Special Series: The Omnicommerce Revolution with Yael Barak, VP of Product Management at Worldpay | Episode 334

Unlock the secrets of Omnicommerce with Yael Barak, VP of Product Management at Worldpay, as she shares her expertise on creating seamless commerce experiences for small businesses. From micro merchants to small enterprises, Yael reveals how Worldpay’s extensive capabilities—from card payments to e-commerce and niche verticals—are revolutionizing the way merchants connect with customers. Discover how advancements in AI are enabling hyper-contextualized scenarios, offering the perfect product at just the right moment.

Commerce360, an omni-channel solution designed by Worldpay, is a central focus of the discussion. Yael provides an in-depth look at its diverse functionalities, from handling retail locations and online sales to managing call centers and services, all through a central dashboard. This comprehensive solution allows businesses to streamline their operations and manage various aspects of their business from a single platform, enhancing efficiency and reducing the complexity of running a business.

The episode concludes with a discussion on the broader implications of these advancements for the future of commerce. As AI and other technologies continue to evolve, the potential for new business models and innovative solutions will only grow. Worldpay's commitment to supporting small businesses and helping them navigate this rapidly changing landscape is evident throughout the conversation, highlighting the company's dedication to empowering merchants with the tools and resources they need to succeed.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Thank you or mobile, you'll find WorldPay at the heart of great commerce experiences globally. In this five-part series, we'll dive deep into seamless commerce experiences across all customer journeys, including from the consumer and merchant perspectives. We'll also look at solutions in the market today and where Omnicommerce is heading in the future.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Hello and welcome everyone to this, the fifth and final episode in our series, in collaboration with WorldPay, about Omnicommerce. Today, we're going to be talking about the future of Omnicommerce. In the last episode, we discussed WorldPay's Omnicommerce solution called Commerce 360. So I suggest you go back and take a listen to that episode as well. It was episode 332. Joining me today is Yael Barak, the VP of Product Management here at WorldPay. Thank you so much for being here today and welcome back to the show. Thank you for having me Great. So let's go ahead and dive in. Tell our audience a little bit about yourself and your role at WorldPay.

Speaker 3: 1:23

Tell our audience a little bit about yourself and your role at WorldPay. Sure, so at WorldPay I lead our product team that is thinking about solutions and products for small businesses in the US. Sometimes we go direct to these small businesses, sometimes we partner with financial institutions like banks, in which case the products that we sell are always in the context of services that these merchants get from banks. So it's a kind of a different environment, and sometimes we work with other kinds of partners. So I guess a common denominator is it's all small business, small, ranging from very, very, very small micro merchants two to three people working in a business all the way to what we might even consider small enterprise, maybe businesses with a few locations.

Speaker 2: 2:06

Okay, and for those that have listened to this series, we've really been focusing on WorldPay from that kind of focus the omnicommerce for small business merchants. But just so people understand, WorldPay obviously is much, much more than that. So maybe give us a broad overview of what WorldPay does holistically.

Speaker 3: 2:27

Of course. So, yes, worldpay is a beast of a company one of the largest acquirers of payments merchant payments in the world, live in more than 80 countries and supporting businesses all the way from the small, small micro merchants that I support to global enterprises, wholesale names that everyone knows, recognizes and probably interacts with every day A variety of services, from accepting card payments and alternate payment methods to being able to make payouts and foreign exchange, treasury type, movements of currencies, solutions like point of sale so you know, technology that you have in stores, as well as e-commerce, and also some very niche verticals that require, maybe, a higher adherence to a strict regulatory and compliance requirements. So very, very vast and expansive in terms of our breadth of solutions and merchants that we work with.

Speaker 2: 3:25

So for this episode, let's talk about the future of Omnicommerce from two perspectives let's talk about Omnicommerce where it's heading, and then the future of your specific solution, commerce 360. So first let's talk about Omnicommerce today, you know, and meeting customers where they are. That's sort of been the theme of what we've talked about. Maybe, talk about Omnicommerce, but what's next?

Speaker 3: 3:48

Sure.

Speaker 3: 3:49

So we have been talking about, like you say, meeting customers where they are, mostly from the perspective of their physical context and what kind of devices they're on or what situation they're in, whether it's online or in-store.

