The Importance of Reporting and Analytics for a Mobile or Supermarket Merchant!
Why Does a Mobile Merchant Need Real-Time Reports!
As a mobile merchant, the payment processing part of your business is essential. You need to provide several payment methods for your customers. Otherwise, you may lose a part of them. Nowadays, more and more people are not even keeping cash in their wallets anymore. So, you need to be prepared to let them pay with a credit card. And this is the exact reason why all supermarket merchants offer this payment alternative.
The payment processor that you are using is an important choice that you need to make. And one of the factors that you need to base your decision on is the reporting feature. You need to make sure that the software provided by the company must include a real-time reporting feature than can give access to all the payments made in real-time. This feature is essential for a mobile business because he will need to make sudden decisions. And to do that properly, real-time and reliable information is the best support that will help to make the best decisions.
Keep in mind that the reporting feature needs to be able to provide you all the information that you need. Also, it must be built to be simple to use. The higher the complexity, the more useless it will be. So, before you choose a payment processing company, you need to ensure that the quality of its features is high-enough. You do not want to pay for software that will drop the efficiency of your company. You want the exact opposite. This means a simple software that is simple to use and will increase the efficiency drastically.
How Can a Mobile Merchant Benefit from an Analytics Feature?
As a pair to the real-time reporting, the analytics feature is another essential feature that any mobile merchant will need. The more statistics you have about your company, the better. And this includes the analytics feature that will provide you essential information about the company. There are two main benefits that you will get from this type of feature:
• Better decisions. The more information you have about your business, the easier it will be to find the best alternative for your company. In the long term, the decision made based on this information will help you grow the company at the most perfect speed. Do not try to rush the expansion of your company if you do not have all the important things ready. If you rush, then you will expose the company to risks. So, you need to take it easy and advance step by step.
• Clear understanding. The analytics feature will help you form a clear image of your company. And that is essential for an important decision taker. So, if you lack a piece of essential information, then your decisions may cause losses to the company. For this reason, you need to have a clear image of all the parts of your business. And financial analytics is one of the most important parts that will provide you with that information.
Besides these two features, there several more that you need to ensure that the payment processing company provides:
• Mobile payment devices. The newest models look like a phone accessory. Your clients will be able to make payments with their cards directly through the device connected to your phone. They can be used to receive more payments in a store to prevent long lines from forming.
• Payment acceptance from anywhere. But you can also use mobile devices from anywhere if the payment processor includes this feature in their software. This is essential for a mobile business. Because you will move all around the city or the country, and you need to be able to receive payments from anywhere.
• Offline processing. And because you will move around, then you will not always have access to the internet. So, you need to ensure that you can receive payments even when you are offline. This means that the transaction will be saved in the software, and when you reach an area with an internet signal again, it will be finished.
Why Is the Reporting and Analytics Part Essential for a Supermarket Merchant?
The reporting and analytics features are essential for a supermarket merchant (https://www.bams.com/supermarket-merchant-account/) as well. Keep in mind that the volume of transactions in a supermarket is enormous. So, they need to have all the information about every transaction-ready at any time. Otherwise, bad decisions can be made, and losses may appear. New supply needs to be ordered daily, and the amount you will need can only be based on the reports provided by the payment processing software. The amount stocked minus the amount sold will most likely mean the amount required. And this must be done for tens or hundreds of products daily.
As you can imagine, the resupplying can’t be done without having precise reports and analytics. But there are other benefits that a supermarket can get from a reliable payment processing company as well. For example, the EMV systems, including the POSs needed by the supermarket to receive their payments legally. If the systems of a supermarket are not updated for the EMV chips, then it will be exposed to risks. How so? Well, the supermarket will be responsible for all the transactions made with cards that have EMV chips. And if any problem arises, the supermarket will suffer all the losses.
Another one of the features that a payment processor must provide to supermarkets is integrations. A single company may not be able to provide every type of feature that all the supermarkets need. But it must be able to provide all the integrations that cover the needs of supermarkets. This means that a supermarket can choose to use only the integrations that will cover their needs and ignore the rest. But if the software does not have this ability, then it will not be able to take care of all the needs that a supermarket may have.
