As we continue to adjust to the changes of this unprecedented time to our personal and business lives, we are very grateful to those businesses that have been able to quickly adjust their operations so that they can continue to offer their products and services in a safe manner for their customers and staff. For those businesses that are evaluating contactless payment methods we have compiled a brief overview of some of the technologies currently available. These solutions don’t necessarily require having an existing e-commerce platform, thus providing flexibility. Depending on your business, these solutions may still be relevant and useful when some of the restrictions are lifted and our economy opens again.  

If you operate in the food industry, you’ll likely be best served by the existing food delivery platforms such as DoorDash, Uber Eats, Skip the Dishes, just to name a few. But if you are in a different industry and you are looking for a safe way to manage payments for your pickups or deliveries, the following resources may be helpful.  

Also, if you already have an e-commerce platform (e.g., your Magento or Woocommerce website, or your online store through Shopify), you may want to ask your current vendor if they are able to integrate your e-commerce with any of these products.  

Lastly, as a full disclaimer, we are not associated or have any interest in any of the following providers and this list is meant for information purposes only.  

We haven’t had the chance to work with this specific product, but from our research this solution includes features that allow for managing of contactless payments via SMS. Specifically, you can send a payment request to your customers from an ongoing text message conversation via a link to a personalized mobile checkout form. Similar to other solutions, all major credit cards,   and   are accepted forms of payment. Lastly, for businesses that handle large transaction volumes, their “Merchant Connect” option integrates with existing payment solutions and merchant accounts.  You can find more details on this product here.

All the contactless solutions described above allow businesses to safely manage and receive payments by eliminating any customer contact with payment terminals or cash.  

Another set of alternative solutions that are currently becoming more popular are chatbots. A chatbot is an artificial intelligence software that simulates human conversation via text message or voice. We will talk about these very powerful solutions soon, but in the meantime you can test their capabilities in our demo here.

We have already completed integrations with e–commerce platforms and point of sale systems for both PayPal (e–commerce) and Square (e–commerce and POS) and we will continue to update the above list as we test and implement new solutions. If you are considering a specific product or technology and you are looking for advice or an evaluation of its capabilities, feel free to reach out at info@dattivo.com or 519-937-9053. In the meantime, stay safe and healthy!