The year 1995 is generally considered the point when the internet finally took off, simply because the number of websites in existence ballooned from just over 2,000 at the close of 1994 to 23,000 a year later.
By comparison, today, there are 1.5bn sites online, albeit mostly dead or dormant. The InternetLiveStats page claims that the “living” portion of the internet includes just over 200m websites, a number that is now in decline.
Put another way, the internet is thirty years old. Yet, digital transformation, i.e. adopting technology and modern communications into business, bothers some companies. So, how is this gap between the digitally savvy and the thoroughly analog overcome?
Cottage Industries
First, it may not always be possible. Every business is now at the mercy of the internet but not everybody realizes this. For instance, even the smallest cottage industries rely on social media for marketing, as well as on storefronts like Etsy and eBay.
Also, research from leadership company BCG reveals that more than two-thirds (70%) of digital transformation efforts fail to achieve their goals. This begs the question of why something so essential often falls apart.
The obvious answer is that businesses aren’t equipped with the knowledge, funding, and personnel to make a digital transformation work. A more involved answer, from the previous source, is that it comes down to a lack of planning or effective management.
There’s always somebody – or something – to blame, after all.
Payment Methods
Digital transformation is a process, one that doesn’t have to cause any seismic changes at the outset. For example, the ModernDiplomacy website claims that “broadening payment gateway options” can narrow the gap between the connected and the not-so-connected business.
Almost half of consumers surveyed in the UK by RetailGazette said they’d be more inclined to complete the customer journey if they could pay how they wanted to.
This feeling isn’t specific to shopping. The Stake.com review on the CasinoStake website lists a range of payment methods as one of the operator’s best features. They include Visa and Mastercard, as well as niche options like Neteller and Skrill.
Ultimately, a flexible check-out lives in the same box as customer service, which helps tie the whole concept of digital transformation to how a business treats its visitors.
Ease of Access
The worry for smaller businesses is that payment processing is one of the most dynamic industries out there, encompassing everything from paper and plastic to cryptocurrency and mobile commerce. How is anybody supposed to accommodate even a fraction of these options?
The good news is that all the competition in payments is doing the work. PayPal, a competitor of Apple Pay, accepts the latter for paying invoices. Similarly, PayPal now works with cryptocurrency, eliminating some common barriers to commerce, like border fees.
The digital transformation gap is about ease of access, especially in terms of how customers interact with a business. Exactly what those same shoppers want, though, is unique to each website or store. Payments offer a sensible place to build from.
