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Ensuring you have a payment solution that’s well-matched to your business needs is paramount.
Investing in a platform which is too complex and large for your small business would be challenging while, similarly, acquiring a payment solution that specialises in industries other than your own might not be appropriate for your company.
In short, it has to be the right fit for you.
But, have you considered how important flexible and scalable payment solutions are for your business?
As a business grows, its payment method must evolve, too.
Without a flexible, growing payment solution, you can quickly outgrow your payment process – leading to an inevitable deceleration in your business’ potential growth.
This guide will highlight how flexible payment solutions can be scaled alongside company growth, and how the right payment solution for your business can actually elevate your growth.
What are Flexible, Scalable Payment Solutions?
Payment solutions – also referred to as payment platforms – are the technologies and systems that facilitate the transfer of money from a customer to a business.
Essentially, it’s the system in charge of how merchants sell, and how consumers buy.
Payment transactions could involve processing credit and debit cards, mobile wallets and online payments, or even contactless payments made from smartwatches.
But, how can you identify flexible, modern and scalable payment solutions?
Verstaility
Firstly, the payment solution should meet the needs of businesses of different sizes and industries.
There’s little use in investing in a payment solution for small businesses if your overall plan is to accelerate your business growth. Eventually, you would need to upgrade to a more supportive, inclusive payment solution.
Similarly, if your payment solution is designed to only meet the needs of your specific industry, but you decide in a few years that your business should expand into other sectors, your payment solution would quickly become outdated.
Again, this would lead to unnecessary cost expenditure, plus downtime to allow for the setup of your new payment process.
Investing in a versatile payment solution that meets the needs of different types of industries and business sizes alleviates any need for future changes to your payment solution. This will allow you to continue focussing on company growth with no limitations.
Innovation
Similarly, your payment solution should be innovative enough to support new features and functionalities required when the business grows.
It’s natural for demands to change within a business, even if the overall goal doesn’t. But, to stay current and up-to-date with the latest ways of working, your platform must be innovative enough to access new functionalities that, eventually, will become vital to business growth.
Without the ability to improve your current platform, your payment solution will soon become stale and need replacing – which is why a modern payment solution is so important to achieving innovative success.
Reliability
The key to a successful business infrastructure, your payment solution platform should never disrupt the flow of your business, despite how much or little you are processing.
It should only assist you in accelerating business growth, allowing you to perform all platform functions, regardless of requirements.
For example, some cases could find that features being used at one level on their payment platform could not be translated to another – causing unnecessary business disruption.
But that reliable, high functionality is key to successful business growth.
Why Flexible, Scalable Payment Solutions matter for growth
There’s many advantages of investing in a flexible payment solution for your business, but the main benefits include:
- Global expansion: With a scalable payment platform, expansion has no limitations. They’re designed to grow alongside you, meaning that if you decide to take your business international, a platform that supports global payment solutions will pioneer that change. It’ll accept payments from international customers with flexible currency options, meaning a seamless transition into the global market.
- Minimises disruptions: As we mentioned above, one of the key considerations for a flexible payment solution is that it’s reliable enough to not cause disruption. With the ability to seamlessly handle increasing sales volumes, your business can effortlessly grow while your payment solution confidently manages the acceleration.
- Manages business changes: It’s natural for any business to change over time. But if your payment solution doesn’t change with you, that’s where challenges arise. With a scalable solution, making changes to your business doesn’t need to become a headache, but a seamless transition due to an adaptable system designed for adjustments.
- Eliminating labour-intensive platform switches: Outgrowing your payment solution comes with challenges. Not only would you endure lengthy research to find the right payment platform for you, but the process of switching processors or terminating contracts can be arduous – all of which naturally detracts from focusing on your main business priorities.
- Cost-saving: Expanding on the above point, alongside the labour-intensive aspect of switching providers, unnecessary costs will also occur. You may need to pay a cost to terminate your contract early, and then setting up your new payment platform will naturally incur more costs. Not only this, but you may also experience some downtime during the transition, which will inevitably impact business revenue. By investing in a flexible, scalable platform from the get-go, you could spare yourself future cost challenges.
- Improved innovation: Staying relevant is part and parcel of running a modern-day business. But with a scalable payment platform on your side, improving your business with new updates, innovative features and trends can be far easier to implement.
- Alleviating late payments: Traditionally, this has been a challenge many SMEs have faced over the years. However, a modern payment platform can help to alleviate the level of late payments through seamless automation.
- Customer experience: Without disruptions or international barriers to contend with, the customer experience is only improved with a flexible payment platform. With a smooth, reliable checkout process, regardless of transaction volume, a flexible payment platform lets you get back to what you do best, ensuring customer efficiency.
