Riyadh – HyperPay announces it is collaborating with Oracle to provide a “No-Show” solution benefiting hotels using Oracle OPERA Cloud Property Management System (PMS).
In a post-pandemic landscape, hotels are dealing with a sharp increase in demand but often lack the ability to successfully meet it, especially as a great number of no-show reservations can impact a hotel’s bottom line and cut into its profits.
One of the MENA region’s fastest growing payments services providers, and a member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), HyperPay, announces the release of its innovative Hospitality Solution, available both to Oracle Hospitality OPERA Cloud customers via the Oracle Hospitality Integration Platform (OHIP) and OPERA 5 on-premises customers via OPERA Web Services. It is currently available on Oracle Cloud Marketplace, a centralized repository of enterprise applications offered by Oracle and Oracle partners.
HyperPay’s Hospitality Solution is designed specifically to help ensure hotels and their guests communicate accurately, and the “No-Show” solution is a fully automated process allowing hotels to bill customers for the first night’s stay in advance of their arrival on the premises.
Once payment is settled, HyperPay’s Hospitality Solution works with Oracle’s OPERA Cloud and OPERA 5 solutions to reflect the booking’s status and sends the client a booking confirmation along with a digital invoice.
HyperPay, the largest and fastest-growing payments services provider in the MENA region, has announced
that it is going public through an initial public offering (IPO) in Saudi Arabia within the next two years as part of its expansion plan in the country’s fintech market.
The payments services provider aims to become the preferred payment tool for various top organisations across the world by diversifying its products and service offerings. Serving as a one-stop solution that meets all the financial requirements and interests of customers, HyperPay further intends to offer a broad spectrum of financial services and products as part of its expansion plans, beyond payment services. It further aims to assist robust economies such as Saudi Arabia in facilitating the switch towards a cashless economy. By doing so, the company further strives to establish the MENA region as a leading cashless ecosystem that caters to the requirements and interests of customers.
Muhannad Ebwini, Founder and CEO of HyperPay stated: “Saudi Arabia is an important market especially
since the fintech sector in the country is currently experiencing remarkable growth. We are committed to expanding our
services beyond payments to provide a broad spectrum of financial services and products across the MENA region,
particularly Saudi Arabia. The country’s digital transformation initiative, which comes as part of the Saudi Vision 2030, presents
the ideal opportunity to achieve widespread adoption of cashless payment models across the country. At HyperPay,
our secondary objective is to position the MENA region as one of the leading cashless ecosystems that meets all the
financial needs and interests of customers. We are developing and expanding our product lines, addressing the changing needs
of our customers across all sectors and resolving any difficulties that businesses face while adopting digital payment
models.”
According to US Expert Market Research, the global fintech market was estimated to be USD 136 billion in 2021 and is expected to expand to almost USD 266.9 billion by 2027, experiencing a compound annual growth rate of 12.1 percent.
HyperPay aims to satisfy the various needs and demands of the evolving fintech sector in Saudi Arabia,
where the industry is projected to grow dramatically in the coming years. Furthermore, as customers around the world
increasingly depend on digital platforms for purchasing, eCommerce will also expand, enabling exceptional customer experiences
made possible by streamlined and seamless payment options. In addition to payment processing, HyperPay also provides a
wide range of other products and services to its merchants, such as risk and fraud management, tracking systems, installment, and invoicing systems.
Recently, the company raised SAR 138 million in a funding round led by Mastercard with investments from
Amwal Capital Partners and AB Ventures. This funding round served as the beginning of a strategic business partnership
that will support the company’s efforts to grow regionally and expand its product offerings. The new funding will further
assist in the growth of the company and its IPO, as well as its expansion into Egypt, Bahrain, Iraq, and Oman.
The company currently serves more than 5,000 merchants in seven different countries and is one of the
top-five payment providers in the MENA region that contributes to the emergence of cashless societies. It also provides
companies, governments, and small and medium-based enterprises (SMEs) with cutting-edge technologies to assist them
in transitioning from cash-based payments to an improved and seamless ecosystem. With its headquarters in Riyadh, HyperPay has offices in Jordan and the UAE.
