Listen in as leaders in the fintech and eCommerce space discuss the future of payment not just across websites but in retail and around the world. Featured speakers are Osayame Gaius, founder and CEO of the mobile commerce platform, Parrot; and Mason Lin, founder of checkout platform Pockyt.
Listen in as leaders in the fintech and eCommerce space discuss the future of payment not just across websites but in retail and around the world.
Featured speakers are Osayame Gaius, founder and CEO of the mobile commerce platform, Parrot; and Mason Lin, founder of checkout platform Pockyt.
Or watch the interview online at: https://hashtagpaid.com/banknotes/ecommerce-payments-its-about-making-life-easier-for-consumers
welcome you to the first webinar being hosted by banknotes minted by paid. My name is Ian Wesley, I'm editor in chief of banknotes. We are a trade website, that media website that reports on E commerce retail and the creator economy. We're looking forward to host a number of webinars over the coming months just dealing with different segments of E commerce, retail technology, etc. And right now we do have two guests. But right now just one joins us Mason Lin. He's founder of the checkout company called Pocket. And a second, I will let Mason introduce himself. This webinar is going to be recorded and posted on bank notes.co. So if there's anything you missed, feel free to just return a bank notes.co and we will post the content there in about 24 hours. So for now, Mason, if you just take a second to introduce yourself and I will take down this this shirt screen.
Awesome. I think also it's also here. Apollo, I can kick it off Mason, co founder CEO for pocket. Personally, you know first generation immigrant came to this state when I was 13. This is actually my third Fintech startup. Previous to I found it in China. When I went back 2013 2014 Just happened to call it that. What is so call cashless revolution. Both of them are in FinTech. Both of them are landing tap b2b. This is part of the half years journey for us in the United States.
Okay, awesome. I don't see you Sandy's. Oh, sorry. Yuan. is back on. I'm not seeing him.
I can see him from the list.
Okay, that's weird. Okay, well, my hopefully he'll get the railing going. Okay, well, cool. Thanks for that introduction. I'm Mason. So yeah, let's get started on a few questions that, you know, I wanted to lay out and then we just kind of have a conversation, no real presentation here. But why don't you? Why didn't you get into the checkout space? What was the problem you felt up versus on? What we're doing, man? How's it going? Hey, good, good. Welcome. Messages introduce themselves. So just if you want to take an opportunity to introduce yourself, that'd be great. And introduce Patrick.
Definitely, definitely. Hi there. I'm also a CEO and founder of parrot parrot is a new form of checkout to help consumers chat and pay at the businesses they love. We're very excited to be be on the webinar today and speak to everyone here.
Awesome. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. So with those two introductions, I guess, Mason if you don't take this first. So So why did you get into the checkout space? And I guess, primarily, what was the problem you felt needed? Disrupting or needed solving?
Yeah, sure. So I think me getting into checkout just sort of happened. Naturally, when I sold my second company in China, I thought could be a great idea to import some of those payment methods that we were familiar with back in China, to the United States, and to your questions about the gap in the market, obviously, especially as someone who frequently traveled between borders, you realize that in the West are predominantly United States, it's mostly critical infrastructure. Merchants are typically or are, you know, definitely five and a half years ago, the only payment types that may accept these credit cards. But on the flip side, the consumer base, say places in China, they have completely transitioned to mobile wallet payments. You see Ali pay, which appealed to the world. So I guess you have naturally, and we saw a tremendous amount of opportunity if we can actually facilitate Western retailers to directly accept Chinese payments. But obviously, since then, we support a lot more digital wallet payments globally, helping merchants to seamlessly connect with their consumer base, you know, globally. Yeah, even to today, I think the gap for international payments do huge. Not only that, merchants got to pay a lot higher fees, roughly about 4.5 to 5%. You know, if you factor in international interchanges, and potential fraud and chargeback issues in the space, but with some of the wallets that we support, we are slashing the feeds in over half and making it super easy for a merchant to sell globally, but at the same time, a lot easier for the consumers to make their purchases.
