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Net Element, Inc. (NETE): A Mobile Payments & Point-of-Service Powerhouse
Net Element’s primary subsidiary, TOT Group, Inc., provides a broad array of highly flexible online and offline end-to-end payment solutions for content providers, merchants and mobile operators working in the burgeoning mobile payments arena. The mobile payments market is on-track to climb 184% over the next four years in the U.S. alone to around $142B, according to a recent report by research firm Forrester, published in mid-November 2014.
The growth of in-person mobile payments at point of sale (POS), led by top contenders like Apple Pay, Google Wallet, PayPal Mobile Express, and Visa Checkout, represents a thriving market that is anticipated by one of the top analysts at Forrester as growing to around $34B in the U.S. by 2019. A nearly ten-fold increase over current estimates, this projection should give investors a clear picture of how mobile device proliferation and more robust contactless NFC (near-field communications) payment solutions are rapidly transforming the Point-of-Service (POS) space, which has been historically dominated by EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) cards. There are a number of reasons retailers are looking to upgrade their POS footprint, and among those reasons, better integration of marketing for online sales to mobile users with brick and mortar sales is a primary target.
So-called mobile wallet solutions like Apple Pay have quickly become a hot topic for retailers, who are looking to cash in on the advantageous consumer engagement metrics available through shrewdly executed in-store campaigns that openly embrace the presence of smartphones and tablets. With foot traffic at brick and mortar retailers off by as much as 11% in late 2014 according to RetailNext, retailers like Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) are now developing mobile-friendly solutions, including aspects like in-store Wi-Fi, mobile maps and iBeacons (Bluetooth-based indoor positioning that helps alert shoppers to deals), in order to cultivate mobile wallet users.
This is an area where Net Element thrives, with their increasingly sophisticated portfolio of mobile payment solutions, value-added merchant payment processing services, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) options for realizing elegant POS. The company is well-positioned to take advantage of the continued move by retailers towards integrating ecommerce and in-store marketing, as the advantages of a blended, omnichannel experience approach become more and more apparent. Huge opportunities are potentially realizable when offering a way for consumers to interact with their favorite brands and retailers, using tools like QR code-equipped signage that can enhance consumer interactions and conversion rates. Attractive POS engagement is another key to mobile customer retention, but it requires high-quality NFC contactless, EMV-enabled point-of-sale terminals like those provided by Net Element.
Net Element acts as a one-stop-shop for merchants who want to be able to reliably accept cashless transactions at the POS and the company can not only handle electronic payment processing, but mobile ecommerce transactions as well. The company also offers merchant terminal management and comprehensive information management services that allow retailers to get a handle on the Big Data generated by their clientele, further improving marketing efforts with real-time analytics that cover not only the business architecture itself, but the customer base as well. Getting a good sense of internal logistics and external sales metrics, or customer engagement, are often the deciding factors that stand between success or failure in the retail game.
The company’s cloud-based Aptito platform (recently optimized for iOS 8.1) is a feature-rich POS platform that fully supports in-depth business analytics and information management, granting even small to medium enterprises the strength punch well above their weight and deliver a variety of networked digital menu, interactive kiosk, and even table-side ordering capabilities. Fully customizable to the actual retail location and thus able to suit the needs of practically any retail business, Net Element’s Aptito packages are nevertheless cheaper than comparable PC-based POS solutions, and represent an ideal way for even small retailers to jump into the mobile payment arena feet first.
With consumers now making fewer and fewer trips to retail stores, preferring to shop online and whenever or wherever they please via smartphones and tablets, as evinced by IBM Digital Analytics’ report that showed mobile amounted to over 52% of traffic to retail websites during Thanksgiving 2014, the need to cultivate the mobile shopper, online or in-store, has catalyzed a fusion approach among retailers’ marketing efforts. According to GPShopper, in-store app usage converted m-commerce sales twice as fast last year as the rate of any other users. Since shoppers made fewer trips to stores last year, but spent more per visit (according to RetailNext), marketing that caters to the mobile user is becoming increasingly indispensable.
It will no doubt soon be indisputably essential for retailers to embrace the kinds of mobile commerce technologies provided by Net Element in order to execute engaging m-commerce solutions and offerings like the company’s innovative card reader app for Apple and Android devices, which is a great example of how NETE continues to be a consumer-experience focused developer. The company’s rapid integration of Apple Pay into their POS acceptance hardware and software further shows how eager the company is to cement itself as a key player in the mobile payments industry.
For more information on Net Element, visit: www.NetElement.com