Speaker 3: 4:03

I think the next interesting thing is to be meeting them at like a hyper-contextualized use case. So, for example, it's not just the fact that I'm online with a lot of AI applications that we're starting to see come to market. I can actually be very hyper-focused on the context that they're in and what they might be looking to do or buy, and so maybe, instead of waiting for them to reach the merchant, a merchant with the tools that we give them can get to the customer at the right moment in time in which they're looking for product or service, with the right offer at the right price point and, of course, using the right payment method and the right channel of commerce. So I think it's really taking it to the next level of being in the context of the customer and very focused on what the customer is looking to achieve in that moment and the considerations that they're taking.

Speaker 2: 5:04

And one of the things that we often talk about, and even the word Omnicommerce has the word commerce in it and the way you've described over the last few episodes. Obviously it's much bigger than just the commerce part, which is huge in and of itself, but do merchants want a solution that helps them run all aspects of their business? I mean, if you agree, then what would some of those things be in the future?

Speaker 3: 5:32

Yeah, absolutely, and we're starting to see some of that today. Again, I'm going to lean on AI here, but something that we've been working on with our partners is tools that help a merchant let's say, list inventory on their website. So if I'm a merchant, a small merchant with, let's say, 100 SKUs, 200 SKUs in my store, probably I'm not using enterprise level tools to build and manage my inventory, but a nice tool from you know that's AI driven can help me do that easily. We consume a spreadsheet. Build from that, let's say, a menu from a restaurant with product descriptions, with modifiers. Or, if I'm a retailer, build my inventory, list it on my website or on my mobile app, do the pricing for me.

Speaker 3: 6:21

Those are things that we're already starting to work on and I can see that extending into how do I then, if I'm an online retailer that works with logistic companies, like for shipping product, how do I optimize the way I ship multinationally? How do I work with the different customs and all of the countries that I ship to? Those things exist today, but they exist as let's call it, maybe hard-coded, like a preset Presets capabilities. You know, if I'm going to ship to this country, it's going to be the supplier. It's going to take the customs, it's going to be this much, but maybe, to help merchants overcome setting all that up, we can give them tools that intelligently do it for them. We can give them tools that intelligently do it for them.

Speaker 2: 7:04

So thinking maybe outside the box a little so outside of inventory and payments. I mean, I assume If you just put yourself in the shoes of a small business owner, any aspect of running their business could be from getting a bank loan to getting paying payroll to your employees to insurance for your business. You could just kind of go down the list of everything that they may do to run their business. Is that kind of the vision that you think will eventually happen for Commerce 360 and kind of the word Omnicommerce?

Speaker 3: 7:46

Sure, and again, part of it is already happening, both in Commerce 360 and other, I would say, vetted finance type product offerings from WorldPay and others.

Speaker 3: 7:59

So, yes, there are products like you mentioned all of them insurance and payroll management and small business landing and today they are being offered perhaps kind of a la carte.

Speaker 3: 8:10

Here's a menu of things we can do for you and then in the future, of course, continuing on the theme of context, they will be offered at the right point in time and at the right configuration.

Speaker 3: 8:22

So, if it's a loan, knowing exactly how much a merchant might be looking to finance or who the right provider of that financing is, because of their level, of the amounts that they want to lend or the level of risk that they're willing to take on merchants, the terms that they're willing to offer those are things that are going to start coming in.

Speaker 3: 8:43

I would call it the merchant experience learning from the B2C experience of getting offers to customers at the right time in the right context for the right price point through queues and data that is coming through assistance like their transaction volume, like their seasonality, like things like their levels of refunds, maybe of chargebacks, so being able to project or forecast a business that might need some cash induction, or a business that is seasonal and maybe needs to tide over for the next little bit of time and maybe needs to tide over for the next little bit of time. Those are absolutely all things that we're looking to transform from being fixed Like I said, here's a menu of all the things we can do for you to being targeted not just to the profile of a merchant but also to the point in time and events that are happening for that merchant.

Speaker 2: 9:38

Yeah, I almost think that there's another term or concept that will emerge that will encapsulate sort of that exact idea, because you're talking really about running your business, not just commerce. So what do you think about that?

