Today’s consumer behavior is far more focused than before. Customers now want to connect with brands faster, more accessible, and on the platform of their choice. They are no longer limited to brick-and-mortar shops. They are increasingly switching to mobile platforms for contactless ordering and payment systems.
This is not a one-day change. This results from technological advancement over the past decade, an increase in social media presence and people becoming more aware of mobile platforms.
However, after the outbreak of Coronavirus, it has become the need of the hour. Every business is switching to digital platforms and striving to provide a secure shopping environment with mobile payment and ordering systems.
Data from the Nielsen survey on mobile media time shows that 89% of consumer time spent on mobile is through app interactions. Mobile browsers and web searches account for a low 11%.
This blog is about the rise of digital payments in the pharma business, and it gives you an idea to prepare your business to switch to a mobile payment system easily.
Index.
- Quick Overview on Mobile Payments
- Understand Mobile Payments in Pharmacy business scenario
- Some facts on mobile payment
- Impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on digital payments
- Digital Payment Trends reshaping healthcare industry financial ecosystem
- Ways you can benefit from digital payments through mobile banking
- How SWIL Pharma software help businesses with mobile payment features
- Wrapping Up
Quick Overview on Mobile Payments
Some of the primary benefits of digital payments include streamlining manual operations, quicker processing owing to digital invoicing, and the reduction of inconsistencies. It will propel the healthcare industry’s change and equip them to tackle future problems.
A mobile payment is a money payment made for a product or service through a portable electronic device such as a tablet or cell phone. You can also use mobile payment technology to send money to your friends and family members, such as PayPal, Paytm, Gpay, and more.
Smartphone use, high-speed mobile data networks, and the expansion of eCommerce are all driving mobile payments. Because it’s safe, quick, and easy, it’s becoming a more popular option to collect in-person payments.
Understand Mobile Payments in Pharmacy business scenario
Pharmacy is a critical business area that is always in demand. Many pharmacy business owners have recently updated their payment systems with new technologies. It allows customers to pay for drugs directly from their bank accounts.
This happens in many ways. Mobile payments are also made on-site at stores by scanning a barcode on an app on your phone and accepting payments from convenience stores to large, multinational retailers. Later, technology allowed for pictures of checks to be taken via cell phone camera and sent to the payment recipient.
The removal of physical wallets is the most evident advantage of mobile payments. Not having access to and withdrawing cash saves time, but it also keeps you secure because no one can see what’s in your wallet or bag.
Some facts on mobile payment
- By 2024, the worldwide mobile payment volume is expected to reach $6 trillion.
- According to Fortune Business Insights, the worldwide mobile payment business was valued at 1.18 trillion dollars in 2019 and is expected to increase to 8.94 trillion dollars by 2027.
- Mobile payments were first popular in Asia and Europe, but they quickly spread to North America and experienced significant growth.
- Mobile payments are already expanding faster than card payments in India, according to the 2021 India Mobile Payments Market Report, as more people and companies adopt digital payments in the face of the epidemic.
- According to an ET article, by 2023, 66.6 billion transactions totaling $270.7 billion in India are likely to transition from cash to cards and digital payments.
- When compared to conventional cards, mobile payments provide more privacy and security.
- Both Apple and Android have mobile payment apps (Apple Pay and Google Pay).
Why do stores need to upgrade their payment options?
Cash has lost its market share over the years due to electronic payment methods. It offers consumers a faster, more secure, and convenient experience while shopping in-store and online.
This is why consumer preferences are shifting away from traditional payment methods to contactless mobile payment technologies. Contactless technology also offers retailers several benefits, including reduced checkout times, increased card usage, and a better consumer payment experience. Here’s a solution to why stores need to upgrade their payment options.
It combines convenience and rewards in a single platform.
Contactless payments are an in-store requirement. Retailers should also consider that their payment strategy ensures that they meet their customers’ expectations and provide them with a seamless experience.
This means that pharma business owners integrate tools and technologies with businesses that ensure cashless payments and connect digital and physical.
Thus, offering a variety of payment options is vital for a pharmacist looking to build their presence in the digital marketplace.
It explores digital wallet providers.
Deciding to integrate with their mobile app, pharmacy retailers will have to go through all the details. This is because digital wallet providers such as Apple Pay and Google Pay are already designed to make mobile payments fast and affordable.
Today, dozens of digital wallet payment providers are available in the pharmacy retail and consumer market. So, pharmacists should develop mobile payments and digital wallet strategies. It is important to check with your current payment provider to see what options they have.
It makes you open to payment innovation.
As payment solutions are more customer-oriented, it should be the responsibility of the pharma business owner to reduce the friction of payment. Thus, being a business owner, you should always keep picking up on the innovations that come into the market.
Now, the consumer demands a fully automated concept. These buying concepts allow customers to pick up quickly or scan the products they want, which automates the payment. The payment is automatically deducted from their account. The chances of any physical presence in this are negligible.
Thus, as a pharmacy retailer, you have to plan for the future. You should be aware of the latest payment innovations and consider how they will work in your industry and increase customer ratings.
Impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on digital payments
The country has implemented a number of steps to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus epidemic, including a nationwide lockdown. Entire populations were restricted, public areas and transportation were shut down, and the populace was instructed to stay inside, maintain social distance, and work from home.
