Designing Products for Real-world Payment Processing Problems

Merchants have a lot on their plate, and payment processing often isn’t top of mind – until there’s a problem; then it’s all hands on deck to find solutions while lost revenue increases. Unfortunately, in our current COVID-afflicted reality, some merchants are unable to recover from this kind of impact, as it can be both unexpected and substantial.

We’ll explore why this seemingly straightforward process can be so complicated, the associated risks, and the real-world products available for proactive merchants to get ahead of these payment processing challenges now!

Cut Through the Chaos 

Merchants require a unified and seamless experience when managing payment processing. Time is not on any business’s side these days, and this is particularly true for “always on” ecommerce merchants. Because they serve the global marketplace, these types of merchants have very distinct requirements including:

• The ability to process payments using their consumers’ preferred payment methods
• Freedom from hidden fees that affect not only a merchant’s bottom line, but the customer’s wallet, as well
• Fraud alerting that actually works – and that monitors the ever-changing fraud trends as they evolve in different parts of the world

Reach meets the needs of both merchants and consumers by simplifying complicated global payment processing in a variety of ways:

• Offering the local payment options that consumers seek – payment options that vary widely globally
• Creating a one-stop shop for a global consumer base, with transparent pricing (no hidden foreign transaction (FX) fees that come with cross-border transactions, and a stable exchange rate post-purchase to handle returns)
• Studying ongoing fraud trends and proactively monitoring new fraud activity around the globe 

But wait, you think that you’re not really a “global” company? Think again. Every online business is a global business, whether the stakeholders in that company realize it or not. Recognizing this fact sooner rather than later allows you to start down a path that will let you compete in the new global marketplace. For the skeptics who have yet to experience significant global traffic, you can likely attribute that (at least in part) to not providing the capabilities detailed above. 

Let’s dig a little deeper…

 

Seamless Payment Processing

Reach develops products that work for real world problems, and specifically for the challenges that merchants face. Let’s detail a few scenarios and how to deal with each one, tying them in with the requirements we outlined above:

Problem #1: A potential customer lives in Peru and your company is based in the United States. What currency do you offer on your site for a browsing customer? What currency are you processing their payment in? Will your customer get hit with a foreign transaction fee? Will you, through increased cross-border processing rates? It’s important to take this into account, as every step of the payment processing journey incurs a fee. And, as the distance between the issuer and processor increases, so do the associated fees. 

So, if there’s a local vendor that doesn’t charge these fees, you can be certain your site will be used solely for “showrooming” and the sale will be made locally. Or, if your customer isn’t aware of these fees until after the fact (as many processors add the fees at the end), you’ll likely have an angry customer who won’t return.

The solution, of course, is offering a local sales option. But how can you be “local” without opening up physical operations there in Peru? Reach has a unique and innovative Merchant of Record model whereby our merchants can process their sales locally, without the myriad fees associated with cross-border transactions.

Problem #2: Your Peruvian customer wants to return their item for a refund within your guaranteed 30-day window, but the exchange rate has shifted significantly since the originating transaction, resulting in you having to refund the customer a higher converted amount that what they paid. Imagine this scenario multiplied by 10, or 200. A big problem, and a big hit to your bottom line.

Reach solves this issue for merchants by guaranteeing the same exchange rate for 30 days on purchases. This now leaves you with no fees when it comes to cross-border processing and zero risk for cross-border returns. 

Problem #3: One of the major credit card processors has cut you off, refusing to process transactions for you. Unfortunately, you’ve fallen victim to one too many fraudulent purchases and/or chargebacks, so they’re no longer willing to cover your losses. This is often a shock to merchants. Worse though – your customers are leaving negative reviews, as they’re either inappropriately flagged as fraudulent when they’re not, or they’re posting about your site being a shady company that charged them for products they never ordered. Neither scenario is good for your business.

With Reach, merchants are protected from fraud with market-specialized artificial intelligence , and experienced global risk managers attuned to the very latest fraud tactics. We take this responsibility seriously – and you should, too.

When it comes down to it, a merchant’s only guarantee when transacting globally, is this: issues will arise. This is inevitable. But that doesn’t mean your business has to be materially impacted because of it. Reach develops products for real-world payment processing concerns, so the impact of these issues are significantly lessened, if not prevented entirely. 

 

Reach out to speak with us about your specific needs and we can help you to put a plan in place to remove global challenges before they negatively impact your bottom line!