Speaker 3: 9:54

We see in many verticals today all of the business management software platforms, that it almost seems like every vertical has its platform. Today, you know, I've seen platforms for I'm not kidding funeral homes management right, that's pretty niche. So someone figured out, though, that that vertical has specific needs that aren't covered by generic solutions. So all these things are already happening, and they're just going to continue to accelerate. Where we're going to sit in the middle is by providing the, the infrastructure and the I would say rails on which all of these platforms can run. So if, if I go back to our Commerce 360 platform, it can extend to different use cases of merchants, either by us building into different verticals, or today we already have a marketplace, partnership marketplace where other software providers can come in and literally build plugins into the point of sale, so that, if you are that niche business that relies on very specific requirements, functionalities, services, you don't necessarily have to wait for WorldPay to build it. Worldpay can provide a platform on which others can come in and enhance and participate in this marketplace.

Speaker 2: 11:17

Well, I think that's a good segue. You mentioned Commerce 360. So let's kind of flip over to talking about that again. So maybe, for those who haven't listened to a prior episode, can you just give us the high-level overview of what the product is today?

Speaker 3: 11:33

Absolutely so. Commerce 360 is an omni-channel point-of-sale solution for businesses ranging in size from micro to, I would say probably like small enterprise. It's got different form factors of the actual point-of-sale terminal. So, again, if you're a very small business, something very simple. Or if you're a more sophisticated business, that also has some requirements for the look and feel of the solution that you have in-house and it gets pretty sophisticated and pretty nice in terms of form factor. But it also allows you to run from the same system your retail location, your online, your call center, for example, your services, if you have people calling in. There's a dashboard and a portal that sits in the center of it, from which a merchant can interact with all of the different products and services that Commerce360 provides. So it's all run from that central location, which again gives you that omni-channel experience of wherever the customer, your customer, is coming from. They're coming into the same platform that you are working with.

Speaker 2: 12:46

Okay, and then, if you don't mind, share at least what you can about the product roadmap and where the product is headed in the near-term future.

Speaker 3: 12:55

Sure. So things that we're working on right now, I would say, first of all, extending the number of payment methods that a merchant can accept and also the types of payment rails that those methods work on. So very soon we will have a tap to pay on phone option Commerce 360. So merchants will be able to accept payments without actually having a payment terminal, just by by using their mobile phone. And then, I think, things that you'll start seeing unfold is, uh, going deep into certain verticals so that you know if you're, if you're running a salon, if you're running a bar, if you're running a lawn care business, you'll start seeing more features that that make sense in the context of your business. It might be appointment booking, it might be the ability to manage customer profiles and invoices and all of that. And we already have all these things but going deeper and deeper into your ability to customize them for your business and your use cases and the things that matter to you.

Speaker 2: 13:58

And as we kind of step back and really kind of look at the product from a futuristic perspective. So maybe these things haven't even met the roadmap yet, but you as kind of the product owner, when you're thinking about years down the road and trends and macro things going on and finance and technology things like crypto and blockchain and you mentioned AI a couple of times so what are your thoughts on things like that, how they might play a part of this, knowing that some of them aren't even really integrated into the ecosystem yet? But I'm sure you've given some thought to those types of things. So any input there?

Speaker 3: 14:42

Yeah, I think one very interesting thing. You mentioned cryptocurrencies and the thing that I think they introduced into all of our maybe cognizance is the sense of value is shifting a little bit, so that maybe you know right now value is inherently maybe the money I have in my checking account or the line of credit that I can extend to on my credit cards. But there might be other things that I have or own that hold value. Certainly. Obviously cryptocurrencies is one of them, but could be my loyalty points, could.

Speaker 3: 15:21

Can I lean into all of these forms of value from my customer because maybe there is a use case for me for that value? No, I'm really stretching into some conjuring of my imagination here, but I'll get back to the point of value isn't just the thing that sits in my bank account or can translate into credit anymore. Maybe we'll see it first in P2P services, because maybe people will be more comfortable exchanging things that aren't currency, hard currency. But I think when human beings start doing you know, get comfortable with, very quickly carries into commerce. Social media is a good example. Influencers are. Who would have thought right that someone dancing on TikTok?

