Lily Varon

Find out which emerging technologies will shape the future of payments and revolutionize transactions, customer interaction, and security — and which will fall short.

What three questions should you ask when evaluating the merchant payments provider market? Find out in this blog previewing the findings from the new The Forrester Wave™: Merchant Payment Providers, Q1 2024.

Retailers and consumer-facing brands have been so busy chasing the next hot payment method that they’ve missed what customers really want when they make payments. Learn how to start incorporating experiences into your payments strategy.

Read this Forrester blog for data insights on what digital payment methods consumers are using instead of credit cards and cash.

Forrester’s data shows that, in 2023, more than one in 10 US online adults encountered a technical failure at the point of checkout. And about the same number said their online payments were rejected because their card on file had expired. Despite (many!) other priorities, smooth checkout should top your to-do list. It’s elementary: Failed […]

Billing is one of the most important technologies for the future of your business. I know … lots of tech categories say that. Here’s why billing tech is so powerful: With rapid reinvention and relentless innovation on our doorsteps, firms need billing technology that enables — rather than hinders — their adaptability, creativity, and resilience […]

Gift cards are more than products — they are strategies. Get a glimpse of how companies are making the most of this.

Four in five software decision makers at US retail companies are adopting or plan to adopt payments software in 2022, Forrester data shows.

As part of the latest Forrester Wave evaluation of the merchant payment provider market, we spoke with 23 customer references (i.e., merchants like retailers and brands) about their experiences with their current payment provider.

For our latest evaluation in the merchant payment provider space, Forrester identified 11 leading vendors - learn more about our findings.

Subscription offerings from brands and retailers have been popping up everywhere. But as many subscription services have found — and Rent the Runway’s recent IPO filings also underscore — creating a compelling subscription includes getting customers to subscribe and then keeping them subscribed, with continued value from that subscription. Otherwise, churn and operational complexity can […]

It’s safe to say that our email inboxes, social media feeds, and online shopping trips have been filled with endless holiday promotions and shipping delay notices. But this year, we saw a new term pop up more than ever: “Buy Now, Pay Later.” In my latest research, “New Tech: Deferred Payment Providers, Q4 2020,” I […]

For our latest evaluation in the merchant payment provider space, Forrester identified 10 leading vendors and spent the last four months analyzing their offerings via a combination of briefings, demos, capability assessments, and customer reference checks. Specifically, we evaluated ACI Worldwide, Adyen, Cybersource, Fiserv, Global Payments, J.P. Morgan, PayPal, Stripe, Worldline, and Worldpay from FIS. […]

Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay; alternative payments are a hot topic. And they are key to seamless checkout experiences, especially while consumers shop on their smartphones. But which options are merchants offering? And which are consumers actually using? Forrester dove into 100 retailer sites to determine the state of alternative-payments acceptance in US online […]

(Get it? Sticky!) It’s PayPal’s largest acquisition to date. PayPal’s core value proposition is in alleviating shoppers’ concerns about providing personal financial information during the online checkout process — and that remains as valuable as ever. But here’s what the Honey acquisition means for PayPal moving forward: The Honey acquisition extends PayPal’s role in the […]

Nike Just Does It First, the age of the customer shifted power away from institutions to individuals, drastically reducing the control companies had over their own brands. Then came Amazon: The competitive juggernaut ripped whatever shred of control brands had left, leaving them to figure out the algorithmic enigma of eCommerce while competing on price […]

“When [billing] goes well, no one cares. When it goes wrong, it’s the end of the world,” one business customer summed up. As a digital business strategist, you may not think billing technology is in your purview. But your ability to keep up with market changes and the quality of your customer experiences will depend […]

Only 5% of US online adults polled say they would trust Facebook to provide digital payment services, well below Amazon, Apple, and Google. Here's what digital businesses need to understand about Facebook Pay.