How Payments Powers Omnichannel

At this point, omnichannel isn’t anything new.

Omnichannel is supporting payments across multiple channels, we got it. Though many merchants aren’t there yet (even though consumers are demanding they should be), the concept has become commonplace in today’s digital landscape.

But ensuring that consumers are able to pay when they want, how they want and where they want requires more than making sure a transaction goes through. Instead, unified commerce offers a full solution for merchants — from reporting, to API integration and payments.

As the payments space continues to evolve, merchants and retailers are finding themselves in a position that requires going beyond the ability to just facilitate transactions. Customers want to be supported throughout their shopping journey, not just while they are at the register.

“Unified commerce is a lot more centered around not only supporting the multiple channels but starting to develop and support the complex use cases that consumers are expecting,” Marc Castrechini, VP of Product Management at Cayan, explained in a discussion with Karen Webster.

Put simply, pursuing truly unified commerce means improving the customer experience around those transactions and ensuring there is a seamless and frictionless experience through all possible channels.

Castrechini said that unified commerce is more involved with things like preference and transaction simplicity: “With unified commerce, it’s more of an answer to the customer preference through channels,” he added.

This higher-level support and guidance is what the newly-launched Cayan® Unified Commerce Solution™ suite looks to provide to both ISVs and merchants as they look to better support customers through their omnichannel shopping experiences.

What Merchants Want

According to Castrechini, now that they’re no longer focused on getting through the EMV migration, U.S. retailers today are dreaming big and have huge aspirations when it comes to reaching and keeping digitally empowered consumers.

But merchants aren’t the only ones that need to be in step with the changing preferences of consumers.

Think about it like this — if ISVs are talking about asparagus and retailers want to buy avocados, the fact that they’re both produce items that begin with an “A” doesn’t cut it. ISVs must also be able to deliver on the right things, Webster explained.

When it comes to offering a unified commerce experience, both merchants and ISVs seem to fall in two buckets — those that know what they want and those that don’t.

Still, even those that know what they want to do — such as offering buy online, pickup in-store services to their consumers — have trouble figuring out exactly how to get there.

“It’s almost like EMV all over again, where everybody has to come back to the table and really educate on not only where they need to be but exploring the air of the possibility and getting into some positive forward momentum,” Castrechini pointed out.

Through its Unified Commerce Solution suite, Cayan is looking to solve more than just a payment problem. While it doesn’t facilitate the actual omnichannel services on behalf of merchants and ISVs, Cayan uses its capabilities at the software level to power unified commerce and bring together different players to make sure it all goes together well for the retailer.

A New Take On Tokens

As merchants continue to move deeper into tools like data analytics and promotions in an effort to attract new customers and bring existing customers back more often, Castrechini said Cayan is starting to help utilize payment transactions in building up customer profiles.

This enables merchants to better understand customer behavior through their purchases, which was historically restricted to one location but is now opening up to be accessible across channels.

While retailers know who their customer is and what they are buying online, they may now have a way to link that customer’s in-store behavior to the transactions they’ve completed online.

Cayan is using a marketing or unique personal ID that replaces a payment card number and can be used to help facilitate and get more connections throughout the ecosystem.

But don’t get this ID confused with a token — no refunds or sale can be made against it; it’s simply a representative ID that enables an ISV to link eCommerce activity to in-store activity and make useful connections.

“Ultimately, we facilitate that data through all of our transactions. Every time a transaction goes through the system, that ID is available for them and is strictly used for the purposes of trying to link individuals,” Castrechini explained.

Collaborating tightly with the solution providers allows Cayan to provide a holistic solution that looks to deliver value based on what the end consumers really need and the type of long-term partnership, Castrechini believes, that retailers really want.

“It’s going to be an ongoing, evolving relationship. This isn’t going to be an implementation where we install and move on,” Castrechini said. “This is a three- to five-year engagement when it comes down to it.”