By Dalia Abutteen
Are your sales calendars marked for the biggest shopping event of the year? We sure hope so! The emails, messages, ads, and push notifications are already flooding the internet, as every online retailer tries to stand out in the midst of the virtual crowd. eCommerce businesses around the world are carefully preparing their sites and perfecting their marketing strategies to boost their sales on this date. What about consumers? Well, they are cancelling plans, bringing their credit cards and e-wallets out, and getting ready to find the best bargains for items on their wish lists!
Black Friday/White Friday is a really exciting time for everybody, but we understand how stressful it can be for retailers trying to put together the best deals to maximize sales. In an attempt to help out, we put together a list of the best marketing tactics you can easily apply in time for the big day. But first, let’s answer a few questions you might have. If you are already familiar with the big event of the year, you may skip to the list.
What is White Friday?
White Friday is another term for the famous Black Friday that emerged from the United States, and now is globally known as the biggest online shopping event. Every year, around this time, almost every ecommerce site starts preparing for Black Friday (White Friday in the Middle East), which takes place annually during the last Friday of November and usually extends to the last few days of the month
When is White Friday in 2020?
White Friday will officially start on November 27, 2020.
Although White Friday comes in pandemic-style this year, with e-commerce booming and consumer behaviors changing, we expect it to be a huge success for all online retailers.
Four Marketing Tips to Boost Your White Friday Sales
1. Optimize Your Site Banner for Better Conversions
Create a flashy White Friday banner on your website or app with carefully crafted messaging that positions your business as the absolute go-to for the biggest deals of the year. Link the banner to a separate landing page with the special “White Friday Discounted Products” to simplify the browsing experience for your customers.
Bonus tip: some retailers are adding a countdown clock that creates more urgency to buy before time is up, with messages such as “Hurry, time is running!” or “Hurry, white Friday sale ends in X number of hours!”
2. Offer Irresistible Deals and Display Them Correctly
Sprii online store is planning to offer discounts up to 90% during the black friday dubai version! Now you are probably wondering, what would be considered a ‘Hot Deal’ and which products should be discounted?
a. Prepare a list of your most popular products, the best-sellers, and knock down their prices to give customers an irresistible bargain on the items they have been anticipating to buy.
b. You can benefit from cross-selling if those discounted products require other complementary items available on your website.
c. When displaying your White Friday deals make sure to show the original price and highlight the exact savings percentage to motivate buyers to click that “add to cart” button.
Bonus tip: Offer free shipping, it almost always works in speeding up the buying decision!
3. Hype Up Your Social Media Channels
You nailed your promotions strategy and optimized your site, but how do you create hype around your big sales to keep your customers engaged even before the big event?
a. Leverage all your active social media channels, and start giving followers a sneak peek into your Black Friday sale early on
b. Create content that features the products that will go on sale so customers can start adding them to their shopping lists ahead of time
c. Increase your social media ad spending to expand your reach and maximize your sales possibilities
d. Stay active all the time, answer all questions quickly, and engage with your potential customers as much as possible throughout the entire online shopping event
Bonus tip: Create a Facebook Event for your white Friday sale 2020 with a start and end date, and invite many people to it to keep them posted on all updates fast!
4. Personalize White Friday Emails to Increase Click Rates
First, it’s important to mention that your subscribers’ inboxes are probably flooded with advertising emails from e-commerce businesses promoting their Black Friday sales offers. So, keep your content short and straight to the point by mentioning in bold the big discounts and deals you are offering, with a very clear call-to-action leading them to your products page, (and then hopefully to the checkout page).
One of the proven ways to cut through the noise during White Friday and boost engagement, is to send out personalized emails to your subscribers, promoting special offerings and relevant recommendations tailored to their preferences, using the insights and history collected when they visited your website.
And definitely, don’t underestimate the power of retargeting lost customers through email. Whenever an indecisive customer abandons their cart, send a teaser email that will woo them back in to complete the purchase.
Bonus tip: The secret behind a high click rate is in crafting a catchy “Subject Line”! For Black Friday Emails, it’s best to include the limited-time deal you are offering in the subject line.
Finally, we recommend extending the sale a couple of days past White Friday, as this is quite common amongst retailers in the Middle East.
These were some of the few essential tips to help you gain traffic and take advantage of all the possible opportunities to maximize your sales during this annual online shopping event. However, the tactics are numerous, keep researching, testing, and leveraging all marketing strategies to stand out from the competition. Follow our blog on Hyperpay for more useful and informative articles covering ecommerce challenges and market trends along with payment solutions customized to meet their needs.