What are the Key Features of Flexible Payment Solutions?
With what flexible payment solutions are explained and the advantages highlighted, it’s important to understand the key features so you can identify these solutions:
- Easy API Integration: Connecting your existing applications is a key feature of a flexible payment solution. For example, you might need to connect your existing Point of Sale payment solution (POS) using API integration, which a flexible, scalable solution would be capable of achieving. Integration of a variety of value-added applications is possible, too, such as loyalty and gift card programs, employee shift notifications and more.
- Accommodating increased transactions: Business growth often comes hand-in-hand with increased transactions. Flexible payment solutions accommodate that increase effortlessly, without disruption or crashing – elevating growth with ease rather than causing resistance.
- Omnichannel capabilities: If your store also has an online website that sells products, your payment platform can seamlessly translate between the various channels – making it easy to complete functionalities. You can access your in-store, online and mobile requirements easily.
- Pre-empting innovation: In this modern world, there’s a new demand for platform creators to be ahead of the curve, creating solutions before problems occur. That’s the mark of a flexible payment solution – one that can preempt future trends that will eventually drive businesses forward.
- Global payment solutions: Another key feature of a flexible platform is its adaptability to global sales, supporting various currencies and international payment methods.
- Variety of payment options: Having a range of payment methods is a great example of a flexible payment solution, as it’s so preferable in the modern age. For example, paying in instalments could be one option for a business such as a jeweller, while splitting the bill is a popular much-needed option for payment solutions in hospitality. Similarly, offering the option of paying by bank transfer is preferable for many, as research shows the UK trusts bank payments more than card payments.
- Customisation: Customisable features and specific functionalities can be tailored to your company, and changed as the business grows, so you can design a solution exactly right for you.
Increased security: With cloud-based storage and functionalities designed to make the platform last longer, updates are performed effortlessly, meaning your payment information is secure and backed up. Plus, card payments are more vulnerable to security risks for both merchants and consumers, so modern payment solutions allow transactions to be handled more securely.
How to Choose Scalable Payment Solutions
Ensuring payments are completed promptly and securely is the cornerstone of a successful business.
So, now you know just how important scalability and flexibility can be to merchant needs, how do you choose the right payment solution for your business?
That’s where Trust Payments comes in.
There are some factors we recommend considering before choosing your scalable payment solution, such as:
- Target audience and business needs: Evaluating the business model and considering your target audience is key to understanding which payment solution is best for you. Start by identifying the current transaction volume and customer needs, such as preferred payment methods, and make a list of what’s vital to your business.
- Future-proofing: Ensure your payment solution can handle not only the current demands of the business, but also future growth, which can come from expansion and change to the company model.
- Partner with a reliable provider: Ensure they can provide secure payment processing, reliable customer support and they have efficient account management strategies in place to provide efficient support when required.
Case Studies: Winning with Flexible Payment Solutions
The proof is in the pudding, and the results of these two clients who we’ve helped invest in a flexible payment solution speak for themselves.
Eetwell
As a rapidly growing fast-casual restaurant chain with 14 locations between Malta and Belgium, flexible and scalable payment solutions were a must for Eetwell.
They wanted to transform the way their transactions were managed, hoping to easily accept and manage payments for vast food and drink offerings.
The solution?
Seamless payments across all channels have now been implemented with help from Trust Payments. We provided Point of Sale terminals, a payment process gateway and acquiring services. The fully integrated service was easy to set up and a support agent was on hand at every stage.
Read more about the work we’ve done with Eetwell to improve their rate of transaction and help to create a frictionless, faster ordering experience for their customers.
Orbex
As a leading global investment firm offering award-winning trading services at some of the most competitive conditions, with international expansion on the horizon, Orbex needed a modern payment solution they could rely on.
They wanted to be able to identify the correct payment methods for varying regions, especially in emerging markets, and ensure payments were completely secure and not at risk of fraud. Client experience was also important to them, such as offering competitive exchange rates and low fees.
Trust Payments helped to resolve their payment challenges, providing a full suite of online payment solutions, including alternative payment methods. This allowed Orbex to service a wide range of markets effortlessly.
Read more about how we’ve helped Orbex see notable improvements in client satisfaction, and an increase in the volumes of deposits and transactions, with our global payment solution.
To summarise, making sure your business has a supportive, modern, flexible and scalable payment solution in place is key to accelerating overall growth.
Without blockers and limitations on transactions, your business can bloom effortlessly without the worry of switching providers or terminating contracts once you’ve outgrown your existing payment platform.
Here at Trust Payments, we offer scalable and flexible payment solutions designed with your business’ growth in mind. Find out more about our Point of Sale payments, online payments or get in touch with a member of our expert team for more information.
