Fast data continues small business outreach

BI Intelligence

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First Data announced the launch of Clover Online Store, a tool that, as part of its Clover mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) brand, will make it simpler for small businesses to develop their online presence. The tool will provide small businesses with an integrated system that provides everything from website setup tools to shopping cart and digital checkout functionality, according to a company press release.

Clover Online Store is advantageous because it provides small businesses already using Clover mPOS devices to monitor their in-person and digital sales on the same platform. It’s worth noting that First Data recently partnered with First Tennessee Bank to serve the bank’s small business clients, giving them a new distribution channel through which to promote Clover.

It’s becoming increasingly common for mPOS providers to offer larger suites of e-commerce and business management tools to their clients. That’s because additional services make users more loyal to their mPOS provider, which is critical in a market where users can switch between mPOS terminals easily. But more importantly, business services often help small businesses streamline operations and improve efficiency, which could help them increase their daily transaction volume. That, in turn, benefits both the mPOS provider and processor by giving them a larger source of fee revenue.

And the move could also help First Data capitalize on growing digital shopping.

• E-commerce is on the rise. BI Intelligence forecasts that US e-commerce retail spending will hit $632 billion in 2020, up from $304 billion in 2015. First Data is already an e-commerce leader — the firm processes 28% of global online transactions — but this will enable them to more easily profit from smaller businesses looking to expand online as well as larger retailers already in the space.
• And processors are beginning to diversify as commerce shifts online. As the processing landscape begins to change, processors are consolidating and partnering more to expand their merchant base and deliver more services to those merchants. These consolidations and partnerships help give processors new sources of revenue while increasing opportunities to earn more revenue from existing clients.

The mobile point-of-sale first shook the payments industry with Square’s simple mobile card reader, which attached to smartphones and tablets. It gave small and micro merchants a simple and inexpensive way to accept and track credit and debit card payments.

Since then, the industry has exploded with mPOS solutions, but they don’t all live up to the hype and many of the businesses that provide them have struggled to figure out how to effectively monetize the merchants they acquire.

John Heggestuen, managing research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on mPOS that cuts through the hype by analyzing the needs of the retailers that have adopted the technology, and interviews merchants to find what works and what doesn’t.

BI Intelligence

In full, the report:

• Forecasts mPOS adoption among US retailers through 2019.
• Estimates addressable processing revenue for mPOS providers targeting small merchants.
• Analyzes why mPOS has caught on with small retailers and why some of these retailers are reverting back to legacy systems.

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