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Currencies Form the Core of Payments

Tag: payments

Currencies Form the Core of Payments

Currencies Form the Core of Payments

It’s a no-brainer! Everybody out there knows that to buy or sell any product or service through any medium, one would need a transacting currency. The status quo on most transactions, whether online or offline, is the fact that you would need to pay in the currency of the country where you are buying the product from, even if it is online.

But, with the advent of global e-commerce, the status quo on currencies while transacting becomes a deterrent. It is largely due to the willingness of most payments solution providers not to deal with the cumbersome regulations in place in most countries which provide a hindrance for multi-currency payments being made online.

It is not as much as a regulation problem, as it is a regulatory acceptance problem. Most regulators, as in central banks haven’t yet figured out a way to regulate payments in foreign currencies made in multiple currencies through the digital medium. Barring the most accepted currency, i.e. the US Dollar, which is largely used as a de-facto foreign exchange currency across the world, regulators are mostly wary about international payments made in other currencies, especially online.

Having said that, most developed countries and a few forward looking emerging economies have updated their regulations to allow for payments in multiple currencies. However, contrary to popular belief, there aren’t many providers in the market, who possess a seamless global payments processor.

PayTabs has always been ahead of the curve in terms of innovation and one of our key differentiating factor is the fact that we accept 160+ currencies on our platform.

To learn more about our payments platform, click here. Moreover, if you are interested, you can sign up for a free demo as well.

We encourage you to comment on this post, by providing your insights and viewpoints.

Physical Store vs Online Store

 

Physical Store vs Online Store

One fine morning, you wake up and you stumble upon a business idea that you instantaneously believe in and you think it will work great in the marketplace. You start working on your business plan and then you stop at a critical juncture, you start evaluating the feasibility and costs of starting a physical store vis a vis an online store.

Let’s look at the scenarios and help you take a wise decision.

When you decide to open a physical store, there are costs that need to be borne in terms of infrastructure, furniture, labor, etc.…. Furthermore, you must invest in the security of the store, the maintenance of the store, etc.… The costs involved in setting up and operating a physical store to sell your products are very high to begin with, not to mention you would have to indulge in some outdoor marketing to attract customers to your store. If you think you don’t need to do marketing, then your store better be in a good location to cash in on the automatic visibility. But, a good location comes at a cost.

Sometimes, the rent of the store will be abysmally high, due to locational advantages. Oh, last but not the least, there are regulatory clearances from the civic body & government that needs to be sought, before you start operating a physical store. In many countries, receiving regulatory clearances is not easy as sometimes, the process is cumbersome and tedious.

Therefore, purely from a short to medium term, it certainly doesn’t make sense to open a Physical Store, because it will take a while before you realize your return on investment. Hence, what’s the other option? Online, right!

It is 2017, the peak of the e-commerce revolution, the possibilities are immense. You don’t need to worry about location, physical security and outdoor marketing, to start shop. Sure, these elements exist in the online space as well but it is easier to deal with. To start up in the online space, you don’t particularly need any regulatory clearances. You would just need a few computers and a good internet connection.

However, you must ensure that you have adequate stock to service your orders. It is imperative to have a good supply chain and logistics system in place, because if the first 100 costumers, like your products, chances are that your orders will increase in a very short span of time, aided by digital marketing.

Having said that, the most important factor is the experience you provide to customers, when they land on your online store. The UX/UI (User Experience/User Interface) of your website needs to be top notch. Right from the homepage to the payment gateway, the amount of time that a customer will spend on your online, he should be blown away by the experience. The UX/UI will be your single most important driving factor for your online store, initially.

Contact us and we will be able to guide you on setting up a viable online business, apart from providing a seamless payment experience for your online store. Sign up for a free demo to understand the value of our payments solutions.

Evolution of The Indian Consumer

Evolution of The Indian Consumer

In one of our previous post, we touched upon the fact that Indian e-commerce has grown tremendously in recent years and digital payments form the core of the Digital India ecosystem. The growth in payments has been driven by the push for online payments at the institutional level, be it government, corporate or banks.

Having said that, the paradigm shift from offline to online has been driven by the Indian Consumer, who has accepted the digital medium. Specifically, in the space of digital payments, the consumer has been forced to reduce his dependency on cash, given the government’s huge demonetization drive last November. Therefore, it would be fair to say that some of the digital adoption in the Indian context has been due to demonetization, especially in the payments space.

