Digital payment processing innovations are sweeping across all industries in multiple different sectors, furthering consumer convenience. Between virtual fitting rooms in online shopping, digital payment options, same-day delivery, and AI-based suggestions; It’s key to have constant attention set on these new innovations that crop up at such a breakneck pace; to keep up with the expectations of your customer base.

Virtual Retail Shopping Utilizing Augmented Reality

Soon, augmented reality technology, currently prominent in the gaming industry, will be expanded toward retail. Providing customers, a virtual shopping experience that allows them to non-intrusively try on clothes digitally. By eliminating most of the time-wasting aspects of clothes shopping, you leave just the essential aspects of shopping that your customers enjoy.

Retailers are also exploring other methods of integrating augmented tech into their websites, potentially providing a feature that allows customers to hold products in hand virtually.

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning will soon integrate into the payments sector as it has in multiple other areas of society over the past few years. The potential to have a constant AI payment system that calculates and analyzes your customer’s purchases and payment preferences is an incredibly exciting notion for any business.

Block Chain Payments

The retail industry is slowly seeing a wide acceptance of blockchain payments. The Block Chain is described as a digital public ledger that facilitates and records private anonymous transactions.

It’s attractive to many consumers because of its robust security features, low-cost operational fees, and overall versatility and functionality. It can support business operations through numerous sectors like tracking and verifying the stock of your products, as well as processing payments without a third-party processor.

Real-Time Payments

In real-time payments, funds are facilitated through two separate parties without any delay. They’ve become extremely popular for both consumers and businesses alike, due to their speedy convenience in addition to their highly secure nature.

Same-Day Delivery

Same-day delivery has grown to be extremely popular over the years, steadily integrating into many grocers and retail businesses as consumers become increasingly impatient. As AI and robotics refine and improves the same-day delivery system, this growth is only expected to accelerate.

This can be an extremely lucrative source of revenue for businesses, as most charge a premium for these expedited services.

Biometric Security

Someday soon, you’ll be authenticating your purchases utilizing biometrics instead of a traditional password. The public has been utilizing biometric tech for years now, with the genesis being fingerprint IDs in smartphones. Now multiple types of biometric identification, including facial scanning, retinal scanning, hand scanning, etc., are becoming commonplace in multiple enterprises.

Because of their heightened security in comparison to their predecessors, biometrics are expected to make a big splash in consumer payments in 2023.

Virtual Assistants

Alexa and Siri have both formally acquainted the world with virtual assistants in our smartphones and smart speakers. And as consumers’ payment needs become more complicated, virtual assistants’ abilities are expected to grow beyond scheduling appointments, automating messages, and shuffling music. Alexa currently offers payment features like automatic ordering of prime-specific items utilizing special voice commands. Over the next few years, you can expect similar innovations across multiple different virtual assistants as AI technologies advance. To the point where one day you could ask your assistant “get me eggs” and they should know exactly what you mean.

It’s a Game of Catch Up

Consumers will always want their experiences to be equally convenient across all facets of their life. In turn, payment innovation will never stop as long as technological innovations keep barreling forward at an unrelenting pace. If a customer can play their favorite song in under a second, then from their perspective, it should be possible to pay for and receive their groceries in a fraction of the time. Customer expectations will always fluctuate and evolve based on the new technological innovations that support them in their day-to-day lives.  New payment processing trends will always follow these technological trends that proceed them, so it’s incredibly important to keep watch for any popular innovations that could find their way into the payments sector in the foreseeable future.