What Can Digital Payment Statistics Tell You About Your Sales?

The only constant is change. Where have you heard that before? Well, in a nutshell, we hear it or experience it firsthand, almost every day of our lives. We are so conditioned to change that we barely notice it. Then, every so often, almost as a matter of course, we suddenly take note of something and realize just how much it has changed.

Such is the world of retail. As buyers and sellers alike, we have lived through constant increments of imperceptible but inexorable change. Fast-forward to 2021; the retail landscape nowadays is vastly different from what it was as recently as the 1990s. For that, we can thank the launch of online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, and payment gateways like PayPal at the back end of the 90s.

Why Should Every Business Consider Implementing Digital Payment Statistics?

Adapt or die. Another very familiar phrase and very relevant to us in more ways than we care to admit. History is littered with the skeletons of inventions and ideas that were brilliant when they were first hatched. Failing to read the signs and to acknowledge the need for change gradually made them obsolete

No business is immune to these threats. So, how do we equip ourselves to move with the times? Simple; we listen to what our business is telling us about our business. We use the digital payment statistics that are produced every single time we interact with a customer.

Well, that’s easy enough, right? Not really. You have to collect this information and analyze it and draw conclusions. Then you must take action to adjust for the things the information tells you. To do this you have to put a system in place that will gather all these digital payment statistics.

Which Types Of Systems Can Help You And How?

We probably tend to take a buy and sell transaction for granted. And some of us may be shocked to realize how much information is generated by a single sales transaction. Information that we can put to very good use. With the evolution of digital business and payment mechanisms, this wealth of data is all electronic and there for the taking. We just need the correct type of system to capture it.

There are several dedicated third-party data gathering and analysis systems available. These systems are integrated into the sales processing platform and are configured to trap certain digital payment statistics for analysis. Whilst these systems read and record the data that is generated by a transaction, they play no part in the actual transaction.

The other option is the Point of Sale (POS) system. Many businesses use the POS system purely to ring up the sale. Most POS systems, however, record all the data from every transaction and have the capability to analyze some or all of these digital payment statistics. POS systems are not primarily intended as business intelligence tools. They do, nevertheless, provide some powerful analytical functionality in a very cost-effective manner.

As with all software products, there is always the option of developing a bespoke custom solution. This is not really a sensible option for most businesses given a large number of off-the-shelf solutions available. It’s only appropriate for businesses that are very specialized or use metrics that are unique to them.

What Can Stats Tell You About Your Sales?

In general, statistics gathered from the past play a very big role in how we tackle or plan for the future. Historical data gathered from digital payment systems are critical to our understanding of our business, our products, and our customers.

Remember, the digital payment platform generates and stores a lot of data about every single interaction we have with a customer. Considering that digital payment is forecast to grow at an annual rate of almost 14% over the next few years, this is the future. Let’s see what just a few payment statistics can tell us.

Customer preferences and behavior. There are so many customer-related metrics that it would be almost impossible to track all of them. Most businesses would select a few of the most significant ones.
Repeat purchases. This would be a very reliable gauge of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Once off sales. There are many reasons why a customer would only buy from a particular business once. Some are perfectly innocuous, but there may be danger signals in this statistic.
Product sales volumes. This helps not only in inventory planning but also in identifying cross-selling or upselling opportunities.
Marketing impact. Tracking sales of promotional items indicate the effectiveness of a particular campaign.
Demographic information. It may be possible to gather additional information about a customer that could help in refining product offerings or marketing efforts.
Business performance. A few simple measurements can say a lot about the health of a business. A stitch in time saves nine. Sales growth trends, in gross terms or by product or segment can provide early warning of opportunities or threats.

There are many more statistics that are commonly used, but that would be a whole separate discussion. We have only touched on a few here. We think, though, that the point is clearly made.

What Tools Can You Use?

There is a lot of choices available in the sphere of sales and revenue growth. From simply analyzing a few metrics gathered through digital payment statistics to employing a full-blown business intelligence and consultancy solution.

Small businesses or those in a particular niche may well get enough benefit from the lower-end solution. Typically, at this end of the market, a tighter sales and market research budget will be a limiting factor.

At the other end of the scale, large retailers with multiple verticals and diverse product offerings might prefer to implement enterprise-level integrated business intelligence solutions that gather and analyze the data and produce customized reports at the push of a button.

Elly’s Digital Payment Software Solutions Can Help

Wherever you are in the quest to understand your digital payment statistics, Elly has a simple, cost-effective, and fully integrated solution. A full-function Point of Sale system combines with a single-device payment platform that provides all available payment methods on a single device.

The POS system supports dynamically encrypted payment in a basket of cryptocurrencies. At the same time, the system gathers all the relevant digital payment statistics to take your business to the next level.