Until a year ago, the penetration of Digital Payments in India was rather low. However, owing to the government’s efforts, there has been an explosion in the digital payments space in India. Post demonetization, the number of debit card transactions swore to 1 Billion*. Well, most of these transactions have been PoS(Point of Sale) transactions in physical stores. But a significant number of those transactions have been done online as well and payments have been made in online rather than Cash on Delivery.

As per Industry body, ASSOCHAM, the Indian e-commerce consumer size will most likely cross 100 Million in 2017 and will ride on a 65% growth rate(y-o-y) in 2018. The evolution of the Indian Consumer has been pretty rapid in terms of consumption patterns. The shift from offline to online and from COD (Cash on Delivery) to Online Payment has been rather rapid.

Talking of shifts in preferred mode of payment from Cash on Delivery to Online has been rather ironical, because the growth of Indian e-commerce has been because of the Cash on Delivery model. But, owing to demonetization, the rise in online payments is driving e-commerce growth and will continue to do so, in coming years. This goes to show a significant change in attitude and purchasing habit of the Indian Consumer.

For more such insights, you can subscribe to our blog alerts and if you are a small and medium scale merchant, we can help you go global through our international payments solution. Sign up for a demo, to learn more.

*Source: The Economic Times

We can Ride on Your Cart!

We can Ride on Your Cart!

When a customer shops on your website, little he is aware of the fact that you have shopped elsewhere to integrate your website with a shopping cart platform. Shopping cart platforms lie at the very heart of e-commerce and no merchant looking to venture online, can do without a shopping cart platform. What a door and furniture is to a offline store, a shopping cart is to an online store.

Quite simply put, the technology that runs in the back-end when you buy any product on any e-commerce site and add it to the cart for checking out. That virtual process is executed by a shopping cart platform. Once the customer arrives at the checkout page and agrees to pay, that’s where the payment gateways come to the picture. It is important to draw the distinction between shopping carts and payment gateways because merchants might be ambiguous to an extent.

In a world that has been shrunk with the onslaught of global e-commerce sites and multiple variants of shopping carts, it is imperative to have a payment gateway that caters to all types of shopping carts, be it Magento, Open Cart, Cs Cart, Woo Commerce, Shopify, Prestashop or WHMCS.

We have ready made extensions/plugins for you to integrate directly onto the platform of your choice. Now it is easy to integrate the shopping cart of your choice and start accepting payments with PayTabs.

Click here to learn more about shopping cart plugin integration onto your website, using PayTabs as a payment gateway. Moreover, you can contact us for any technical questions regarding shopping cart integration.

Payments Form The Core of Digital India

Payments Form The Core of Digital India

The Indian e-commerce market is estimated to grow to $102.8 Billion by 2020. With a growing internet penetration and a plethora of private and government commercial services being offered through the web, that number doesn’t seem unrealistic.  India is by far, one among the top 3 markets for e-commerce globally. If you thought the $100 bn+ figure is staggering, hold your breath because leading research consulting firm Boston Consulting Group(BCG) estimates that the Indian Digital Payments Industry will grow to $500 Billion by 2020.

In recent times, the world has seen a FinTech revolution and India has been at the forefront of spearheading that revolution. The increase in adoption of digital and mobile payments has been staggering and as a testimony, 50% of India’s population is expected to be part of the digital payments industry 2020, according to the Boston Consulting Group.

The growth has been driven by a tremendous government push in digital payments arena fueled by the Digital India proposition.  Several government services at the federal and the state level have migrated in the digital space and encourage digital payments. The growth has been also aided by the fact that majority of the population has an Aadhar card number, which enabled reliable delivery of many essential services through authentic verification.

Having said that, the Indian digital payments scene is largely focused around domestic payments. There’s a large untapped market for international payments. We know that the regulations for international payments is not easy in India, but things are changing rapidly. There is tremendous scope for Indian exporters who are selling online, internationally to ramp up their operations. Not to mention, there’s enough room for exporters who aren’t online, to get their businesses online and sell to the world.

PayTabs is uniquely positioned as a key player in the Indian Payments space, specializing in International Payments. You can visit our website for more information and sign up for a demo if you would like to explore the power of our end to end international payments solution.