Speaker 2: 16:54

Right. What do you think about the way and you mentioned this the way consumers have taken to the Zells of the world and those types of products almost pay with your bank, which we all do at least I think most people do in some way, shape or form already, whether that's a lot of times setting up your bank account with your local utility or water company or whatever, where they're just taking the money out. That concept's been around forever. But do you ever think about being a day where a retailer, you'd go in to pay for your dry cleaning and you pay with your bank account somehow, as opposed to pulling out a card? I mean, is that something that you're seeing today in kind of that different use case, or you still think that's kind of futuristic?

Speaker 3: 17:47

No, I definitely see it. I think it's very cultural dependent and I'll give you an example I live in Canada and here in Canada we're not as credit loving as our neighbors in the US. It's still very. We have a very strong reliance on credit. But there is a form of payment here called Interact, which is our local debit scheme, and in the context of retail people still very much love that form of payment, whereas in the context of online they still go to their credit card.

Speaker 3: 18:24

But I think, if I go farther out into other countries or other geographies like Asia, india or China, where we see more reliance on mobile wallets, and mobile wallets not just accessing again the cash on my bank account, but mobile wallets accessing cash through my mobile carrier, so through my mobile account, which is again, those are things that I think happened organically in these markets, both because the technology and the rails to access what we know in the West here as traditional forms of payment weren't in place so organically, they just developed the alternatives and then it became also the behavior of. You know, I'm already doing everything through my mobile phone. So now I have this super app on my phone which allows me to pay my electric bill and shop in the supermarket and basically run my life through one device. We haven't seen that so much in North America yet, but I think again, in different geographies and different cultures we're seeing different behaviors.

Speaker 2: 19:28

Yeah, and I can't believe that that's not coming. We talk about it a lot and we've talked about it on this series about Gen Z and them using mobile devices as their go-to for everything, and it has to be frictionless and all of that. I think there's other countries with PICs and other things, like in Brazil. I mean, basically, if you have your phone, you don't need a wallet, you have everything you need. I think the US is. I don't know about Canada, but I think the US is getting there. I mean, today, the only reason I carry a wallet, quite honestly, is I have my driver's license in there.

Speaker 3: 20:04

That's the same for me, and I live for the day in which I can have a digital driver's license and my digital insurance card and my digital like everything. You're right, so I don't have to carry that wallet, because I definitely don't like using cash anymore and every other form of payment I have is tied to my wallet, to my sorry my phone.

Speaker 2: 20:23

Yeah, yeah. So I definitely think that's some of these consumer trends that we've talked about. I think also kind of play into the future of the product that you're building. So as we come to the end of the series, we come to the end of this episode. Is there anything else or anything that we've missed, or anything else you want to talk about? Or maybe give the audience kind of a summary of what we've been covering, if you don't mind.

Speaker 3: 20:46

I think if anything comes through, if one thing comes through, I hope that it's the fact that what we do, we always do from the point of view of our customer. Who is that small business? And trying to understand the challenges that they have, which are unique to them, different from the bigger enterprise businesses whether it's cost, you know, margin compression, competition, cash flow and everything that we do is in order to meet those needs, but also to support them and their journey for growth, so that they do grow and they go from that micro to small to medium-sized merchant, and to give them a good experience while they do it, so it's easy for them, it's cost-effective, it's a nice physical experience, ergonomically, and that it does the and it serves their customer well as well, the consumers. I hope that that came through, because that really is what we're so hyper-focused on and what we keep in mind all the time, what we all work for every day.

Speaker 2: 21:52

Well, yael, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for being a big part of this series as well. I know your time is very valuable, so I really appreciate you being on the show. Thank you so much for being a big part of this series as well.

Speaker 3: 22:01

I know your time is very valuable, so I really appreciate you being on the show today. It's been a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 2: 22:04

And to all you listeners out there. I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story.

Speaker 1: 22:10

Thank you for tuning in today to this special series on Omnicommerce brought to you by WorldPay. To learn more about WorldPay and their Omnicommerce products and solutions, please visit wwwworldpaycom. Slash en slash products, slash commerce 360.