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Education

For example, despite their being touted as a In a practical sense, businesses that opt to remove legal tender
seamless buying experience, Amazon Go stores from their stores might reduce theft and increase employee safety.
require shoppers to "check in," so part of the Checkout becomes more efficient also, as cashiers don't have to
time theoretically saved at checkout is spent handle bills or make change.
getting into the store instead. Item selection is
limited, and the weight- or item-sensing tech- Customers benefit not only from the security and convenience
nology can be buggy. of high-speed, low-friction digital transactions, but due to the
associated data, they also can take advantage of more relevant,
And based on the videos I've seen, the time in- timely and specific offers and discounts that align with their
vested in making a facial-recognition vending purchase history and preferences, creating a more satisfying
machine purchase using a touchscreen requir- purchase experience and enhancing customer loyalty.
ing multiple inputs from the user is enormous
when compared to dropping a couple of coins Cash does not provide the merchant with any data, let alone the
into a slot and mashing the Diet Coke button. rich insights that accompany digital transactions. Though some
merchants may favor cash to avoid the small fees involved in
There are also socio-political issues in addition accepting digital payments, in the end, cash may cost the merchant
to technological hurdles. As discussed above, more due to a lack of customer knowledge and communication.
some cultures have an affinity for coin and pa- Ultimately, cash costs merchants far more than they think.
per money. And U.S. cities' concerns about pri-
vacy or discrimination against unbanked locals Cory Capoccia is president of Womply, www.womply.com, a leading software
have restricted or banned cashless retail sales partner to the payments industry and the top provider of front-office software to
and moved the NFL to provide in-stadium cash-
to-card machines where customers can con- small businesses. Contact him a ccapoccia@womply.com.
vert their greenbacks into prepaid cards. This
streamlines the long concession lines, but effec-
tively moves the friction elsewhere and creates
its own problems.

"Of course, there's another reason for teams
wanting to go cashless and it's not about ef-
ficiency during games," Michael Colangelo Payment Solutions
reported in "Expect NFL teams to go cashless
in the near future" published June 19, 2019, by
Touchdown Wire. "It's a lot easier to track custom- For App Developers
er buying habits when they are using a payment
form that creates reams of data."
eProcessing Network provides
Exceptional value for payment solutions that intergrate
merchants and consumers
directly into web pages, shopping
And there, friends, is the crux of the matter. carts, third-party software,
While cash is simpler, anonymous, friendlier to and mobile apps for both iOS
the unbanked, and in some cases faster, it can
never provide the immense value to both mer- and Android.
chant and customer that the wealth of data de-
rived from digital transactions affords. ePN’s FREE Developer
Support Center provides
Merchants, manufacturers and marketers can online documentation,
all benefit from the data associated with digital sample code, and support
transactions – when they have the software to
organize and interpret it. Customer relationship for registered developers.
management platforms powered by transaction
data are invaluable tools in creating meaningful ePN has payment options to fit all of
marketing campaigns, building customer loy-
alty and increasing revenue. Business analytics your merchant’s needs
software can transform transaction data into in- (800) 296-4810
sights about revenue trends, competitor bench-
marking, and customer buying habits that are eProcessingNetwork.com
not easily obtained in any other way.
© eProcessing Network, LLC. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

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