NuOrder Enters B- to- b Payments Market
● NuOrder Payments is designed for wholesale purchasing.
The industry regularly focuses on the front- end user experience of any platform, but back- end operations are starting to modernize. After innovating the discovery element of the wholesale process, NuOrder is turning its attention to the purchasing experience. With its new Payments solution, NuOrder is expanding its offerings to encompass the entire buying journey.
“We always want to build solutions for buyers across the NuOrder platform that will enhance their overall experience,” said Heath Wells, cofounder and co-chief executive officer of NuOrder. “By creating our own backend system, this allows us to keep the relationship with every buyer and retailer rather than handing them over to a partner.”
The digital wholesale platform allows brands and buyers to interact, showcase and browse product and manage merchandise orders. Yet the payment process wasn’t standardized across NuOrder; some brands would use a third- party gateway service or manually process payments over the phone. These systems can increase the likelihood delays, potential errors and unsatisfactory customer experiences, which may result in lost business.
With NuOrder Payments, vendors can choose to support click- to- purchase and pay later experiences within their wholesale platform. This can provide greater flexibility for buyers and reduce the chance of cancellations or delays, allowing brands to manage both immediate and prebook orders all in one place. Buyers are able to store their preferred payment methods within a digital wallet, for easy access across the NuOrder ecosystem.
“We want to deliver the best experience to both buyers and sellers at every stage of the wholesale journey,” said Wells. “Buyers will experience the ease of having a global NuOrder wallet that they can manage themselves and that can be used across all brands accepting credit card payments on the platform. Buyers can authorize or remove credit cards and select which brands can use them.”
Payments is commonly slow to innovate on the business-to-business side; businessto-consumer payment options have exploded in recent years, particularly with the growth of buy now, pay later solutions. But the digital transformation of consumer experiences is slowly being brought to the b-to-b market.
NuOrder and its industry counterparts have already worked to digitize the buying process, with virtual showroom technology as one of the biggest innovations of 2020. But the challenges of the pandemic were not just tied to limited human gatherings; the financial implications for many brands and retailers led to strained vendor relationships. The outdated, rigid payments systems that most businesses used only increased this friction.
“Historically, emphasis has been focused on the front end of the wholesale process: Presenting and ordering,” said Wells. “With the onset of the global pandemic and the uncertainty throughout the industry of what the future would hold, the need for flexible payment and financing options immediately became a business- critical topic and pain point.”
NuOrder Payments is SOC2 and
PCI compliant and utilizes machine learning to support fraud prevention. The company reports it will offer competitive rates, following an audit of the external service fees paid by its customers.