So how about you you're in a little bit different space as opposed to the mobile wallet. It's more on the SMS side. So talk a little bit about that. What you were looking to disrupt there.
Yeah, No very first similar, you know, one experience that I had, you know, when I went back to Nigeria, where I grew up initially was, I had an experience where I was trying to buy something from a merchant who was really far away. And my cousin said, you know, you can just text the merchant, they can collect your payment directly over text, and then they can bring you the thing you want, you'd have to actually go all the way over there. And so what I realized is that outside the US that, you know, most countries, whether it's in Kenya with the case of the peso, or WeChat, in the case of some Asian countries, folks had figured out how to let consumers chat and pay with merchants in a seamless way. And my background was I came from MailChimp and MailChimp, I had seen the value of being able to have a relationship with a with a consumer as a merchant. And so we really focused on and continue to focus on helping merchants not only collect someone's phone number, so they can check them out very quickly on their website. But more importantly, let the merchant reach out to that person and remind them of additional things that need to buy. And let that consumer just say, Yes, I want it or apply with a thumbs up to complete that transaction. And we're excited about that. Because we think, you know, the US is still quite behind a lot of you know, the developing world, so to speak. But but the real future, I think in the US will be really catered to trying to learn from those other countries and figuring out how to do payments. Right, not just in terms of wallets, but in terms of relationships and engagement with consumers after they bought the first time.
Yeah, I think it's super interesting. I mean, Mason, I you know, we're on a panel like right after cyber week sale stuff. And I think I said Salesforce that reported was the first year at least domestically, a decline in credit card purchases as its share of revenue, or share purchases and that mobile wallets are on the uptake. So obviously, like that, that's a little bit of a trend in the states and something that there's there's obviously runway there, I guess he does both touched on it and something I want to continue to touch on. Because I think it's such a unique perspective, it's something I don't hear a lot about is that Mason from Asian perspective, Bossa having experience in the African continent. What, What trends are you seeing there? And you guys already touched on them a little bit, but What trends are you seeing that could potentially come over to North America? And then I guess additionally, those are both trends you guys are mentioning in terms of SMS and and mobile wallet, as opposed to credit card could potentially like raise some some flags on the security side for privacy side for North American consumers. But do you think there's going to be appetite to adopt, like, you know, something that's always persistent in terms of a mobile wallet or something that's like not tied to, you know, something that's tied to my cell? That, you know, there's a larger kind of database that has all my info in terms of SMS? So whoever wants to touch on that, I guess, what are the international trends that could come over? And do you think there's appetite in North America for them?
Lisa, I'll let you go. I'll let you kick off. I'd love to hear your perspective.
Yeah, sure. Sure. I mean, when when I first started off with my first first startup 2013, it was just the beginning the dawn, when the Chinese consumers have transitioned to tuaca wallets right Alipay WeChat pay with the wall. Actually, if you look at it holistically, it's the first place, even though the Chinese did not invent a QR, but they actually diverge to our to the best extent, apply it to both online checkout and instant checkout through the scan a QR code. And since then, it just drastically changed not only all people can walk, but how the consumers interact with with the merchant with the business, then they love to purchase like exactly like also mentioned earlier. There are a lot of ways that consumers now increasingly demand in terms of how they prefer to transact not having the checkout to solely be dictated by the merchant. So I think, you know, one of the trends that we seen in the space is that now when it comes to experience, for user experience from checkout, both merchants experience and user experiences are being valued equally. So I think with that said, specifically, you know, from our space, the adoptions of QR has been huge. It's widely accepted. In a lot of the countries in Asia, a lot of developing countries, you know, also mentioned M PESA. Was or happened to be one of our partners that we are enabling said or the merchant was directly a sap and pesticides to walk. So I guess the the rise of QR code based digital wallet alongside with Apple and Google Pay Samsung Pay is rapidly on the increasing and from the merchants perspective, I think the trend is also Not only to adopt them, but, you know, increasingly they'd be looking for a lot of the value added services, because it's essentially digitizing their instant payments will come out of that acceptance of those digital wallets is that maker to do a lot more, not only accepting payments, but having a better way to interact with your consumer base. So I think generally, the trend is that from our perspective, interactions beyond payment, is what we see in the market.
