Breaking in new leather shoes is a painful process. You have to wear chunky socks, use other assorted pain reduction techniques including ice and maybe even pills. One piece of advice that can help the proud owner of new shoes is to break in your shoes slowly so as not to undergo all the suffering at once.
So it was with the “multi-channel” transition in retail in the days pre-pandemic. Everyone in retail – the stores and the customers all knew that the “broken in leather shoes” of seamless omni-channel retail would take the customer experience to the next level of satisfaction. It was all happening slowly to reduce pain.
Then came COVID. By some estimates, in 2020, there was a four to five year pull forward in the transition to e-commerce. With it has come the need for accelerated innovation involving related technologies. While there are many aspects to that change, I want to focus on one of them: contactless payments.
Silicon Road portfolio company Everyware provides a “Pay by Text” (also known as SMS commerce) product that enables retailers to connect with customers and partners through two-way text messaging and easily collect payments through “Pay by Text” links. The product can do a variety of things which will be of great interest to retailers, such as accepting returns, issuing refunds, and adding a powerful toolset to any loyalty program.
However, here is why this is so important. In the age of COVID, where curbside pickups are preferred to avoid surface contact, touchless payments using “Pay by Text” is yet another way to make the buying experience more pleasing for customers. Retailers that do not heed this need from their customers are likely to come out second best.
Companies like Everyware are redefining commerce and will continue to do so in the months to come.