Online Payments

Ecommerce and a new Gateway in town

One aspect that has increasingly been dominating news headlines worldwide is the strain the virus COVID-19 has caused the retail community. Technology savvy shoppers wanting to avoid contact with others have turned to online retailers in large numbers. While official figures won’t be published for some time, the number of transactions going through online retailers in these past few days will surely dwarf the Black Friday and Holiday Shopping highs seen in recent years.

With internet providers reporting an unsurprising 30% rise in internet traffic, it is important that retailers optimise their online business practices or move online for the ones that have not done yet. The unprecedented demand for goods is truly a global problem. Retailers have even begun limiting the amount of certain goods that can be purchased at any one time to ease the pressure on the supply chain.

However, the widespread change in consumer shopping behaviour we have seen this quarter will surely cause that percentage to rise considerably. This situation will be looked back upon as an unlikely accelerator for the entire industry and prove to be a real catalyst for change, welcome or not. These are important times. If a retailer can manage this process effectively, consumer confidence with online shopping will increase across all demographics, young and old.

Currently, online shopping is primarily the domain of the tech savvy. In the UK, 97% of those aged 25 to 34 shop online, while only 54% of those aged over 65 do. 2020 could be the year that e-commerce adoption rates break age barriers. However, consumer behaviour is also influenced by environmental, economic and sociological factors – all three of which are evident with COVID-19. It is fair to say that what is going on in the world will permanently change consumers’ shopping behaviour moving forward.

The numbers speak for themselves and whoever resists the current and staying inactive just because they feel comfortable with the way their business structure is now, they are unreasonably blindfolded and most probably will go down. Even smallest businesses need to have also an e-shop at their website or have a website of some form whatsoever if they want to be part of the 21^st century commercial world and stay around – website, Facebook Page, Instagram or sell on marketplaces if they have money to spare on extra fees.

In order to compete with larger sharks, SME’s and Micro SME’s have to take their business digital too especially now during this unprecedented pandemic of COVID-19. People go online and even the biggest retailers, supermarkets and Amazon cannot cope with the demand. Systems are down and the online queues reach unthinkable numbers.

Society is calling for local stores support and we all should be up for it. But most people do not want to leave their houses these days. They want to shop online, order take away, exercise online, get entertained online. So small businesses would need to keep up with the trends. Even when this is over, the shopping habits will have changed for ever and for good especially when you add GenZ and Millennials in the picture.

These generations are tech-native and always-connected. Their habits are already having a greater effect on the retail industry. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has even called 2019 the worst year on record for high-street retailers. Gen Z and millennials are hitting the “buy” button at work, on holiday or while on the move during their commute. While the younger generations are leading the charge, these early adopters are also influencing the mass market.

While it is certainly true that the current situation is presenting the retail community with numerous challenges, there is no reason to believe that they cannot all be overcome. In fact, businesses would have had to address all these issues at one time or another to continue to survive. It is clear that there is still huge potential for global e-commerce to develop for the better over the next decade starting from now. Immanent action is required, and businesses should start working on this yesterday.

One of the most important parts a business needs to take care of apart from building a website, is to find a gateway to process their online card payments. Viva Wallet would be an excellent choice, not only for the great product 3 in 1 that they offer, but because Viva Wallet has managed to make the processes as easy and as secure you would want to expect from a gateway.

In particular, Viva Wallet provides acquiring and issuing services enabling businesses to receive payments from their customers, access transaction data, manage corporate expenses and more. Their all-in-one banking solution comprises a business account with account number, sort code, debit card and payment gateway on the side of card present solutions if you have a bricks and mortar shop.

Viva Wallet offers easy to use checkout pages, e-shop and e-commerce plugins and an API for custom integrations. Their plug-in solutions can help a merchant integrate without writing a single line of code and can be installed in popular e-commerce applications to enable payments through their gateway. The “Integrate without Integration” with Viva Wallet offers a convenient and secure way for customers to pay online and complies with Payment Card Industry standards.

On their website you can choose your relevant platform and find step-by-step instructions on how to integrate with the Viva Wallet payment gateway. Once you install a plugin, the Viva Wallet payment gateway will be enabled in your checkout flow. You will then be able to receive payments at your online store and enjoy 0% acceptance fees.

There is also the full API integration option. Merchants, integrators and developers who want to implement Viva Wallet, they can use Viva Wallet Developer Portal as their single point of reference to integrate with their fantastic gateway. Viva Wallet has implemented various APIs enabling merchants and payment service partners to develop custom solutions supporting the needs of PSD2 and Open Banking without an authentication channel dependency and adding full flexibility to the equation.

Viva Wallets’ APIs solutions include Error Codes, Card Tokenization API, Account API (beta), Payment API and Issuing API. Notably, Payment API enables payment orders, retrieve transactions against a given payment order, cancel transactions, create recurring transactions, receive webhook notifications and more. On the other hand, Issuing API is designed for payment service partners who wish to use Viva Wallet’s backend technology, but incorporate into their brand.

Viva Wallet offers a wide range of checkout options to choose from. There is the Simple Checkout which is the easiest solution to implement and it is a cross-device payment form and a user-friendly interface working within a merchant’s website. In addition, there is the Redirect Checkout where minimum development is required and supports all payment methods. This is also a simple and easy-to-use RESTful API for integrating with websites and apps. Lastly, there is the Native Checkout, which helps the merchant create a seamless checkout experience where the customer never leaves their website or shopping basket.

How it works with Viva Wallet:

Open a Viva Wallet merchant account and order your card.
Activate your Viva Wallet Account in only 5 minutes and do your plugin or integration.
Pay with your Viva Company Debit for your corporate expenses.
By paying with your card, you can earn back the value of your acquiring fees to zero!

And have access to their powerful features:

Plug-ins

3-D Secure

Powerful reporting

Recurring/Subscriptions

Payment notifications

Virtual Terminal

Daily pay-outs

Compliance