Katie Swett, Square Online Experiences and Seller Growth Product Lead
Katie Swett is Head of Product for eCommerce at Square. Her team focuses on helping small and large businesses get online and sell online in a way that works across any channel they’re selling on.
The following is a transcript from an interview between Square and Katie Swett. It has been edited for length and clarity.
As commerce has evolved in the last few years, how do customers prefer paying? How do you offer them new ways to transact they feel most comfortable with – while doing the best thing for your business and your bottom line?
Katie: The combinations of how a customer can order and pay these days has expanded so drastically. It used to be, you go into a store and you have your card present in your hand, you swipe it on the hardware, and then you get it back and that was a "safe" transaction for a seller to take. Because they knew you were there. You had a card, it was not risky. The opposite was you've ordered online. No one ever saw your card. He just typed in some numbers and it was a card-not-present transaction and therefore the credit card industry has kind of viewed that as, okay, this is maybe a little bit more risky because we don't have this person here.
For cart building, you can build a cart in person by yourself, you can build in-person on a screen (like a kiosk), and then once you've built the cart, whether you do that remotely or in-person, there's a payment component. You can pay directly with a seller or you can pay on your own device. So these permutations of where are you building a cart and then how you actually pay for that transaction and fulfill it are really blurring the lines and causing the industry to kind of scratch their heads and say, "wait, what is a risky transaction?" So I actually think our businesses and sellers are ahead of the game when it comes to redefining the different permutations of what these are. What's risky? What's not? And what is being present versus not being present.
Has this shift in commerce been in motion or is this an emerging trend?
Katie: COVID-19 accelerated a lot of the adoption of technology, both for buyers and for our sellers. Some of those changes were temporary and very obviously temporary and others really enabled conveniences that are here to stay. Two years ago, At Square, we couldn't figure out how we could get a large group of people to scan a QR code, right? How do you make that shift? To use their phone and take on that learning curve. It seemed foreign and difficult. Fast forward two years and even my parents are sitting at a restaurant scanning a QR code to see the menu. So I think commerce has changed and that has made people a lot more comfortable with using technology.
So QR codes is one. I think mobile wallets can also save you the hassle of adding billing and shipping information during checkout for online purchases. Apps like Cash App might delight you because they have boosts and reward you for engaging with certain sellers that you really like. We definitely see the emergence of QR codes, mobile wallet, curbside [pick-up] from a business perspective. How is it either making your customers more efficient so they're getting through the line faster or giving them back some real value or delight in the process.
How might an omnichannel experience for customers impact how a business accepts payments?
Katie: Being where your customers are is so important and I think omnichannel might have gotten a bad rap years ago because it meant being everywhere all at once and you didn't necessarily do a good job of being in those forty channels. The priority for our sellers is to make sure they're choosing those channels really thoughtfully that their customers are in so they can serve them well. That flexibility is crucial because there's different types of transactions, so it depends. If you have a routine, you get gas and pay, that's probably going to be a pretty consistent payment experience for you. I think there's other types of transactions that happen when you remember or when it's convenient and being available to those buyers at that moment is so crucial. That's where this being in different channels approach really matters.
She says regardless of what type of payment methods your customers prefer, consider what might be the best fit for your business and your unique customers.
Katie: It is really important to understand your business and how your customers interact with your business when you think about making transactions quick and more frictionless. If you have a physical location with long lines, maybe you need to be offering pre-order or self-service options. You can line bust and make the ordering more efficient by giving your buyers a checkout experience that's really frictionless in-person. If you're more of a traditional eCommerce or digital brand, you might be thinking "we have higher priced items and it's a lot of consideration. If we offer a buy now, pay later method for payment, like an Afterpay, we can actually capture a huge percentage of sales that might be considered. Maybe they'll come back and think about it later." You can break down that payment into something that feels manageable and clearly articulate how you pay that off in four installments.
How can business owners approach commerce? What are some strategies they can leverage?
Katie: As you think through, "how am I building out my business strategy? What channels am I in?" prioritize making sure you have access to who your customers are and able to build a business off of those existing customers. It's expensive to find new customers and your existing loyal customers can often get forgotten about when you spend a lot of time thinking about how many channels you can expand into. Making sure you can really reinvest your time and energy into those customers who have purchased with you and that the followup experience is amazing is something we've seen kind of help future-proof some of these businesses that are really trying to figure out how to balance their time.