Donating to OzHarvest this Christmas

Operation: Giving back this Christmas

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‘Tis the season of giving, which is why LatPay is donating a percentage of its profits to OzHarvest – Australia’s leading food rescue organisation. 

Since 2004, OzHarvest has been on a mission to eliminate food hunger and food waste. It collects quality excess food from more than 3,500 commercial outlets and delivers it to over 1,300 charity partners across the country. Education is also a crucial part of its operation, aiming to equip Australians with the information and skills they need to eat healthfully and sustainably on a budget. 

‘Tis the season of giving, but ‘tis often also the season we are most wasteful with our food. Think of all the leftovers from Christmas lunches and parties that end up going old at the back of our fridges. 

Here at LatPay, we are making an effort to be conscious of our food waste, and are thrilled to also be doing our bit to ensure no Aussie goes hungry this Christmas. Join us in OzHarvest’s fight against food waste and hunger by donating food, your time or money here.

NHS staff and volunteers are the true heroes

We’re giving back to NHS staff and volunteers this Christmas

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We are donating a percentage of our profits to the NHS Charities Together COVID-19 Appeal to say thank you to all NHS staff for their courageous work and contribution during what continues to be a scary and turbulent time in history. 

Launched back in March to support NHS staff, volunteers and patients impacted by COVID-19, the appeal has raised over £140 million so far. 

£30 million was put to work immediately during the peak of the pandemic, providing staff and volunteers with a comfortable space to break and electronic tablets so patients and staff could stay in contact with loved ones. Money also went toward providing bereavement support and counselling for staff to protect their mental health and wellbeing. 

The appeal was created in liaison with NHS England, national bodies, NHS Charities Together members and national giving partners. 

If you’d like to join us in giving back to those who’ve given everything to our communities this year, donate here. 

Streamlining identity verification & payment processing in hospitality 

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Valid8 provides key add-on services to software vendors in the hospitality and short-term home rental markets, particularly as their customers are moving rapidly towards touchless processes and greater digital interaction.

Valid8’s customers are generally established providers of customer interaction software, particularly associated with the verification of customers, pre-auth and post-stay payments, as well as the issuance of digital or physical keys.

 

The need for a better solution

Customers utilising short-term accommodation were previously required to prove their identity and provide a pre-auth payment which would often be held for days after checkout. This provided a poor customer experience, particularly when customers had travelled a long distance and just wanted to get to their room. 

On the other hand, administration time and costs for facility owners were generally high, particularly in instances where poor security led to a data breach.  

This has been highlighted with major corporations such as Hilton, MGM Resorts & Hyatt collectively losing over 500 million highly sensitive customer records, resulting in actual or potential fines of tens of millions. 

 

Considerations when deciding to use Latpay + Nuggets

The solution had to seamlessly integrate the identity verification process with payments, plus the ability to ensure total data security for guests without a major change in the operations. 

Further to this, these functions needed to be fully integrated into the existing customer interaction software that direct customers provide to venues, enabling touchless key issue, menu ordering, service bookings and payment without the need to download multiple apps. 

 

The Latpay + Nuggets solution

Latpay & Nuggets incorporated into Valid8’s hospitality service, enhancing the underlying software and fully integrating with the venue’s existing platform, ultimately creating a seamless customer experience. The existing tight integration between Latpay and Nuggets was key to this ability.

Features utilised by the client: 

  • Secure Identity Document, personal details and credit/debit card storage with consent-based access
  • Customer ID verification
  • Face recognition
  • Tokenised Credit Card(s) linked to guest account
  • Card Pre-auth
  • Mobile and EFTPOS/MPOS payments (Front Desk/Restaurant/Bar/Poolside etc.)
  • Fast-Checkout payment finalisation from App

 

Major benefits from using Nuggets + Latpay 

  • Reduced staff needed at Front Desk
  • Reduces payment processing costs (particularly for International credit cards)
  • Faster processing of key allocation or enables physical or digital key self-service
  • Remove transfer of documents/cards between parties – no-touch processing
  • Faster and better customer experience where customers want self-service
  • The customer only needs to undertake ID/account setup process once (not every check-in)
  • Easier accommodation of multi-lingual needs for ID, payment and check-in processes.
  • Reduces card and payment fraud risk
  • Removes ID and guest data breach risks
  • Increased comfort and surely for guests on ID and payment theft risks
  • Removes use of insecure/forgettable/cumbersome username/passwords
  • Compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
  • Simplifies car park entrance access pre-check-in (no need to issue passes)
  • Enables contactless venue/room delivery via third parties
  • Secures bags and vehicles (only verified access to guest assets)
  • Trust-based history enables removal of pre-auth requirements
  • Facilitates increased revenue opportunities by enabling third-party service provider payments with simplified revenue splits

Interested in seeing what Latpay & Nuggets can do for your business? Find out more about our ID and payment platform using biometrics and blockchain technology.

Developing a Bulletproof Go-To-Market Strategy. Smiling business man shakes hand of another business man.

Developing a Bulletproof Go-To-Market Strategy

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Whether you’re a start-up company or you’re looking to expand your product or service offering, you’ll need a bulletproof go-to-market strategy to ensure the success of your launch.

Follow this in-depth guide on the benefits of a well-executed plan as well as the things you should consider when creating an effective strategy.

 

What is a go-to-market strategy?

Simply put, a go-to-market strategy is a detailed plan of action an organisation executes to bring a product, brand, feature or location to market.

A well-thought-out strategy helps to uncover profitable customer pain points, target the right audience and integrate the most comprehensive marketing strategies to ultimately maximise your return on investment.

 

What are the benefits of a go-to-market strategy?

A well-constructed and thoughtfully executed go-to-market strategy aims to provide businesses with a competitive advantage over their competition.

