Two Vancouver, B.C. startups have teamed up to launch a platform giving retailers an e-commerce oriented-website, as well as the ability to take credit and debit payments both online and with mobile devices in stores.
On Friday, LemonStand eCommerce Inc. and Payfirma Corp. announced they’d be partnering up, with LemonStand supplying a customizable, mobile-friendly e-commerce website and Payfirma giving merchants the option to collect payments through multiple channels from one account. For example, retailers with a brick-and-mortar store can take debit and credit through a dongle attached to a smartphone or tablet, while also collecting payments online through their website.
The startups are targeting their solution towards larger merchants that bring in revenue of $150,000 or more per year.
“The whole point of this integration as a partnership is really about empowering the merchant … [It’s] about flexibility for the customer to develop [their store] and make it any way they want to,” said Michael Gokturk, CEO of Payfirma.
“All the customers on Payfirma that want an online store can easily set it up using LemonStand, and now customers with LemonStand that are using another payment processor that they potentially aren’t happy with, are now able to use Payfirma to complete the checkout.”
He added both LemonStand and Payfirma give their customers access to data analytics so they can monitor their businesses’ performances.
LemonStand and Payfirma are entering a space that has a few competitors already. Other e-commerce companies like Shopify Inc. and Square Inc. also serve retailers, with Shopify announcing its own point-of-sales hardware for mobile devices in August 2013. Square also added an e-commerce website to its stable of offerings just a couple of months before that.
Still, Danny Halarewich, CEO of LemonStand, said he believes this partnership is different, as it allows retailers to have the freedom to grow and to be less constrained by the kind of platform they’re using – and that’s one reason why LemonStand and Payfirma are targeting larger merchants as customers, rather than going after microbusinesses.
“We’re trying to help those retailers that are trying to be more than just another small business, or online store with a cookie-cutter appearance. There’s a lot of those out there, there’s thousands, maybe even millions,” he said. “And if you’re not unique, then you won’t be remembered. Customers will go somewhere where they’re getting a better experience and where it’s more memorable.”
In terms of pricing, LemonStand and Payfirma are offering their integration for free to their customers. Developers looking to add Payfirma’s application programming interface to their LemonStand site can check out LemonStand’s blog post here.
