Payment with Scan & Go
Using a Scan & Go solution comes with many perks and benefits. One of them is the opportunity to make use of a much broader range of payment methods, thanks to integrating mobile payment. Here, you will find out how to make the most of this feature, while still complying with regional fiscalization regulations.
Giving customers complete freedom in choosing how to pay for their purchase is the height of convenience. And this doesn’t just mean providing a choice between cash and card. With mobile payment, a much wider range of payment methods becomes available – from PayPal to SEPA to crypto currencies.
For mobile self-checkout, mobile payment is the designated match. Because what could be more appropriate than rounding off the self-service shopping experience with a self-service checkout, using one’s own device? This way, customers can skip the checkout line as well as use their already registered personal payment accounts or wallets.
But how can a retailer allow for so many payment choices without too much of a hassle? This is just one point we will look into when summarizing how payment works with Scan & Go.
What is mobile payment?
When we talk about mobile payment, we talk about an electronic form of payment using mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets or smartwatches. Here, a further distinction can be made between two types: payments completed purely on the mobile device (remote payments) and those where a mobile device is used to interact with a physical payment terminal (proximity payments).
The latter is already common in many retail stores, where it is possible to swipe your smartphone over a terminal to pay via such services as Apple Pay or Google Pay. While in this case the customer still needs to use a designated checkout area, fully remote mobile payment has the advantage of eliminating any physical interaction with hardware or personnel all together.
Mobile Payment typically uses the device’s mobile data connection to complete an online transaction that is technologically similar to a normal e-commerce payment via the browser. Many services offer one-click payment, secured by the phone’s biometric authentication systems (Fingerprint, Face-ID etc.).
Payment methods and Scan & Go
Today, the choices of mobile payment are vast, including methods such as
- Apple Pay
- PayPal
- WeChat Pay
- Google Pay
- Credit- and debit cards
- Crypto currencies
- SEPA
to name just a few.
For a retailer, this could mean a lot of work depending on which payment services he would like to offer with his Scan & Go solution. Luckily, there is a much easier way to integrate a great choice of payment options, without having to invest too much time, money and effort: Payment service providers.
A payment service provider allows the merchant to integrate numerous payment methods by only implementing one single API. This way, all the services supported by the provider become available at once, with no need to implement them one by one.
Furthermore, payment service providers usually operate as a service model, which means they provide a unified payment gateway that also makes features like risk management and fraud prevention accessible.
This not only gives people the freedom of choice in their preferred method of payment, but also has a positive effect on adoption, since most users will not require to sign-up for any new service to enjoy mobile payment – but instead just use the same credentials they already use for online shopping and the like.
How receipts work with mobile self-checkout
Even though the idea of mobile payment is digital, when it comes to proof of purchase, there is still a choice between printed receipts and purely digital ones.
Digital receipts are a convenient and sustainable alternative to printed receipts and can be issued by many retailers without additional effort. After payment, the app automatically creates a digital receipt that can verify the user’s purchase. In some countries, such as Germany and Austria, certain fiscalization regulations require an additional security layer in form of a unique QR Code to the receipt. For mobile self-checkout solutions, this can be achieved by partnering with fiscalization providers.
However, if the customer prefers a paper receipt, and in countries where this is still mandatory, the digital receipt can simply be printed at a printer in the checkout area.