Beyond just staying online, the concern is how to leverage their POS data for smarter management," he said. "Merchants want to know who their top-performing employees are, how to schedule more effectively and how to stop profit from slipping away due to voids or inventory waste. They need systems that turn data into a simple, actionable playbook, not just another complex dashboard."

Kraal has seen consistency in many areas. "Interestingly," he said, "the fundamental pain points are remarkably consistent across the board: every merchant, regardless of size or vertical, demands better fee transparency, reliable technical support, and a significant reduction in false declines. However, the strategic complexity intensifies dramatically with merchant size and global reach." For smaller or local merchants, Kraal stated, the focus is often on simplified onboarding and clear, predictable costs; for large, high-volume ecommerce or multinational corporations, the concerns shift to sophisticated operational efficiency.

"Larger businesses frequently work with multiple acquirers and PSPs to optimize performance, making intelligent payment orchestration essential," Kraal said. "They need a system that can intelligently route each transaction through the most cost-effective or reliable channel in real time. S

imilarly, cross-border complexity, including navigating local regulations and currency management, becomes a much more acute operational headache for those pursuing global expansion."

4. Beyond speed and payment options, what improvements would make the biggest difference for your merchants (e.g. lower costs, fewer disputes, easier integrations, better service)?

"Our merchants' primary focus is on the lowest total cost of payments," Cardarelli said. "Shift4 owns and provides a secure gateway technology that supports PCI-validated point-to-point encryption, tokenization and EMV, as well as free payment devices, gift cards & loyalty solutions, and merchant services. All of the above is offered at the lowest cost of acceptance."

Kraal feels the single biggest difference comes from improvements that directly impact the merchant's bottom line and future-proof their operations. "This starts with higher acceptance rates and smarter dispute management," he said. "Every lost transaction is lost revenue, and providing merchants with clear, granular data and the tools to dynamically adjust risk rules is transformative.

"Beyond revenue, however, is the necessity of migrating to modern, cloud-native infrastructure. This is the key to unlocking the efficiencies inherent in 'easier integrations' and 'better service.' Legacy systems make accessing useful, real-time data difficult and slow down every aspect of a provider's service—from technical support to innovation deployment."

By moving the core processing layer to the cloud, Kraal added, providers can offer "modular, API-driven platforms that deliver real-time data visibility, scalability, and continuous innovation without system downtime, turning payments into a competitive advantage."

Tu believes the biggest difference would come from three areas:

• Guaranteed uptime: "I'm not talking about a limited 'offline mode' where functionality is crippled. I mean systems built on native or hybrid architecture that remain 100 percent functional—payments, inventory, kitchen displays, everything—regardless of internet status. This eliminates the high cost and stress of downtime."
• Actionable data: "Merchants don't need more reports; they need insights. A system that links sales data to employee performance or inventory levels is a huge improvement. This allows managers to coach staff effectively, recognize top performers, and prep smarter, which will directly impact profitability."
• Deep customization: "A huge improvement is a system built to be customized. For example, when a high-volume airport coffee shop struggled with order times and needed to put customer names on each ticket, BLogic developed a custom feature that pulled the customer's name directly from their credit card.

  This drastically reduced human error and sped up their line. That is a tangible, high-impact improvement that a rigid, one-size-fits-all cloud system cannot deliver."

5. If you could name one thing merchants wish the industry would fix, what would it be?

"If I had to name one thing merchants universally wish the industry would fix, it would be the outdated, rigid, legacy payment infrastructure that currently acts as a significant bottleneck to progress," Kraal said. "Too many PSPs, acquirers and processors are still operating on systems designed decades ago—architectures that were simply not built for today's digital-first, global economy."

These old foundations, he added, are maintained with manual workarounds, patches and middleware, creating opacity and inhibiting innovation. "This technical debt is directly responsible for slow onboarding times, the lack of data transparency, and the difficulty in rapidly integrating new payment methods.

"The industry needs to collectively move beyond just layering new features onto old systems. The solution is building truly cloud-native, modular platforms from the ground up that are flexible by design, ready for tomorrow's technologies, and focused entirely on enabling the merchant's growth and operational control."

Erick Tu emphasized that merchants wish the industry would stop its obsessive push for 100 percent cloud-based solutions for mission-critical, in-store functions. "The reality is that the public internet is not, and never will be, 100 percent reliable," he said. "Merchants are tired of paying the price for downtime, but they're also tired of being told 'that's just how the software works.'

"Our merchants wish the industry would prioritize building resilient and customizable systems that are not cloud-dependent. They want a partner to generate solutions to pain points and not just send them to a support forum. Ultimately, technology that adapts to their business and solves their specific operational challenges and plays a vital role in scaling business operations."