Wow, wow, that's, that's big. I think summer will be for me, that's something we're seeing as a trend, at least for me visiting Nigeria, right, visiting countries where I have families, seeing that folks are not just thinking about checkout is something that happens one time in a store where you swipe a credit card, but they're really thinking about to Mason's point, you know, how do I, over the lifetime of my relationship with this customer, give them a really personal experience, especially when the consumer really thinks of, you know, thinks of themselves first, right? They're not beholden to the kinds of payments I went to accept. So I think for a lot of merchants we're talking to here in the US, you know, they're seeing things like QR code, kind of, you know, really take off in America for the first time, because of COVID. And they're now thinking about, well, you know, what else can I do? That I can really, you know, help drive value for my business over time. And we think one of those interesting trends is merchants in the US starting to think about how do I connect with people directly over text? How do I get them to, to do engage with me there as opposed to just kind of spent sending them spam, right, sending them marketing messages? I think a lot of you know, folks outside America who figured that out, they figured out how to really create a direct relationship between a merchant and a consumer, I think here in the US will have to kind of learn from that trend over the next five years.
Yeah, it's interesting also in something else, so you know, I've talked about is like, how internationally there's still a big audience for for Nokia flip phones, right? How that's still and it's almost a desire to in other in some countries, it's an economic thing. But in North America, there is an emerging desire to dumb down the technology that people want a phone that doesn't have everything. So how are we going to communicate with those people and allow them to check down even on those phones? So is it SMS is a, you know, a mobile wallet? Is it QR code? Is it you know, a phone that doesn't have all the bells and whistles of this, but it's like, you know, we're seeing more and more flip phones, we're seeing more and more. And again, like I said, the the audience and the, the appetite for, you know, Nokia, overseas. And I think like, both of your technologies kind of fit into that space? Well, because it's not only allowing checkout across those those quote unquote, dummer devices, but allowing for a relationship and customer merchant relationship across those devices. Do you think I mean, do you think we'll ever I've seen people carry two phones in the states one, like a dumb flip phone and one? You know, the smartphone, obviously, in Asia? I mean, I've I've people, what is it? It's like 3.5 phones or mobile devices for person in Asia? It's crazy. But I mean, do you think there'll be that appetite for for it's almost like a lesser touch? Right? It's not the website? It's not the you're making? You mentioned QR codes. I would say you SMS. It's almost like, I've talked a lot about how these parents may start to occur more and more off of their own.com. Is that where do you think it's headed?
Go ahead. Yeah, no, I, I think what's interesting for me, in the US is I think there are a lot of businesses who assume that I'm gonna go back to their website, just because, you know, they have one and they spent a lot of money, you know, sometimes hundreds of $1,000, kind of keeping their website up to date and continue to improve it. But for me, you know, I think all birds.com I've only been to the Allbirds website once in my life, maybe twice, but I bought like four or five pairs of all birds, right. And so for me, I think interesting about that is, when I walk into an Uber store in San Francisco, they have no idea that I've been to the website. And when I go to the website, they don't know, I've been, you know, to a physical store. So I think what's really interesting about what's happening in America, and I think the phone is an interesting question, right? I don't know if the phone is the answer. But it's an interesting opportunity. Because my phone is always with me, it's always in my pocket. But what's interesting is when I go to the website, or when I go to the store, elsewhere, Allbirds has no idea who I am, like they almost don't care who I am. It's almost as if it's irrelevant, but I think there's an opportunity for a lot of American merchants to start to ask themselves a question like, how do you make sure that when someone comes into your store or goes to your website, you can at least follow them not in terms of tracking but allow them to check in in some kind of way? And I don't think it's a technology question. I think it's more just a question of like, how merchants think about, well, what is the purpose of the phone? How do I have a relationship with someone? And I think as we dumb things down, a lot of these merchants need to start asking themselves, how do I just directly talk to OSA, right, maybe it's once a month, once a week, once a quarter, maybe it's automated, but maybe it's not, especially if it says a VIP who was buying four or five pairs of Allbirds, over 14 month period, I really should have a relationship with him. That's organic. And I think outside the US, we're seeing folks sort of use use the phone as that way to connect with people directly and say, I'm going to text this customer in a very high touch way. But I think here in the US, we're still counting on the website, being something that will come back to you. And I think more and more often people don't go back to the website, they might once and never go back to that site. Again, I
think you're spot on. I think it's this is probably a pretty bad metaphor. But like I'm, I'm a trading card buff. And like, I know, like I'm big into soccer cards, and I'm on Twitter, and there's a lot of people who buy, you know, buy and sell trading cards on Twitter. So like, if I pull something, pull something out of a pack that's like a player from Brazil? Well, I know the guy on Twitter who collects players from Brazil, so I'm just gonna DM DM him directly and be like, Hey, I got this green card. Are you interested? And I think that's like sort of the the one to one relationship that's gonna have to emerge. Mason, any thoughts on on just like kind of almost a low taking it down a little bit? And I mean, it's for obviously, what you built this extremely high tech, but but making just making it easier for the customer. Right, and not having to send them to the.com.