As a result, many economic shocks and crises have occurred, causing all sorts of enterprises, large and small, to struggle.
Thus, with economic growth expected to stop completely, businesses switched to digital solutions, and mobile ordering and payments systems were introduced. As a result, digital platforms and mobile payment methods have revolutionized the sector and played a critical part in reviving the economy.
As the pharmacy business is important and everyone needs it to overcome the COVID challenges, pharmacists have started investing in mobile payments and contributing to the world differently in containing the impact of the virus.
Thus, digital payment as a convenience has become a necessity in today’s times. With most sectors contributing to digital payments still volatile, it is still too early to ascertain the long-term impact of COVID-19 on digital payments.
Following the World Health Organization (WHO), the COVID-19 pandemic escalated even further as the demand for contactless payments skyrocketed. People are working from home more often and shying away from visiting public retail malls.
Digital Payment Trends reshaping healthcare industry financial ecosystem
- More than 3 out of 4 consumers want to switch to digital ordering and payment systems. They want a contactless option to survive in the future amid the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic.
- According to a survey, 82% of consumers want to make all their health care payments in one place.
- More than half of consumers consider changing providers for better health care payment options.
Digital transformation in healthcare is a positive impact of technology in healthcare.
The covid pandemic has brought business owners how much the healthcare industry (pharmacies, pharma, chemist shops, medical stores) needs to catch up in the digital world. Consumers now demand contactless experiences, which is impossible without adopting digital trends. Consumer trends continue to point to a preference for streamlined payment experiences, including electronic, online and automated.
Let’s know some of the pharmacy business and healthcare industry payment trends that will shape the future of the digital payment’s ecosystem:
Tap and go payments
In 2020, the use of digital and contactless payments will grow globally. Contactless payments, such as mobile payment systems, were widely accepted in India, even in tiny villages where cash was widely utilized.
That’s why it becomes vital that every pharmacy store owner integrate their business payments with the mobile payment system. And establish a simple tap for successful payment initiation. This enhances the need for social distancing and proffers convenience and security.
Wearable payment devices
Wearable payment is an emerging trend considered a secure method for consumers to purchase products or services. The technology is easily integrated into the customers ‘/patients’ wearables such as smartwatches, wristbands and more. It facilitates the tap-and-go payment method provides retailers and vendors with more secure and error-free payment methods.
Increase in e-commerce transactions
Due to restrictions on movement during the lockdown, both pharmacy store owners & patients became dependent on e-commerce platforms like B2B/B2C applications. They make seamless shopping of groceries, health products, and other essentials more efficient. Thus, consumers are taking more interest in online ordering and payment systems to buy drugs from their homes, and it has become a trend now.
QR code payments
Payment through QR code has great flexibility. You can use it through your mobile scanning, and QR codes are easy to use and cheap to implement. It is now easier to use this type of payment which ensures quick drug delivery.
Ways you can benefit from digital payments through mobile banking
- Reward points & cash back offers
- 24×7 availability of banking services
- Maintains payments history record
- Reduction in payment cost
How SWIL Pharma software help businesses with mobile payment features
According to an industry report by FICCI, the number of households in India using e-pharmacy services during the nationwide pandemic-induced lockdown surged by about 2.5 times to 8.8 million.
As SWIL allows us to tailor our software users according to the market trends, this time too it has to enhance the B2B/B2C app even more to deal with the pandemic. This expansion enabled mobile through ordering or mobile payments with its software solution.
Let’s know some of SWIL Pharmacy’s solution benefits their users with its mobile payments system.
It offers ease in billing.
SWIL pharmacy software offers its users the ability to optimize their store processes in a more efficient day. It automates the entire supply chain management and proffers pharmacy a way to contactless ordering and billing. It connects the system with B2B/B2C mobile applications and enhances the user experience in advanced payment options.
It ensures timely payments and settlement of claims.
SWIL software for pharmacy stores patients’ data and alerts them about their medical needs. It stores data securely, which helps users in the preferred mode of payment and transactions dues and shares reminders accordingly.
Similarly, SWIL’s software allows you to calculate the amount required and makes digital information readily available for distribution.
It establishes a transparent ecosystem.
A typical medical bill has many details and inclusions, and sometimes this confuses the patient or his family. With digital payments, the mobile payment system provided by
SWIL tracks and keeps track of every rupee spent in real-time. This saves you from misuse of any money. SWIL software offers an immense sense of trust and confidence to its patients and provides transparency in real-time.
It improves business efficiency.
Manual involvement becomes less important as processes become more computerized. Therefore, the probability of human error also becomes zero.
SWIL’s digital payment platforms securely retain data and make forecasting, optimization, and inventory management a breeze, all with a single click. It also increased mobile payment alternatives to allow people visiting pharmacies to make cashless transactions.
Wrapping Up
Having a mobile payment system in your Pharmacy store offers the best return on investment (ROI). It keeps your customers happy, and they will make the right decisions on their sales and purchase strategy.
This way, if you are looking for the best pharmacy software in India that efficiently integrates with the advanced mobile payment system, kindly contact the SWIL team.
The team will assist you in the best possible way, and they will also offer a free demo to give the software a close look.
