Puma’s recent collaboration with the Dutch fintech company Adyen marks its shift towards a unified commerce platform.
With this five-year partnership, the sportswear giant company seeks to streamline and simplify its payment processes and improve upon their omnichannel experience in more than six markets. This move was fueled by Puma’s experience with fragmented payment systems, which included the complex management of multiple payment providers across various markets.
Apart from the earlier intricate system of payment, the two companies also mentioned in a joint announcement, about the issues with multiple providers. They cited that the multiple providers across different markets lead to challenges such as fraud, abandoned purchases, inconsistent customer experience, delayed reconciliations.
However, with Adyen’s collaboration, Puma aims to consolidate these multiple payment processes into a single system. Additionally, the fintech company’s unified platform will also cover local payment preference, according to which Puma will be able to effortlessly activate regional payments such as e-wallets, Buy Now Pay Later options, and credit cards. This local payment will be particularly helpful in simplifying the payment process in the Southeast Asia market, where payment preference can vary from country-to-country.
Further to this, the platform will also help the sportswear company in addressing the issues pertaining to the omnichannel experience. This system will seamlessly integrate and power the customer experience through its ability to purchase items online and return them in-store or the option of buying in-store and having the products shipped from other locations or warehouses.
This partnership has already been tested in fast-paced and demanding environments like the Formula 1 events – the event marked by large and simultaneous transactions. The surges experienced by Puma at the Formula 1 event have reportedly been managed efficiently by the Adyen platform. In fact, in Australia, Puma has already launched Adyen’s unified system across its 26 stores within a month. This integration was done through the remote deployment model- a process of installing and configuring software in the computer system without the requirement of physical access leading to a reduced cost.
The remote deployment model has also been launched in Singapore and as such, the company has expanded its unified approach to include prime locations such as Malaysia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, UK and other European countries. In this regard, Ben Wong, general manager for Southeast Asia and Hong Kong at Adyen said that their collaboration with Puma reflects on how unified platforms can propel retailers to operate smartly and show efficiency in the light of ever-evolving market conditions.