Yeah, I actually have nothing different compared to Osan. You know, just to double click, I mean, completely agree with what also you mentioned about, you know, sort of tying that with what we've been discussing about the trend. At the end of the day, I think this is gonna get smarter, right? This is want to stay connected with your consumers. Same thing for the consumers, they don't want to go through the same process, if they can save additional five seconds at the browsing, you know, process or the checkout phase. So I think the stuff that we are doing, and maybe take a step back, like you mentioned, in some of the Asian countries, people are still transacting or people are still using their free forms. I think commerce is really interesting in a way that you can always find a way to transact, go around, because here when we are talking about mobile payments, always Apple and Google Pay. But Apple Pay, you know, going back to the Flip Phone scenario, not all of the free phones have NFC embedded, right. So they just cannot be easily transacted with NFC type of transaction. So they figured out a way to transact using QR code, because of the frequency, they have camera on it, right, regardless of what type of you know, Legacy operating in existence, they have, they can always find creative way to transact. And this is actually the reason why the Chinese dictations actually have been able to pull ahead in terms of digital transactions, because they need to not have the need to invest into the critical infrastructure, right, saving a ton for both merchants and the consumers in terms of the you know, some of the costs infrastructure, and jump ahead to digital transformation. So I think, from our perspective, again, resonating what also mentioned, this is essentially helping to build a better connected commerce. And from our from our experience, this is also taking the checkout to the consumer versus the other way around. Right, because right now, it's always so one sided, it's either you are on the website, or you are in store, it's always that you check out at merchants checkout, you know, with the, you know, limited number of payment options. But I think that is gonna change that is going to change to a more equally representative way. Consumers and merchants may have the same voice over how to check out should take take place, right? You know, 2013 2014 was also the era when in China, a lot of people were talking about auto experience, right so like also mentioned, you know, when you walk into the store, that merchant that businesses have no idea about whether or not this customer just walked into the store is a customer or is is a prospect. So I think when technology is not becoming more connected to the process of becoming a customer the process of selling to a customer it's gonna look a lot more seamless 100% agree on that.
You know, the ecosystem certainly closing in on itself a bit. I mean, just this week, Shopify and YouTube bank that Deal or you can connect YouTube to Shopify, and then obviously Instagram. So Meadows is kind of upping the checkout experience there across like econ platforms. So yeah. And then there's I mean, yeah, there's just a lot to that, for sure. So we got about nine minutes. Two more questions. I want to ask you guys, and this is a bit of a matzah, Baldwin, but I did prep you for this. So, you know, just in the past year between fast and bolts, there's been and full transparency, I was a one time employee over at bolt, there has been a lot a ton of media around checked out. And a lot of it not necessarily great. So how do you feel this has impacted perceptions of the need for alternative checkout solutions or add ons to whether it's on the retail side? Or whether it's on the E commerce side? You know, is it especially when you have a player in the game like Shopify, which is just kind of like the one stop solution? So yet, they're still you know, they're stripe, there's PayPal, to an extent there's, there's just a ton of alternative checkout solutions out there. So I guess how has the press of the past year, good, bad, etc? How has that impacted what you guys are seeing in terms of perception for alternative checkout solutions?
