Payment gateways have never been more popular than during COVID-19, and the size of the market is only growing as digital commerce accelerates. With grocery stores, sporting goods manufacturers, and home improvement retailers becoming more essential to the pandemic lifestyle, these, among other merchants, have added to the market size for payment gateways. As a result, online merchants are benefitting from the influx of gateways they can choose to work with.

To learn more about navigating the complexities of payments flows with the help of orchestration, and to discuss Mercator Advisory Group findings on what the crowded payment gateway landscape offers to online merchants PaymentsJournal sat down with Daniel Wideman, VP of Product Management at Spreedly, and Raymond Pucci, Director of Merchant Services at Mercator Advisory Group.

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Platforms bring benefits to payments space

Platforms are pushing the payments envelope and services in exciting ways. They are rapidly adapting to this altered way of life, innovating new ways to make recurring online payments and members’ dues models, expanding delivery and order ahead services for restaurants, and even offering payment tools for digital publishers.

“I think what all these platforms have in common,” remarked Wideman, “is that they really allow merchants to focus their resources on the most important areas of business where they can add unique value.” To accelerate time to revenue for merchants, these platforms partner with other platforms that focus on non-core competency tasks.

Now, we’re seeing platforms that enable merchants to more quickly and easily meet new consumer demands for certain services, such as food delivery and home goods. “This is really rapidly moving from nice to have to urgently necessary,” said Wideman. Those that embrace a multi-provider strategy are positioning themselves to grow faster and with more efficiency when using a payments orchestration layer. 

Platform business models and traditional merchants have different payment needs