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checkout, despite fuller cashier staffing to attempt to
offset the demand," she said.
She went on to say it is "surprising to see some larger
big box stores with multi-lane checkout that have yet to
support mobile wallet checkout. This is where smaller
competing merchants have the opportunity to step in
as they can make decisions and implement solutions
far faster than their enterprise counterparts."
In the restaurant space in particular, Sills noted, pa- We hear from restaurant owners how customers
trons despise being told at checkout that they are in a
cashless establishment only to be asked to hand over
their card to a server they don't know who is going to
take their card to an unseen station to run the trans-
action. "All businesses that are cashless need to have
proper signage and have payment solutions, in this ex-
ample pay at the table, where, just like in Europe, the
card never leaves the sight of the cardholder."
Sills also pointed out that fraud levels tend to go up
during peak periods. "This practice will help stave that
concern off," she said.
According to Baxter, price sensitivity is a key motivator
for many shoppers, driving increased attention to ad-
ditional fees and surcharges. "This, in turn, puts pres- chants want you to help them solve a problem or
sure on the merchant to reduce costs—including their
payment fees," she said.
Laszig mentioned that she sees people of all ages tap-
ping phones, cards and wearables at the POS. It is "a
practice so well established that people get frustrated
when contactless methods fail," she said. "Cash pay-
ers have become as reviled as yesterday's paper-check
writers in checkout lanes, despite cash being fast and
simple with no ID required. The perception is that cash
is slow and cumbersome, especially when people dig
through coin purses for exact change."
Kahn emphasized that customers aren't asking for
faster payments as much as merchants are asking for
lower fees. "Shoppers still care about convenience and
personalization," he said. "They want self-service op-
tions, mobile wallet payments, and the ability to start
a purchase online and finish it in-store. But the bigger
conversation is coming from merchants, who are fo-
cused on reducing processing costs and ensuring the
fees they pay deliver real value.
3. How do merchant concerns differ depending on
their size or vertical market?
For Sinovois, it boils down to merchant size and verti- 5. What, in your view, should the industry focus
cal. "Their challenges really depend on their size and
what type of business they run," he said. "A local pizza
shop and a national franchise both take payments, but
they're playing two completely different games."
Smaller merchants are usually worried about cash
flow, he went on to note. "They want to know when
But when a customer uses three different credit
cards to ship stuff to the same address—three dif-
ferent orders—your common sense needs to kick in,
not wow I got 3 big orders! Then when the charge-
back comes in, you get the money debited and the
cards were all stolen.
come in, order food, get served, pay and then do a
chargeback, saying they were not there, don't recog-
nize the charge or they paid cash. And the restau-
rant or bar owner gets frustrated that they get hit
with a $20 to $30 chargeback fee, and they don't get
it back. It's very frustrating to explain that they have
to respond or lose the money. Many restaurants do
not respond and end up with repeat customers who
do this to them.
4. How do pain points differ across vertical mar-
kets you serve?
Every market is different, but merchants have to re-
alize that you get what you pay for. In general, mer-
figure out what type of technology they can use in
their business. Some want do-it-yourself software;
some think they know it all and show you a state-
ment where they think they are paying 2 percent,
and you show them that they are paying 5 percent.
I have said this over and over. The other day, an ISO
contacted me to talk about what I thought about the
future of payments, and I told them agnostic soft-
ware is not the way to go. I said what are you going
to do? Learn 2-3-4 or more products, install them all
, support them and drive all over town doing it? We
tried that years ago and it's not scalable.
You need to pick partners who own software and
processing so you can offer better products and
have the company who knows the product support
it.
If you are not selling software, you will not be
around in a few years. Merchants are constantly
switching from terminals and virtual terminals to
software. You need to be forward thinking and up
your game, but do it in a way that you are not run-
ning around doing service all the time.
on addressing first?
• Fraud. The card brands need to figure out a bet-
ter way to deal with fraud and cardholders who
constantly do chargebacks.
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