Multi-Channel Systems

I was at a seminar last week and I was asked about payment systems in a multi-channel environment.

Even with an integrated system with a common CRM, product, stock and order database, the card processing systems are different.  The till systems do not use the internet card systems with the differences between pin entry in store and CV2 entry (and sometimes verified by Visa) online.

Someone mentioned that this was an issue when a customer returned goods to a store that had been bought online using Paypal, as the store system could not process a Paypal refund.

multi channel systems

I have taken over writing this blog from Rachel, so unfortunately the quality of English will suffer !!

Having completed the selection and implementation of an integrated multi-channel solution, I found it interesting to look back at the diverse range of suppliers we investigated. Apart from integrated solutions and traditional EPOS suppliers who have a partnership with an Ecommerce platform supplier, there are Ecommerce suppliers who have developed an EPOS system for their Ecommerce platform. In addition to having integrated CRM, home deliveries, collect from store, multi-shipments (and therefore multi-payments) of orders, these Ecommerce suppliers are specialists in consumer facing web sites.

It will be interesting to see whether the user interface for the consumer on the web site becomes a more important criteria than the user interface for the till operator in these integrated systems in the future.