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professional lives can fully engage with customers and
The very point of salery point of sale prospects by speaking from experience. Merchants enjoy
The ve
chatting with fellow users who have first-hand knowledge
of products and services. And today's mobile and digital
apps are only a download away. These advanced, low-cost
solutions work in stores, online and in mobile channels,
UX begins with U making it easy to transact, improve efficiencies or launch
a business.

By Dale S. Laszig Mobile and digital apps are designed to be transparent
DSL Direct LLC and simple, but the intelligence behind them is complex,
especially in online marketplaces where transactions in-
mproving the user experience (UX) is an estab- volve multiple parties. Sanjay Saraf, chief technology of-
lished priority for merchant service providers, who ficer at Yapstone, reflected on the differences between
strive to make commerce fast, simple and seamless. legacy ecommerce models and the online marketplaces
I Advancements in B2C payments have transformed that power the sharing economy. "Before Yapstone, I man-
a single point of sale into myriad points of interaction, aged a multibillion-dollar ecommerce ecosystem," he re-
and many are finding their way into the B2B world. The called. "The challenges back then for pure play ecommerce
Federal Reserve's faster payments task force and cross- providers mostly concerned how to manage catalogs and
border payments innovations reflect efforts to make pricing, which were very uniform."
business transactions as simple and easy as peer-to-peer One-to-many
money transfers or splitting a dinner tab among friends.
Saraf noted that traditional ecommerce focused on the
The marketplace is also changing as new technologies nar- customer experience on the front-end and services for that
row the gap between giant brands and small merchants. known or anonymous consumer; marketplaces changed
This trend began about a decade ago, with the introduc- that by facilitating P2P transactions between anonymous
tion of smart, affordable digital tools that enable small buyers and sellers, who could be individuals or small
and midsize business (SMB) owners to compete with big businesses. Even large businesses are entering this eco-
brands. Plug-and-play solutions enable merchants to man- system to find buyers for their services in a marketplace,
age their businesses remotely through secure portals. he added.
Cloud-based, vertically focused subscription services are
continuously updated, keeping solutions secure, compli- "In the past, ecommerce was between two entities: the
ant and relevant to ever-changing industry and individual business and the consumer," Saraf said. "With marketplac-
requirements. es, we're seeing money movement among multiple entities:
sellers, anonymous buyers, and marketplace creators with
Today's merchants and consumers expect an excellent user platforms that enable sellers and buyers to transact with
experience without having to learn complicated new tech- each other. To participate in this landscape, banks can
nologies or worry about equipment obsolescence. Mobile choose to partner with [creators], build capabilities similar
carriers have created subscription services to keep con- to what we offer, or acquire fintech companies." Saraf not-
sumers in fresh, fashion-forward smartphones. Merchant ed that global marketplaces that serve anonymous buyers
service providers have built business-in-a-box solutions to and sellers don't own their inventory. In addition to com-
help merchants improve efficiencies while staying up to plying with local regulators and exchange rates, they must
date with evolving security, compliance and technology support multiple payments schemes, verify identities and
trends. onboard sellers with lightning speed, using AI, machine
Cost of usership learning and algorithms.

Merchant level salespeople (MLSs) typically have an en- MLSs who sell white-label and cloud-based solutions are
trepreneurial mindset, which makes them ideal ambas- like marketplaces. They don't always own their inventory.
sadors for the new wave of subscription-based service They leverage technology for fast authentication and on-
offerings. Whether MLSs are independent contractors or boarding and participate in a complex ecosystem of mer-
employees, or manage horizontal territories or vertical in- chants, technology providers and consumers. As the gap
dustries, they understand UX is the basic foundation from narrows between big brands and SMBs, it's time for small
which all commerce flows. By helping business owners and midsize service providers to think and act more like
and their customers have an excellent experience, they enterprises.
foster the trust and stability needed to solve complex prob- Dale S. Laszig, senior staff writer at The Green Sheet and managing
lems, compete in crowded markets, and gain and retain director at DSL Direct LLC, is a payments industry journalist and content
customers. MLSs also understand that being technology development specialist. She can be reached at dale@dsldirectllc.com
users can give them an inside edge with merchants. Pay- and on Twitter at @DSLdirect.
ments pros who use digital solutions in their personal and
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