Amazon, Etsy and eBay? These are some of the businesses we most often associate with the word marketplace, but today more businesses than ever before are choosing to join the marketplace revolution. Whether it’s big established retailers like Marks & Spencer or fast-growing online businesses such as Motorway, the marketplace model is booming.
Today’s marketplaces aren’t just there to facilitate transactions either. Instead, they increasingly need to act as digital vanguards that can guide both buyer and seller through transactions in a way that’s seamless, assured, and safe. No mean feat, but one made markedly easier by choosing the right payments partner.
The payments landscape has seen a host of regulation changes in recent years, from PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2) to 5MLD (5th Money Laundering Directive). As this regulation continues to evolve to ensure a better outcome for consumers, marketplaces shouldn’t just look at compliance as the minimum requirement for a great payments engine. With the right partner, it’s easy to exceed these expectations and even set new, higher standards for buyers and sellers using their marketplace.
Whether we’re buying or selling online, we all want to know the transactions we make are protected. Through a secure, digital escrow, Shieldpay can help to bridge the gap in trust between buyers and sellers by holding funds until the conditions of a transaction have been met.
Extra protections like digital escrow are all the more important as the success of the marketplace model sees a growing number of businesses expanding online. As digital transactions grow, we must all be more cognisant of the growing threat of fraud. Global payments fraud tripled from £7.2 billion to £23.8 billion between 2011 and 2020, and is expected to increase a further 25% to nearly £30 billion by 2027.
So, what should marketplaces consider when it comes to finding a payments partner that can address these factors in one go?
Choose a partner that’s compliant, so you don’t have to regulate payments
Whether it’s being up to date on payments regulation or changing money laundering rules, keeping compliant isn’t the core focus of a marketplace’s business. Instead, find a payments partner which is in tune with any changing rules and innovates alongside new regulation. At Shieldpay, we can remove the need for the marketplace to be regulated for payments themselves, taking away administrative burden and letting businesses focus on what they do best.
Minimise risk and choose peace of mind
A scalable, digital escrow solution is a critical component of any modern marketplace, particularly one that deals in high-value items such as designer fashion, classic cars or luxury watches. Funds need to be held and protected, ready to be released only when the conditions of both buyer and seller have been met for complete peace of mind. Marketplaces need a reliable third party to hold these funds in a secure and neutral environment in order to maintain their integrity and gain the faith and trust of those transacting. Shieldpay has created a digital escrow solution, where funds are held in a secure account, ready to process only when the transaction conditions have been met.
Choose a partner that’s payment agnostic
The world of payments is continuously evolving. From buy now, pay later to paying from your smartwatch, there are so many different ways people can pay for things in our increasingly digital economy. That’s why it pays to pick a partner that’s payment agnostic, allowing those involved in a transaction to use their merchant service of choice.
Analytics and insights are more important than ever
Whether seeking to offer a robust marketplace solution, facilitate direct account-to-account transactions, or broker high-value purchases, the customer experience is everything. Being able to offer full visibility at every step of the payments journey will reassure those involved in the transaction, and the ability to generate reports and insights about how people engage with a given payment solution can offer real, actionable intelligence when it comes to scaling up your marketplace.
Invest long-term in a solution that can grow with your marketplace
As the payments landscape evolves, so too is the regulation, and that can create a headache for marketplaces that are having to keep up. As a regulated payments partner, Shieldpay is focused on making sure marketplaces are ahead of regulatory changes that could affect them. We help marketplaces to stay at the cutting edge of payments technology, so they don’t have to keep reconsidering their payments partners or change platform to stay relevant.
Finding a payments partner that wraps up all these benefits together hasn’t been possible until now. At Shieldpay, we’re all about breaking down barriers and removing limitations when it comes to payments. For more information about how our off-the-shelf, compliant payment solution can be tailored to your marketplace, get in touch today.
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