Benefits of a well-executed go-to-market strategy include:

  • A reduction in operational costs
  • A reduction in the length of time to market
  • A significant minimisation of risk often associated with product and service launch failures
  • Structured contingency plans to ensure ease of adaptation to change
  • A clearly defined direction for stakeholders

There are many benefits of implementing a go-to-market strategy, however, the strategy should cover all bases to be effective.

 

What should your go-to-market strategy involve?

Listed below are the main points you should consider when forming your go-to-market strategy.

1. Identify your audience and outline buyer personas

Research your desired audience and gain an in-depth understanding of how you will best reach them.

 

2. Craft a value matrix

Map out how you plan to communicate your product or service value across all departments of a business.

For example, an IT consultant will likely care more so about the security of your product or service whereas the CEO of a company will likely care more about the cost versus the benefits.

You should understand each of your customer pain points and customise your messages to suit.

 

3. Choose a suitable marketing strategy

Determine your goals (often brand awareness for start-up companies) and devise a plan to achieve these goals within your target market.

Perform plenty of research into the most suitable channels and content you will use to communicate with your target market.

 

4. Gain an understanding of the buyer journey and define who are the key decision-makers and buyers

Look at both the buyer journey from both the perspective of the seller and the buyer to ensure you cover all possible avenues a buyer might take before deciding to purchase.

 

5. Appoint a suitable sales strategy

Determine how you will introduce your product or service to the market.

You should include plans for sales team training, the resources you will provide for your sales team and a framework for your employees will follow to approach new and existing customers.

 

6. Define success measures

Define what your vision of success is and the appropriate metrics you will use to gauge your success.

 

Finalise your go-to-market strategy with omnichannel payments

Finally, your go-to-market strategy should take into consideration easing the final stages of the buyer journey with a no-fuss omnichannel payment gateway.

When developing your go-to-market strategy consider the customer purchase points. Are they online, in-store or both? 

Does your business model require mobility? 

Do you require subscription payments?

Arguably one of the most important considerations in the mix is your payment functionality.

It needs to be seamless from a customer point of view whilst also manageable for the business.

You don’t want to be tied up with multiple disparate systems that don’t communicate with each other…

Latpay provides a single hub that accepts customer payments through all possible sales channels and devices.

Simplify one of the most important customer touchpoints and ensure a smooth and streamlined checkout process with a reliable online payment gateway.

 

If you liked this article, you might also like Crafting a solid omnichannel strategy for your retail business.

Woman sitting on couch setting up her online store.

Why you need to set up your online store

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COVID-19 has well and truly defined and transformed the year 2020.

Gatherings have dwindled from hundreds of people to single digits and restrictions remain volatile.

Australians have had to adapt quickly to social distancing rules and limit their time spent out and about in the community. 

With these adaptations, we’re seeing consumers changing the way they spend their money to better accommodate more time spent at home.

As a result, merchants have had to adapt to this change and offer new and increasingly supported ways of shopping.

 

How are Australians shopping now?

Australians were forced to adapt and did so very quickly.

So quickly, panic buying began to set in.

Many pharmacies and grocery stores couldn’t keep up with the demand for toilet paper and hand sanitiser.

After panic buying caused concern for close contact in physical stores, a surge of online shopping began to develop.

Since March, Australian eCommerce growth skyrocketed up to over 73% since March 2019 (Aus Post, 2020).

And as conditions in Victoria continue to worsen, eCommerce is gaining momentum and reaching its highest peaks recorded this year.

The three top eCommerce growth categories were:

  1. Home and garden – up 82% since 2019
  2. Food and liquor – up 76% since 2019
  3. Health and beauty – up 71% since 2019

Surprisingly, the biggest shifts in purchases month on month were health and beauty, arts and crafts and books.

Seemingly, consumers are still making more online purchases than ever before and are purchasing things that help preoccupy them whilst they stay home.

There was also an evident shift from overseas orders to local orders.

57% of consumers said their reasons for opting for local stores over international stores was to support local Australian businesses and the economy.

So, with Australian consumers actively searching to support local Australian businesses and when they find them, they are purchasing more from them, should be a motivating enough factor for businesses to set up their online store.

 

Businesses need to respond to consumer demand

Physical businesses without an online store are likely missing out on a significant chunk of exposure and sales opportunity.

And it’s not just a temporary opportunity, with pockets of community transmission still occurring throughout Australia, storefront businesses could be required to close up at any time to stop the spread.

With an online store, businesses will have a safety net.

They will have the ability to continue making sales, no matter whether community transmission takes off in their local area.

In addition to responding to short term demand, there are also a number of benefits of setting up an eCommerce store in the long term including:

  • Diversifies your business and business offering
  • Online shopping appeals to an ever-growing number of Australian shoppers
  • Provides consumers with the added convenience to shop wherever and whenever
  • Gives businesses the opportunity to expand their business scope without incurring the heavy costs of expansion associated with physical storefronts

If you want to continue competing with your competitors and be supported by your fellow Aussies, you’re going to want to listen to consumer demand and respond to it promptly.

 

Set up your online store with LatPay

LatPay is a one-stop-shop payment gateway for online stores.

With LatPay you can enjoy:

  • Merchant services and facilities
  • Real-time payments
  • Direct debit facilities
  • Recurring payments
  • Alternative payments
  • Fraud management 
  • Hosted payment pages
  • Shopping carts
  • Mobile payment solutions
  • Payment links

If you’re ready to take a step in the right direction and set up an online store for your business, follow our helpful guide to setting up your eCommerce business and start reaping the rewards of a secure payment gateway with LatPay.

Alternatively, reach out to our friendly staff, and we’ll get you on your way to achieving greater sales with an online store.