I can tell you first. So I mean, definitely, we have seen a lot more conversations with our prospects, and even with investors about faster checkout a fast and bulk right, of relevance to them, you know, how will they impact on us in terms of both cocoa market? And also, you know, fundraising wise? I want to say that, you know, huge, huge kudos to both of them, you know, taking on both the consumer side, and merchants, I think it's difficult, right? They are they are bumping up against, you know, Shopify pay, pay pal in a way that, you know, there are some established players in the market, we, we are actually trying to think small, right. So when we provide that alternative payments, especially alternative in a way that merchants are not accepting them, this is different from credit card transactions, but they actually dominant phone payments for a lot of people. If you take, for instance, some of the Asian wallets that we support, they are the 90, you know, they are how 99% of those consumer base out of Asia transact, right, so we actually don't need to educate the consumers, we actually don't need to have to install all app, actually, we don't have an app to begin with. So I think when it comes to alternative payments, we are really trying to fill up filling the gap, the gap at this moment in the market is that there are no merchant acceptance. For all of those alternative payments. We are actually a partner of Shopify, we are partners of a lot of that EECOM marketplace, a lot of the POS companies, but this is actually not as high tech, but essentially aggregating and essentially, you know, our whole purpose is just trying to make it super easy for the merchants to adopt those alternative payments. And, again, a lot of those alternative payments are nothing new to consumers. So there's no need for education there.
Wow, wow, that's powerful. I think kind of going back to something Mason mentioned earlier, when I think about fast and bolt. But didn't always think about is how to how to make the process seamless for the consumer and for the merchant. And I think for us and parent, you know, just to be transparent, we're, we're a competitor of both and fast. And so when we, when we talk to customers who are trying to decide, Okay, do I go with bolt, or I go with you? We do have to talk them through, right? Like, hey, you know, why does it matter that bolt was sued by one of their customers? Why does it matter that fast just kind of went away? Is that going to happen to us if we choose parents, our checkout solution. And so what we always tell merchants is like, when you're thinking about checkout, don't be don't be focused on one click Checkout as a feature, don't be focused on the hype of who's raising money or who's not raising money. Think about how do you make checkout more seamless for your consumer and to end right not just when they're on your website, not just when they're on IG kind of scrolling through your products. Maybe they're not on either platform. Maybe they're just on your couch watching TV, how do you how do you engage them and get them to buy something from you and transact with you? And I think something Mason said earlier is about taking checkout to the consumer. Right. I think a lot of merchants we talked to were thinking about these problems deeply. Whether it's because they're calling their prospects on the phone to close them or to having to call customers to get a sale done. I think what's really been exciting about, you know, unfortunately fast going away and bolt kind of struggling to deal with some of the issues they're seeing is I think customers particularly merchants are starting to ask the question, what what would I do right if I was in control of a checkout company So how would I make checkout happen? Would I support alternative payment methods? Would I support debit cards and ACH. And that's been exciting because I think merchants are now realizing I don't have to be stuck with any of these players, I can decide, as a merchant, what I want checkout to look like. And I can let my consumers influence what choices I make on technology, as opposed to being beholden to, you know, the credit card processors or the checkout companies, you've raised a bunch of money. So I you know, for me, I get excited when I talk about both and fast because I think it is a really hard problem we're trying to solve. But ultimately, I think these companies losing a bit of their luster has helped us kind of come back to first principles and say, what are we trying to do for merchants and consumers to make their lives better? And if we're not doing that, if it's about VC fundraising, and the press, then we've already lost the battle, because we're no longer talking about what matters? What's good?
