emerchantpay research highlights retailers’ poor payments performances

58% of retail businesses are currently losing revenue due to shortcomings with their payment gateway, according to research by emerchantpay.

And 66% of the 100 payments managers or directors surveyed are coming under increasing pressure from senior leaders to improve performance as a matter of urgency. 68% believe they need to make significant improvements over the next 12 months in order to avoid losing large numbers of customers and revenue.

The current lack of optimisation within payments is largely driven by a need to prioritise innovation and a lack of understanding and support from senior leadership. Where teams are attempting to improve performance across their ecosystem, they are hampered by a lack of data and insight to make decisions and optimise processes.

The research finds that there is not a single area where a majority of leaders are content with their current performance. 16% are fully satisfied with their ability to analyse decline codes, and only 24% feel that way about their ability to analyse fraud data to set better rules. Just 26% are happy with their current ability to monitor fraud in real-time.

“Too many retailers are ‘leaving money on the table’ by not offering their customers the fastest, easiest, most personalised payment experiences possible and by not fully understanding, detecting and preventing fraud. In an ever more competitive market, these retailers are risking customer loyalty and brand reputation by neglecting performance,” says Jonas Reynisson, CEO at emerchantpay.

“Retailers have to start providing payments leaders with the tools, skills and support to do their jobs effectively and to deliver real value to the organisation. The opportunity for businesses that can put in place the processes, technologies and behaviours necessary to optimise payments performance are huge.”

Barriers include the burden of regulation and compliance obligations which are becoming an increasing drain on resources (44%), lack of budget or cost issues (36%), finding appropriate partners/vendors (31%) and outdated technology and tools (25%). 51% say that Brexit and the associated foreign exchange risks are adding uncertainty to their payment strategy.

The most common areas where retailers are currently driving optimal performance are ensuring that infrastructure is flexible and agile, delivering efficient processing through the payment gateway and putting in place a sophisticated approach to Merchant Identification Numbers (MIDs).