Offering more local payment methods unlocks more revenue for Alshaya Group

Alshaya Group is a world-leading brand franchise operator, offering customers an unparalleled choice of well-loved international brands including Starbucks, H&M, The Body Shop and Victoria’s Secret.  Alshaya’s portfolio extends across MENA, Russia, Turkey, and Europe, with over 4,000 stores, cafes, restaurants and leisure destinations, as well as a scale online and digital business.    

As one of the region's most progressive businesses, Alshaya is committed to innovation. It aims to deliver fresh, modern and relevant experiences to its customers. And it's this innovative approach that led Alshaya to onboard Checkout.com as its new payments partner.

"Checkout.com's deep expertise across MENA stood out from the crowd," says Red Bamba, Alshaya’s Senior Manager for Digital Payments. "It has teams on the ground that know the market and where customer demand is. That's an attribute that other global payment providers just don't have."

Red also cites Checkout.com's superior technology and extensive network in the region — including relationships with local banks, issuers and schemes — as another critical attribute. "With one integration, Checkout.com can support us everywhere we do business, so we can streamline our payments infrastructure while still achieving optimum performance," says Red. 

Providing the right mix of local payment methods for a superior customer experience

Alshaya's key goal was to expand the number of payment methods its brands could offer customers across MENA. The question was, what payment methods to provide?

To get the answers, Checkout.com worked with Alshaya to understand how consumers in different markets behave and this analysis identified which payment solution to adopt in which market.

"Checkout.com is integrated into all the region's most popular local payment methods," says Red. "Turning them on and configuring them within our existing integration was straightforward. And because all our brands connect to Checkout.com through one API, we’re able to make the payment methods live across our entire portfolio."

Optimizing Alshaya’s payments performance with granular data

Turning on these payment methods is only the first step towards improving performance. Checkout.com has also given Alshaya access to granular data to help them understand why some of its payments are unsuccessful — and advice and support on how to fix it. 

“Checkout.com provides a single repository for all our payments data. If we need to pull a report for a certain payment method, brand or market, it’s a single click away," says Red. "With this access to data and the expert support from Checkout.com, we've optimized our payments performance, recognizing a 15% uplift in our approval rate." 

Checkout.com has also supported Alshaya's brands to remove friction from the customer experience. “This support has allowed us to implement changes that improve the checkout experience. This isn't only ensuring more customers convert; it's also maximizing our customer lifetime value." 

A partnership for today and tomorrow

As Alshaya Group continues to move forward with its ambitious growth plans, it will further leverage Checkout.com's payments platform and expertise to enter new markets. "Checkout.com is a crucial partner to our business. It provides us with the performance, expertise and coverage we require."

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