With some companies offering mainly ecommerce store options for your business and others offering digital payment options, UK-based Powa may be one of the unique companies to offer them both.
The company recently raised $80 million in a new round of venture capital funding, the Wall Street Journal reports. That money, from Wellington Management, is to allow Powa to launch its already popular ecommerce and payments system in the U.S. This latest round of funding follows an additional $76 million raised last year.
Powa’s founder and CEO Dan Wagner said in a statement confirming the money raised that his company plans to launch in the U.S. during the upcoming holiday season. The company is already popular in Europe, largely in the U.K.
For small businesses already using both a point-of-sale payment systems and an ecommerce site, Powa offers services meeting both needs.
And those services are mobile ready. They allow businesses to create an almost infinite number of ecommerce sites to segment products for specific customers. The company also offers a revenue share business model that should make it easy for even the smallest businesses to take part without significant upfront investment.
And for businesses that offer products directly to customers face-to-face, Powa offers another option to streamline the payment process through use of its unique PowaTag feature.
PowaTags are placed on products in stores and can be scanned by customers using a smartphone. These tags can also be printed on advertisements or banners, on websites featuring your products, allowing customers to pay for tagged items using their mobile device. There are even PowaTags placed as inaudible files inside videos and streaming broadcasts.
For those audio PowaTags, when a customer is watching, for example, a video produced by your business, their PowaTag app — downloaded for free on either an Apple or Android device — will prompt them to make a purchase.
PowaTags can speed up the checkout process at stores, since customers can simply scan the tag and make a one-touch purchase from their smartphones.
The company is also utilizing near-field technology beacons. These devices allow you to keep your customers informed as they move about your retail shop, sending alerts to their smartphones on specific sales corresponding to areas in the store where they are located.
Image: Powa
Aira Bongco
I think that this has good future considering that it makes it mainstream. However, it needs to be have a lot of tie ups for that to happen. Let’s see how far it can go.