Retail & HOSPITALITY

Optimizing consumer payments

for retailers and hospitality merchants

Digital transformation is relentless in the retail sector and the same change is being seen in the hospitality industry. Hotels and restaurants are learning from the best –in-class omnichannel retailers to focus on the customer experience. The spotlight is on delivering a unified payment experience and striving to create a seamless customer journey, from online discovery through to checkout, regardless of booking channel or customer type. All of this is blurring the division between what is online and what is in-store.

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Consumers and corporate customers engage with retail and hospitality brands across a wide range of channels. Beyond in-store and e-commerce purchases, customers are also researching products and services, writing reviews on social media platforms, blogs, third-party sales platforms and marketplaces. Payment and non-payment transactions contain rich data insights that retailers and hospitality businesses are using to enhance the customer experience.

Retailers and merchants in the hospitality sector are adopting a unified commerce strategy. By focusing on digital customer journeys, they aim to improve customer and guest satisfaction, increase sales revenue and cross-sell value added services. The acceptance and processing of payments are integral to the customer experience. Payment acceptance, goes beyond traditional debt and credit cards, and merchants are offering buy now, pay later (BNPL), international and national digital wallets, loyalty and gift cards.

Within many retailer the responsibility for payment has been shifting from the treasury or the finance department to the product, technology or customer service teams. Teams that are closer to customers aim to deliver enhanced customer experiences. In the future, we expect embedded finance services to be increasingly integrated in the customer journey.
Quick Service Restaurants, Fast Food Retailers and Casual Dining Restaurants aim to centralize and standardize the acceptance of payments across their businesses. Conversely, in the hospitality sector payments are rarely owned by a single team or function because of the fragmented nature of hotel groups and hotel operators.

Retailers and restaurant businesses see payments as a growth opportunity and a means of differentiation by optimizing and introducing efficiency in the acceptance and processing of payments. Hotels have only just begun this transformation journey.

Equally, loyalty programs play an important role in developing a bond between the customer and the brand. We believe loyalty programs and payments should be integrated to enable streamlined customer journeys.

Working with our retail & hospitality clients

We help retailers and hospitality businesses around the world to build omnichannel customer journeys, with payment acceptance at the centre. Retailers, hotel operators and other hospitality companies often ask us to help them choose a new payment provider and provide expert insight so they can make an informed decision.

Our 360° Payments Diagnostic is a proprietary methodology for assessing the payment strategy of retailers and hospitality merchants. Using it, we can identify cost reduction and revenue enhancement opportunities. The methodology is proven to increase sales conversion, reduce operational costs and engage consumers, whatever payment method and channel they prefer. The methodology enables merchants to attribute, track and measure the value of payments across all their sales channels.

Our deep insights into the payments industry worldwide enable us to benchmark every element of a merchant’s cost of payment acceptance and processing. Our independent advice helps retailers choose payment solution partners with confidence. We help build a payment acceptance solution that encourages seamless checkout and increases sales revenue.
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The 360° Payments Diagnostic methodology supports a unified commerce strategy and the merchant’s internal design of its organisation that is best to support a future-proof payment strategy.

When we work with retailers and hospitality merchants our service capabilities include:

We will work alongside you as you define your value proposition. We will collaborate with you throughout the development and launch phases, and ultimately help you to grow your business sales revenues using the optimal unified commerce payment acceptance strategy.

Payment Optimization

Payment Product Innovation

Payment Strategy Development

Payment Partner Selection

Payment Implementation Support

Our Experts

Working with our experts in Retail & Hospitality

“Keeping up with ever-changing customer expectations is one of the main challenges that retailers and hospitality businesses are facing today. The role of a Chief Payment Officer is expected to be standard practice in both the retail and the hospitality sectors. Our clients understand the importance of the customer journey - from browsing to buying and beyond the purchase checkout. This is where our clients are developing payment acceptance strategies that include offering payment solutions to their consumers as a means of differentiating themselves in a highly competitive market.”

Mark Beresford

Head of the Retail & Hospitality Practice

“We conduct detailed analysis of the implications of accepting the mainstream payment methods along-side alternative payment methods on the overall sales revenues of our clients across their different channels and geographies. We use a proprietary methodology, called the 360^o Payments Diagnostic, along with in-house benchmark data. Together this is a proven process that delivers value to our retail and hospitality clients.”

Davide Villa

Senior Consultant based in San Francisco

Case studies

Our latest Retail & Hospitality experience

eCommerce platform hires EDC to evaluate transformational embedded finance opportunity

EDC assists industry-leading end-to-end eCommerce platform and solutions provider to evaluate the embedded finance opportunity

Retail

Growth, GTM & Commercial Excellence

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EDC helps international online wine retailer upgrade their payments capability to support growth

EDC helps international online wine retailer to upgrade their modern payments capability that has released and accelerated sustainable profitable growth.

Retail

Partner Selection

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Middle East retailer saves US$5.6m thanks to new payments strategy

A retail operator identified the opportunity to streamline its payments processes, which were heavily reliant on cash.

Retail

Strategy Development

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Resources

Read our insights, thought leadership articles and white papers on the latest trends

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Jul 02, 2024 | 2 mins read

UK and European Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud remains to be a big issue

Jul 01, 2024 | 10 mins read

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How can EDC support your sales growth in Retail & Hospitality?

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