Yeah. So um, final question, before we wrap it up is so if I were to bring you a prospect sit you down in front of, you know, I like to focus this probably like a little less on the SMB side, but a little bit more on the mid mid tier side. So let's say a company doing in range $20 million a year and and then on? What's one thing in terms of checkout, you would advise them to take on ASAP? And what would you tell them can wait?
So I mean, 20 mil is definitely an interesting number. That's the critical mass, a lot of that, you know, players, you know, checkout companies, payments, companies are looking looking out, right, it's really close to get to almost the enterprise level, in the eyes of a lot of the payments company. So I think my my suggestion is definitely still focused on the top line. How do you make your customers happy, like, you know, think about, you know, enabling a checkout, when, when a customer is watching a TV show of like, oh, such especially right. So I think, definitely anything, or initiative that can help boost the top line, increase the payment conversion rate, right, obviously, by adding a lot more payment methods, giving the payment option, that choice to the consumer not, you know, like also mentioned, you know, sort of hijacking the checkout process, because you are the merchant, you get to control that, you know, think think in that you have the consumer and more payment methods, so that you can increase a lot more payments, conversion, get to, you know, the next phase get to the enterprise level. But I think one of that things that a merchant or a business can also consider in the meantime, is, you know, 20 million still quite a lot of number. So, there's something that a business actually doesn't need to consider too much when it comes to, you know, taking the initiative is maybe start negotiating with your travel agent about fees, you know, that's non technical, can be easily achieved, get the get the payment, the lower if, if possible. So yeah, top line, you know, on the sideline, connect with the processor, try to negotiate for better term for yourself. That's great.
Yeah, I think my suggestion would be a bit more low touch low, you know, low tech, I'd say if you're, if you got 20 million in revenue, you've probably got 100, if not more VIPs people who buy from you very regularly, I think one of your database, your email database, or your Shopify or whatever platform you're using, or any CRM, pull out those 100 people and send me an email. And ideally, get on the phone with them, offer them money, whatever you can. But talk to your best customers and ask them about how they feel about your checkout, how they feel about paying with you have they had credit card issues, if they do they have payment methods they want to use that they're not being able to use because you haven't thought about it. But I think a lot of merchants would serve themselves, especially once you're at scale to go back to your best customers and ask them very deep questions around how they feel about your checkout. This might take the form of an NPS survey that you send out is might be, you know, hiring an intern just to call everyone who's buying from you regularly. But I think once you learn more about how your consumers feel about how they pay with you, you can very, very quickly decide where to start to invest energy over the next 12 months, it might be lowering the credit card fees. It might be offering Klarna or some other payment method. But it might be simple things like maybe, you know, just sending people easy links that they can use to check out because they buy the same thing every quarter from you. I think there's a lot of low hanging fruit there. But I think it really starts with, again, taking the time to go talk to your best customers about how they feel about pain with your business.
That's great. Thank you. Well, I think we're gonna wrap it up there. This has been awesome. You guys are two of the most intelligent, insightful people I've been lucky enough to interact with in this space over the past couple years. So I appreciate you taking the time here. And I hope I hope everyone will come away with some insights out of this. Tell us just as you sign off tell us where we can find you guys, obviously the company website and then if there's anywhere on social they should people should be following you. Let me know Mason want to go.
I'm sorry, I didn't quite get that was
just just signing off on just give us just tell us where people can find you your website and any any social links that people should be following?
Yeah, I think website pocket IO. I can also be found obviously on LinkedIn, Mason land, love to stay in touch. Really enjoyed the conversation. Great. You know, having having this session with OSA really learned a lot, a lot of great insights. Appreciate it.
Thank you. Yeah, it was great to be here with you and Mason as well. I love speaking with you all. If you want to find out more about us or you want to learn more about payment processing or SMS, please go to get para.com It's ch e te parent.com. And we got a lot of resources there. And if you're looking to improve your checkout, please get in touch with us there as well.
Cool. Thanks again and to everyone listening. Um, this will be posted on bank notes dot CEO over the next couple of days and then subscribe to our email newsletter over on the website as well. We'll be posting future updates about future webinars and content. All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks for joining us. That's awesome. Thank you. All right, we'll see