Dale Cardarelli summed it up succinctly: "Simplifying the fragmented technology required to accept payments."

From the desk of Patricia Carlin

In response to our questions about what merchants really want, Patricia Carlin, co-founder and CEO of Deposyt, was inspired to write the following essay:

After two decades in the payments industry, I can tell you with certainty that business owners are exhausted. It's not just from running their companies, but from the endless swirl of "innovation" that was supposed to make their lives easier. Every week brings another "disruptive" platform, a new gateway, dashboard, or feature set promising smarter payments but for most merchants, progress has come with a price of even MORE complexity. They aren't asking for more technology, they are asking for less chaos and more money. Ironically, at Deposyt, we are releasing a new series called What Business Owners Want, inspired by the movie What Women Want. The title fits because somewhere along the way our industry stopped listening.

Walk any payments conference and the pattern is clear. Every booth is showcasing a shinier portal "for the agent," a faster terminal, a better application submission process to make the agent's life easier, or a more sophisticated white-label platform. The conversations are all agent-facing ... how they can sell more, bundle better or upsell smarter, but few ask the only question that really matters: What does the merchant actually want?

What we are hearing is a consistent response. Business owners are mentally tired of managing systems, logins, integrations and upgrades. They don't want to think about PCI updates or feature releases. They want to take a payment, trust that it works and get back to running their business.

It's like turning on a TV that's been wired through an over-engineered smart system. You shouldn't need four remotes, your phone and an app just to watch a show. You just want the TV to turn on. That's where merchants are today. They crave simplicity and are willing to trade bells and whistles for peace of mind.

Across every industry from restaurants and retail to coaching and ecommerce, we are finding the same message from the business owner:

• We're overwhelmed. They've been told to automate everything but end up buried in software.
• We don't want another system to learn. Tech stacks have become cluttered and confusing.
• We just want to make more money with less effort. Growth is the goal; tech should support it, not slow it down.

While industry insiders debate crypto, real-time payments and AI, most business owners admit they wouldn't even know what to do with those tools if they had them. They don't need more options to learn. They need solutions that actually work together.

When we ask what matters most, their answers boil down to two things:

1. Simplicity. Systems that are easy to use, quick to set up and unified enough to reduce the noise.
2. Support. Real human help. Not another chatbot or ticket queue. They want partners who set them up for success not just hand them a terminal and walk away. They want a partner who acts more like a human AI agent, someone who anticipates their needs, automates what should be automated, and handles the technical details so they can focus on growth.

Payments companies love to talk about innovation, but the real opportunity isn't in adding more features, it's in removing friction. It's a huge blind spot. Merchants no longer judge a processor by price alone, they judge by experience. They want reliability, responsiveness and empathy. They want to feel like they're rowing in the same direction as their payments partner. If there's one thing the industry should fix, it's the assumption that innovation equals complexity. It doesn't. True innovation simplifies the path, not complicates it, forcing an overwhelmed business owner to learn more "stuff."

The next phase of growth in payments won't come from who launches the flashiest new software or terminal. It will come from the  one who listens best and serves business owners with tools that actually make life easier.

That belief is exactly what led us to build Deposyt+, our new platform designed around the pain points merchants talk about every day. It's not another product for agents to rebrand or resell. It's for the business owners themselves, the people keeping the economy moving one transaction at a time.

Deposyt+ brings together payments, CRM, and growth automation in a way that feels effortless. It's built to reduce the number of systems merchants have to juggle, while re-introducing something the industry has lost along the way, human support. And we've done it entirely on our own terms, fully self-funded with over $4 million invested to date with no outside capital and a long-term vision to make payments simple again.

Merchants aren't just clients; they are our partners in every transaction. Our success is tied to theirs and when both sides move together, everyone wins. Or as I like to say ... boats row better in one direction.

After 20 years in this industry, I believe the next big disruption won't come from a new form of currency or a faster API. It'll come from restoring trust, clarity and ease to the process of getting paid. Business owners don't want to keep up with the future, they want the future to finally keep up with them.

A note of appreciation

Across all three installments of this series, executives, advisers and experts from throughout the payments community have generously shared what they're hearing from merchants on the front lines. Taken together, their insights underscore that while technology and buzzwords change, merchants still judge providers by transparency, reliability, cost control, simplicity, actionable data and responsive human support. We extend our sincere thanks to everyone who participated in this series—from Green Sheet Advisory Board members to ISOs, agents, fintech leaders and solution providers—for helping our readers better understand what merchants really want and how the payments community can continue to earn their trust.

Notice to readers: These are archived articles. Contact information, links and other details may be out of date. We regret any inconvenience.

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