[October 18, 2017] |
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From the Rise of Mobile Shopping to the Decline of Cash, Bank of America Merchant Services' Inaugural Small Business Payments Spotlight Explores Evolving Consumer Expectations
From accepting digital payments to safeguarding customer information,
today's consumers expect the businesses they patronize to make shopping
faster, easier and more secure than ever before - leaving small business
owners with the daunting task of keeping up, according to the inaugural Bank
of America Merchant Services Small Business Payments Spotlight.
The study, which highlights payments-focused attitudes and behaviors
among U.S. small business owners and consumers, uncovered a number of
intriguing and informative findings. Among them:
1. Small businesses need to adjust quickly to evolving payments
trends or risk getting left behind.
Key finding: 44 percent of small businesses expect cash will become
more irrelevant over the next five years.
Cards and cash still reign supreme for making purchases, but consumers
are getting more comfortable with new technologies that enable quick,
convenient and secure transactions with businesses at the point of sale
and online-not to mention with their peers. Merchants are getting on
board, too-more than a third of them said they now accept digital
payments.
What's happening to cash? Nearly half of consumers carry less of it now
than they did five years ago. Further, most small businesses expect cash
to become increasingly irrelevant over the next five years as digital
payments grow in popularity.
What's clear is that customers are leading the way by trying out and
adopting new ways to shop and pay. The question becomes: What will
happen to businesses that don't pay close attention to these trends?
2. To grow and thrive, small businesses need to do better to meet
customers' expectations online.
Key finding: 53 percent of consumers are shopping online more than
ever. Yet only 44 percent of small businesses operate an eCommerce
website.
The lack of a confidence-inspiring online presence is hurting many small
businesses' ability to keep existing customers and win new ones. For
today's connected consumer, it takes mere seconds on a mobile device or
computer to access a wealth of infrmation about goods and services,
including where to quickly find them.
Yet only 44 percent of the small businesses we surveyed maintain an
eCommerce site. Those that do often fail to offer visitors the
easy-to-use interface and helpful features-like free and fast shipping
or clearly posting their return policy-to which they are growing
increasingly accustomed.
Some small businesses also seem to overlook the potential for an
eCommerce presence to increase exposure and sales beyond an immediate
locale. Since the bar to launch an eCommerce site that securely accepts
payments has never been lower, it's time for more small businesses to
get in the game.
3. Protecting customers' data is the essential foundation to building
loyalty.
Key finding: 20 percent of consumers who had their bank or personal
information stolen indicated they would not shop at a small business
that had experienced a data breach.
There are things merchants can do to shore up consumer confidence as it
relates to the security of personal information, including payment data.
These include merchants adopting EMV® chip card technology at the point
of sale, complying with all payment card industry data standards,
ensuring employees consistently follow proper protocols during
transactions, and maintaining a secure and credible-looking web presence.
From the business owner's perspective, safeguarding customer information
should be Job No. 1. More than 30 percent of small businesses that
experienced a breach said it cost in excess of $50,000 to resolve the
breach and rebuild their customers' trust. Few small business owners can
easily withstand that financial hit - and the accompanying loss of
business from disillusioned customers.
"It's no secret that today's consumers are more connected than ever
before, and they expect the businesses they frequent to be just as
savvy," said Bank of America Merchant Services' Head of Small Business
Jill Calabrese Bain. "As we reviewed the data from small business owners
and consumers, the surprisingly strong connection between customer
loyalty and payments security and convenience really stood out. We were
intrigued to find that nearly a third of small business owners want and
need more education about mitigating fraud and other risks to payment
security."
Calabrese Bain continued: "We're using the insights in the Small
Business Payments Spotlight to help small business owners better
understand shopping and payments trends, and what they can do to
strengthen their relationship with customers."
The Small Business Payments Spotlight is based on a study Bank of
America Merchant Services commissioned Forrester (News - Alert) Consulting to conduct
in the fall of 2017. As part of the study, Forrester surveyed more than
500 small business owners and 500 consumers throughout the U.S.
Read the Bank of America Merchant Services Small Business Payment
Spotlight and download individual infographics contained in the report here.
About Bank of America Merchant Services
Bank of America Merchant Services connects businesses and their
customers by doing payments better. The company delivers payments,
commerce and security solutions, as well as consultation services, to
businesses throughout the United States, Canada and Europe. It processed
more than 15.2 billion transactions at approximately 660,000 merchant
locations in 2016.¹ The company is a joint venture that combines the
technology and innovative products of First Data with the relationship
strength and prominent global brand of Bank of America. To learn more,
please visit https://merch.bankofamerica.com/
¹Based on bankcard, other credit, and PIN debit sales volume and
transactions. Per the Nilson Report, March 2017, Issue 1105.
EMV is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries, and an
unregistered trademark elsewhere. EMV® is a registered trademark owned
by EMVCo LLC.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171018005857/en/
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