Payments is a continuously evolving sector, and evolution of course encompasses a wide array of newcomers. New market entrants come in the form of startups to establish players in other segments which have identified a gap in the market.
A notable example of the latter is GoDaddy, an online domain registry, which entered payments three years ago with the launch of its Smart Terminals. With connections to countless businesses already established via its registry, the company believes it is uniquely positioned for success in the high-value, but increasingly competitive payments field.
Lone Nielsen, Director of Product Marketing at GoDaddy, gave Payment Expert an overview of the firm’s payments operations shortly after it launched a recent beta test of an offline payments product geared towards retail businesses.
Payment Expert: Thanks for speaking with us Lone. Firstly, what prompted GoDaddy to become more involved in the payments space with the introduction of Smart Terminals?
Lone Nielsen: GoDaddy aims to be the one-stop shop for small businesses looking to start, grow, and scale their businesses, both online and in-person, and payments are at the centre of everything.
Before we released the first GoDaddy Smart Terminal three years ago, many of our customers used an array of point-of-sale (POS) systems with different management capabilities, creating a broken commerce ecosystem that was time-consuming to manage.
Since then, we’ve set about creating a commerce platform that works seamlessly across every channel of their business, so entrepreneurs can focus on growth. The result is our connected suite of commerce and payment solutions, which helps small businesses conduct and manage their sales anywhere, at any time, while meeting customer expectations for fast, easy, and secure checkouts.
PE: As a domain registry with a wide network of businesses, how is GoDaddy uniquely positioned to provide a payments offering?
LN: As GoDaddy’s evolved, we’ve continued to work closely with small businesses to understand their wants, needs, and specific challenges of every aspect of business. We serve 21 million small businesses around the world.
We’re uniquely positioned to provide effective payment offerings because we know what both business owners and consumers are looking for in terms of commerce, and we continuously work to provide solutions that address those needs.
PE: From your experience of working with these small businesses, what payment pain points do merchants face that GoDaddy seeks to remedy?
LN: One big challenge small businesses face is how owners are often piecing together several different commerce solutions and none of their systems are talking to each other.
For example, if an entrepreneur is running an online store with one company and using a POS with another, they are logging into two separate platforms to track their sales and inventory. This increases the likelihood they will sell more than they have in stock, which can cause shipping delays and poor customer experiences.
Small business owners need simple and easy-to-use commerce solutions that save them time because they already wear so many hats. We launched the GoDaddy Smart Terminal POS to help bridge this gap for SMBs.
Our POS can operate as a standalone solution for brick-and-mortars – taking different forms of payment – stays on top of inventory, makes catalogue management easy, and so on. However, our Smart Terminals also work seamlessly with their online store for a full omni-commerce solution, meaning the SMB can track sales and inventory, offer curbside or in-store pick-up orders, and manage everything from one organised dashboard.
PE: There have been various highly publicised incidents of tech outages affecting businesses in recent years. Has this shone a light on the importance of offline payments technology?
LN: Given that credit and debit cards are now the most used and preferred methods of payment, business owners need to be able to accept these forms of payment wherever they are. Business owners who are constantly on-the-go or find themselves in more remote locations (like food trucks or businesses at a festival) can’t solely depend on a strong internet connection to execute sales.
Having a POS with access to offline payments becomes more important in these scenarios, as it helps businesses maintain service and keep their business running no matter how remote the destination.
GoDaddy now enables offline mode so business owners can still accept in-person dip and tap transactions via credit, debit, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, as well as cash payments without internet connection.
At the end of the day, business owners can see a record of any offline transactions by visiting the ‘Transactions’ page in their GoDaddy Dashboard and filtering for payments created offline.
PE: Are some businesses being left behind in an increasingly digitised and web-based payments ecosystem and what does GoDaddy advise to be the quickest and secure strategy to update legacy systems?
LN: Small business owners are faced with urgent business needs every day that take priority over researching the latest commerce or POS technologies. However, based on a recent GoDaddy survey, this could be costing them, with 41% of Gen Z saying they have not shopped with a business because it didn’t offer Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store.
Updating old or outdated payments capabilities can make a huge difference to a small business’s success. Yet, by the time an SMB is ready to make a switch, it can be overwhelming and difficult to know where to even start. But now thanks to Generative AI, it doesn’t have to be.
At GoDaddy, we’ve built generative AI-powered solutions that save business owners a significant amount of time and also help them grow sales in the process. The main one being GoDaddy Airo, which needs just a simple description of your business and can create a branded website for you in minutes.
Additionally, we’ve also built some interesting AI features into our commerce products. For example, a cafe owner can take a picture of their menu board from their Smart Terminal POS, and GoDaddy Airo will create and digitise their product catalogue in minutes. Plus, the GoDaddy Smart Terminal POS supports features like Buy Online and Pick Up In-Store that consumers really want.
PE: You’ve highlighted food trucks and farmers’ markets as ideal clients for Smart Terminals. Why should these businesses focus on products like this instead of pushing for continued use of physical cash?
LN: Consumers want diverse payment options. Our data tells us that 69% of consumers say it is important for businesses to have contactless digital payment methods available. There is also a strong generational element, with 73% of Gen Z and 83% of Millennials saying “Buy Online, Pickup In-Store” is important to them, but only one in three (34%) small businesses offer it.
Additionally, 85% of Gen Z and 82% of Millennials said it is important for small businesses to accept contactless digital payments, yet 27% of small businesses do not accept digital wallet payments.
Offering a range of payment methods, including digital wallets, contactless payments, and cash, is essential to reaching and converting all consumers.
PE: Retail payments is a highly competitive space. How has GoDaddy made its payments proposition stand out from the crowd?
LN: Plenty of companies provide payment offerings and POS solutions for one or two stages of the business lifecycle. But what sets GoDaddy apart is the way we support business owners throughout their entire business journey.
For example, let’s pretend I’m a new small business owner and bought the domain name LoneCookies.com from GoDaddy. I would also get a branded Payable Domain pay.LoneCookies.com that I could send to customers to pay for my desserts.
I could use GoDaddy Airo to build my entire website and set it up for e-commerce, and if my business grew enough to open my own shop, I could add a Smart Terminal to make sure all the inventory from my online store syncs with my brick-and-mortar.
GoDaddy supports small businesses no matter what stage of business they’re in. However, GoDaddy is also unique in that we partner with banks to help provide even more small businesses with the latest innovative payment solutions (including modern POS hardware, software and ecommerce). You can see this come to life in our recent partnerships with Worldpay, Elavon and Nexi.
PE: What outcomes are you expecting from the beta testing of Smart Terminals with participating merchants? Is it too early to comment on emerging findings?
LN: We are still in beta testing of this offline payments feature, and while we don’t have any findings and learnings to share at the moment, we’ve purposefully made the beta available to all GoDaddy Payments customers in the US who have a Smart Terminal or Smart Terminal Flex to expedite those findings.
PE: Can we expect GoDaddy to make further moves in the payments sector over the coming years?
LN: GoDaddy’s commerce capabilities will continue to evolve to meet the needs of small businesses. As new forms of preferred payment methods emerge, and new technologies expand the potential for product development, GoDaddy will be at the forefront of these developments.