Hyperpay; MENA’s leading payment service provider, received the prestigious Finnovex Award for the Excellence in Payment Solutions category, selected after extensive research done by the awards committee and announced during the Finnovex Middle East conference which was held from the 3rd to the 4th of November at the Conrad Hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The Finnovex Awards are granted for individuals, institutions, and service providers who are pioneers in the field of financial services, in an attempt to identify leaders in the industry and celebrate their outstanding achievements.
HyperPay won the award this year in recognition of their commitment to stay ahead in the Fintech space and continuously enhance their online payment solutions to provide merchants with convenient and secure payment acceptance experiences.
Commenting on the occasion, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of HyperPay, Muhannad Ebwini, said “We are truly honoured to accept the ‘Excellence in Payment Solutions’ award. At HyperPay, we are focused on making our payment services fit for all businesses, and will continue to lead the wave of Fintech and digital transformation in the Middle East.”
About HyperPay:
HyperPay is the fastest growing Saudi-based payment gateway, transforming the online buying experience across the MENA region. Since its establishment in 2014, HyperPay has enabled thousands of local and multinational businesses to accept debit and credit card payments online, with more convenience and security.
HyperPay operates out of its 4 major offices in KSA, UAE, Jordan, and Bahrain.
Merchants can now accept more payments through the convenience and reliability of STC Pay
STC Pay Now is now available for HyperPay merchants in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
HyperPay is one of the first payment gateways to offer STC Pay, a fast, secure, and preferred payment method in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Merchants can now accept more payments through the convenience and reliability of STC Pay
STC Pay can be easily activated on merchants’ websites, allowing them to accept, secure, and manage payments with utmost flexibility. HyperPay has also enabled the ‘multiple partial refunds’ option, giving merchant partners a competitive advantage in the market.
On this occasion, Ashraf Manasra, Chief Operations Officer at HyperPay said: “At HyperPay, we have always sought to offer our customers accessible payment solutions that are easy, responsive, secure and focused on their business. This venture will definitely help us to deliver on our promise guaranteeing a seamless user experience.
“HyperPay is amongst the first few in the Kingdom to offer STC Pay to its merchants and we are very proud of this partnership.”
First came the computer, and then came the mobile. Then there was the internet, then there was the smartphone, and now we have these apps. It’s hard to keep up with technology when every day there’s a new invention. You might think it’s easier not to, but trust me it’s not. Someday, technology’s going to catch up with you, leaving you no choice but to submit to its authority. And whether you’re ready for it or not, you’re going to have to embrace it. The good news is, it’s actually not that bad, and it can do miracles to your online business. Today, the number of mobile users is larger than the number of desktop users. Why do you think that it? People are highly embracing the mobile app trend and offering them a mobile website does not provide the same experience.
What Makes a Mobile App Better Than a Mobile Website?
1- Extra features: Mobile apps have a number of features you can utilize for your app. Such as camera, contact list, GPS, phone calls, compass, etc… These features can make your user experience more interactive and fun. Not to mention, they can significantly shorten the time needed to perform certain tasks.
2- No restrictions on functions: Mobile websites, no matter how advanced, still have some limitations on certain functions. However, this problem doesn’t exist with mobile apps. Simple functions can make a huge difference in your life, like the swipe, or drag, or zoom in functions.
3- Ability to work offline: Perhaps one of the best features about mobile apps is the ability to work offline. This feature alone puts apps way ahead of mobile websites. Even though you might not be able to perform all the tasks without an internet connection. You can still get a lot done using the offline mode.
4- Improved productivity and customer service: Mobile apps allow you to track your customers’ purchases and better understand their shopping trends. This gives you the upper hand as you can stock their favorite items in advance so you’ll never run out-of-stock. You will be able to predict their next shopping cart and meet your delivery schedule. On-time business processes and meeting customer demand mean more sales.
5- Increased profit: Mobile apps are easy to use; this encourages customers to keep browsing your products. The speed factor also results in time saving and more purchases. In addition, for customers to be able to be able to set their preferences is highly important. Simple personalized information such as interests, location, and more can help you customize their recommendations. Ultimately, this will lead to higher conversion rates.
