Smooth, simple
in-person payments
Providing small businesses with the easiest, fastest and most affordable way to get paid.
Introduction
Small businesses selling face-to-face have a huge selection of software and hardware specifically designed for merchants and getting paid in person. This case study covers how the Revolut Business suite of merchant tools understands and addresses the common pitfalls and user needs faced by small businesses today, and how it stands apart from competitors.
The central hub for creating, tracking, and managing sales and merchant funds
I was fortunate to be the second hire in the newly-formed department dedicated to developing these merchant tools, and I'm proud to have led the design process for the majority of the tools in production today.
My role in the products covered in this case study was hands-on from day one.
Primary contributions include — user, field and desk research, in-depth competitor analyses, end-to-end product design, prototyping, QA and testing. I was also responsible in the hiring, managing. and mentoring additional product designers at later stages in department's growth.
I worked closely with our head of department, engineers (initially on loan from other teams) and product managers, presenting updates and key design proposals to C-level execs weekly.
Introducing Real Coffee Company™ — a grassroots coffee company starting small but with big ambitions.
Starting with a single truck, the company sells cups of coffee to folks in the business districts of London, relocating every week to find the best places to do business. Their current operation is simple as resources and personnel are limited —make coffee, take payments, repeat.
I've used this as an example to tell the story of how our merchant products address the changing needs of a growing business.
During the research stage we sought to understand the needs of small businesses from existing Revolut Business customers, online discourse, and good old fashioned conversations.
Existing Revolut Business users explicitly requested merchant features via customer support and surveys. We discovered that a typical business software toolkit is fragmented and complicated, with companies needing to adopt and maintain multiple platforms and services.
Field research talking to local businesses yielded insights into selling face-to-face. Reliability, easy setup and lack of friction in use, and low transaction fees all factored into deciding what software, hardware, and overall merchant package to use.
Competitors had a few things in common — specialised, merchant-first offerings with a strong emphasis on either online or in-person payment solutions, not both. This coupled with high transaction fees showed a clear gap in the market.
Through these discoveries we arrived at a few key objectives and guiding principles to follow. It was important to align with stakeholders on these before committing to any production work.
Objectives
1
Prioritise making the sale — if something fails, have a backup
2
No technical skills or resources needed
3
A reliable, polished, and professional experience for merchant and customer
4
Scalable across businesses of all shapes and sizes
Guiding principles
A
Aim for the fastest, most direct path to a completed transaction
B
Simple, intuitive, flexible, and seamless with the rest of the Revolut Business platform
C
Consistent and familiar patterns across merchant products
Our goal was to provide solutions that could be setup and used by anyone, quick to create sales and take payments, and to allow merchants to keep more of their earnings with a low fee structure.
Small businesses have similar problems when starting out, and establishing themselves is hard enough with limited resources.
Keeping payment systems simple, unintrusive, fast, and affordable as possible enabled businesses to focus on serving customers, selling products, and running things smoothly.
We started with 2 products that could achieve the objectives stated above — Apple Tap to Pay and payment links.
Apple Tap to Pay
Payment links
At this stage of their growth Real Coffee Co. only sells in-person, so we'll look at how they can get paid with only an iPhone.
Creating a sale and charging a customer via Apple Tap to Pay
Creating a sale and/or charging a customer should be as painless and straightforward as possible, while offering enough flexibility to cover multiple use cases. A few principles and behaviours were considered when making sales:
Optimised for high frequency repeat usage
Merchants need the shortest path to a completed sale, especially when there's a queue of customers waiting. Direct access to sales tools, reducing steps to a minimum, and set-and-forget settings, help to minimise friction.
Payment fallback options
In the few cases when certain sale types don't work, there's always a backup in place. When there are sales to be made, merchants should never be limited by the constraints of their payment systems.
Consistent and familiar patterns
The device or mechanism for getting paid in person can change, but the user experience shouldn't. Whether merchants make use of a card reader, QR code, Tap to Pay, or all three — creating a sale is always the same.
Creating a sale and/or charging a customer should be as painless and straightforward as possible, while offering enough flexibility to cover multiple use cases. A few principles and behaviours were considered when making sales:
Enter sale amount
Creating a sale and/or charging a customer should be as painless and straightforward as possible, while offering enough flexibility to cover multiple use cases. A few principles and behaviours were considered when making sales:
Enter sale amount
Select one or more products
Review sale items and VAT
Choose a sale type
Manage the sale post payment
Manage the sale post payment
While the process of charging customers is simple, setting up Tap to Pay has some important logic and user permissions we needed to consider.
Scroll to the right to see more ➔
For small businesses selling face-to-face, Revolut Business offers the ideal tools to get paid quickly, easily, affordably and with minimum commitment. Those ready to take the next step are covered too.
As Real Coffee Co. expands, they might invest in more trucks and pop-up stores, potentially even expanding their product range and developing an online presence.
As the company grows — so do the challenges of running things smoothly, as well as customer expectations.
To level up their in-person payment experience, the Revolut Reader is a perfect replacement or supplement to Apple Tap to Pay.
It enables merchants to process more transactions at peak times, accepts chip-and-pin payments, is better suited for various environments and conditions, is less dependent on internet connectivity, and reduces customer security concerns.
