Why is Omnichannel Payment Reconciliation Critical for Your Business?

Before we jump into Omnichannel Payment Reconciliation, let’s first briefly understand what Omnichannel retailing is and how it’s different from Multichannel retailing.

In simple words, Omnichannel retailing is a multichannel approach that focuses on seamless customer experience whether the shopping is done online from a mobile device, laptop, or in an offline store.

According to the Harvard Business Review, “73% of all customers use multiple channels during their purchase journey.”

Besides, the State of Commerce Experience 2021 reports, almost half (44%) of B2C buyers and 58% of B2B buyers say they always or often research a product online before going to a physical store. (Source: Salesforce) 

Current Market Scenario

As the pandemic wears on, its impact is evident everywhere. The global crisis has forever changed the way consumers shop and is accelerating immense structural changes across businesses and industries.

The drastic rise in e-commerce amidst the restrictions induced by COVID-19 increased online retail sales’ share of total retail sales from 16% to 19% in 2020, according to the UNCTAD report.

According to a report by Statista Research Department, the Indian eCommerce market is growing exponentially, and it’s estimated to reach 200 billion U.S. dollars by 2027. 

With such speedy growth, eCommerce marketplaces are no longer just a channel of choice for sellers but a strategic imperative to scale up their businesses. Besides, with many eCommerce solutions available in the market, it has become relatively easy for any seller to onboard marketplaces to sell their products.

Each marketplace has its structure for commissions, payment terms, return policies, fees, penalties, and other charges. However, tracking and receiving correct payments from the marketplaces has become a major concern for them. And, it’s becoming difficult for sellers to track and find leakages from Marketplace Payments.

Types of deductions made by marketplaces

Besides, the growing number of online buyers has resulted in an increasing number of orders and thus increased transactions. More transactions lead to more complexities which invite more money leakages in the process. This makes you lose money even in profits. To eliminates these losses, it is essential to reconcile the entire payment transaction.

Here comes Vinculum’s Omnichannel Payment Reconciliation solution, which is an AWS cloud-based system. It allows you to take control, increase efficiency, drive cost savings and have greater insight into your financial data at the touch of a button.

How Vinculum’s Payment Reconciliation Solution Works

How Leakages Occur

• Technical Glitches
• Wrong policy calculations
• Wrong returns marked/not marked
• Missing inventory cases
• Not following the SLA
• Wrong dimensions, category listings

What are the Problem Areas

1. Multiple times payments and deductions against a single order due to various formats for various marketplaces
2. Complicated marketplace reports & uninformed deductions causing tiresome calculations on multiple payments under sales & returns.
3. Unmanageable follow-ups with the e-commerce seller support team and missing out on the claims window.

Types of Reconciliation Vinculum Offers

1. Marketplace Reconciliation

• Identifying Commission Overcharges: Any commission that has been incorrectly charged and provides data for the same.
• Capturing Shipping Overcharges: Helps reconcile overcharged shipping fees.
• Capturing Pick Pack Overcharges: Incorrectly charged order transactions for physically picking, packing, and shipping items and provides a report for the same.
• Missing Inventory Reimbursement: Provides real-time data for returned orders & helps to reconcile marketplace payments & missing inventory.
• Identifying Commission Overcharges: Finds transactions for damages of goods during shipment.
• Identifying Commission Overcharges: Identifies transaction for orders against which incomplete or no payment have been received.

2. Webstore Reconciliation

• Payment Gateway Reconciliation – Verifying that the electronic payment and refund transactions processed match the transactions reported by the gateway.
• Shipping Partner Reconciliation – Identifying the unpaid amount for the returned orders and Shipping overcharges.

3. Omnichannel Reconciliation

• Intra Store reconciliation – Analyzing the transactions within the store.
• Commission – Identifying wrongly commissioned transactions on all the channels.
• Returns – Irrespective of channels, records transactions against damaged goods and missing inventories.
• PG/ Wallet statement – The financial transactions with the finance team are matched with the transaction record of the wallet to figure out the discrepancies.
• Tiresome Calculations simplified – Records multiple deductions and transactions under sales and returns through different channels.

Skechers, a famous American lifestyle and performance footwear brand, uses Vinculum’s Omnichannel Retail Payment Reconciliation Solution. 

Problems they faced

• Difficult to do Payouts and calculations at the end of the month with the stores and HO.
• No Clear visibility to store owners & at the store level of the orders and payouts
• Financial Implications to Skechers.
• No proper discount calculation mechanism

The solutions we offered

• Interactive Dashboard with Filters.
• Calculate Payouts on a REAL-Time basis to Store Owners at individual store level
• Update Discounts and Commissions with real-time notifications.
• Send scheduled email statements at store level and store owner level with Tax compliance.
• Match Bank Receipts with payments received from Payment gateway.

Apart from Payment Reconciliation, Vinculum’s Omnichannel Retailing Solutions also offers…

Master Data Management (Vin MDM)

Vin MDM creates an enterprise-wide repository of product information to help you:

• Create a Single view of Truth across catalogs, channels, distribution channels, merchandising & other systems
• Managing the life cycle of the product, such as onboarding, editing/deleting an existing product
• Identify & leverage Cross-sell/ Upsell opportunities

Single View of Inventory

1. Help you manage orders and organize fulfilments centrally, to provide a compelling shopping experience to your customers.
2. Intelligent order processing algorithms route online orders to the nearest store.
3. It reduces your logistics costs and speeds up your delivery process.

Multichannel Loyalty Programs

• Enable the consistent implementation of loyalty programs across all channels, ensuring your customers stay with you
• We connect customers to your brand across all touchpoints and providing them with the opportunity to be rewarded for spending and engagement across the channel.
• You can earn & redeem loyalty across channels.
• Create discounts, events, and location-specific promotions.