The bottom line is…Mobile apps are crucially important for your online store. People spend most of their time on mobile apps because they hold the power to simplify every single detail of their lives into a mobile app. Not to mention, their shopping behavior and decision making. Mobile apps can offer greater values to your business, all you need to do is convince your customers that your app’s worthy of their time.
A Free Guide to Choosing The Right Shopping Cart Platform
It’s the dreaded question, the one every starting eCommerce tries to avoid and leaves till the last minute. Which is the right shopping cart platform for my business? Lucky for you, we’re here to make your life easier. We’ve decided to make a research on shopping carts to help you make an informed decision. So we’ve gathered as much information as we could find on the most used platforms and created a list of pros and cons. But before getting into that, you need to understand the forms of modern shopping carts.
Shopping Cart Types:
A) Hosted Shopping Carts: Also known as SaaS (Software as a service). Easy-to-use, but limited in functionality because it’s hosted by your vendor. That’s why it’s recommended for eCommerce beginners. You might not be able to customize your site as preferred. Monthly fees include access to the software, hosting, and security.
B) Self-Hosted Shopping Carts: These are Open-Source solutions, they’re free to download and use. But you’ll need to find your own hosting and buy your own SSL certificate each year. On top of that, they’re much more difficult to operate than hosted solutions. Therefore, they’re not highly recommended for beginners. However, your developers can access every line of code in the software which gives you total freedom customizing your site. You can also use pre-paid add-ons and themes.
Top Shopping Cart Platforms…Our Own Views And Comparison
The number one hosted shopping cart with over 100,000 online stores. It’s ideal for small or medium-sized businesses and eCommerce.
Pros: This platform is extremely easy to setup with well-designed templates to choose from. It includes an iOS App for updating your store, managing inventory, orders, and contacting customers. POS system is available allowing you to sync both online and offline inventory and sales.
Cons: It’s not cheap and as you have more sales, your monthly plan becomes more and more expensive. Not to mention that you have limited control over your checkout page design. On top of that, the built-in blog is weak compared to WordPress.
It’s a self-hosted platform owned by eBay. Best for an enterprise-class eCommerce, due to its long experience in the field.
Pros: It offers customer support features to help handle millions of customer queries. It also includes an extension marketplace where users can integrate a number of third-party tools such as WordPress, Zendesk, and others. Another benefit is that its customizing charges vary as per your developer.
Cons: It’s difficult to customize with an unfriendly user interface. But perhaps the biggest issue with Magento is low speed. Even though slow performance is a problem you can fix, you shouldn’t have to. Moreover, you need to install an extension for blogging.
A self-hosted platform owned by WordPress now. Known best for its plug-ins and ideal for average and smaller stores that just need a store to sell a few things right.
Pros: Free and easy to install with an unlimited customizing ability and resources. If you already have a WordPress site, all you need to do is to install the free plug-in. You can access millions of free and prepaid themes. You can also enjoy all WordPress features, like the blog which is very well-organized.
Cons: Security is a huge issue as WordPress is a highly hacked platform. Plugin updates can break other plugins, or the shopping cart altogether. You have limited credit card gateway choices with a very weak support system which may take more than 24 hours to respond. So unless you have a full-time developer to maintain your website, don’t take the risk.
A hosted platform with clients like CNN, the Food Network, ABC News, GQ and others.
Pros: It integrates with eBay, Facebook, Shopzilla, and PriceGrabber. It accepts payments from a variety of gateways including PayPal and Google Checkout. It offers a fully-loaded package that includes a secure shopping cart, product catalogs, payment gateway, marketing tools, and a mobile-optimized store. The user interface of the admin panel looks clean and easy to navigate.
Cons: It starts considerably cheap, then increases its fees over time without you noticing. It’s fairly customizable but without total control and has terrible customer service.
A self-hosted platform with a growing community of store owners, developers, and service providers.
Pros: It integrates with a variety of payment processors like Amazon, eBay, and Sagepay. Over 7,000 add-ons that enable you to customize and add new functionalities to your online storefronts. Price varies per developer.
Cons: Difficult to edit with many security issues.
A self-hosted shopping cart.
Pros: Easy one-click upgrades. Always on top of the latest trends and technology. Search-engine friendly and integrates with many of the third-party applications. Multilingual capabilities.
Cons: No built-in POS system. Considered expensive.