Attending the session were (l to R) CareCredit’s Randy Baldwin, speaker
Sih Lee and Jobson’s Bill Scott.
NEW YORK—Eyecare professionals and industry executives gathered at the NASDAQ Market Site on Thursday afternoon to hear updates on the key trends in the optical retail marketplace and to gain a better understanding of the outlook and implications of new payment technologies in the retail environment. The session, “Smart Money Strategies: The Future of Payment Technologies to Help Optimize Optical Retail Sales,” provided an overview of some of these new technologies that are creating a “frictionless” experience at retail.

The session was designed to provide ECPs a primer on the advantages of utilizing these new technologies, which are driving the frictionless payment process, and how ECPs can gain a competitive edge in today’s fast-changing retail marketplace.

The speakers included Sih Lee, a senior vice president for payments technology and innovation at Synchrony Financial, Marge Axelrad, a senior vice president and editorial director of Vision Monday, and Mark Wright, OD, FCOVD, professional editor of Review of Optometric Business.
The session was co-sponsored by CareCredit and Synchrony Financial, and was presented by Review of Optometric Business.

“Older ideas about shopping are being replaced by new ideas because it’s so hard to motivate consumers today to leave the comfort of their homes and the ease of their phones to go out to a store location,” Axelrad said. This is driving a customer-experience mandate at retail, she said, noting that enhancing the customer experience has become “a mandate for everybody’s business.”

Lee provided a review of payment systems through history and how changing consumer preferences today are driving changes in payment technology and processes, including where the consumers pay, what they pay and how they pay. “Look at the world of mobile, which is everywhere,” he said. “So in the future, and it’s already happening, consumers will dictate how they shop, which is forcing changes in the retail structure, and will dictate how they pay,” he said.

What we’re seeing is a result of all of the new technology coming on line, Lee said, and this is causing a shift of control at retail. “In the old days, retailers dictated where and how the merchandise was paid for by the consumer, but that is all changing,” he said.

Dr. Wright talked about how ECPs can develop an action plan to embrace and to integrate new payment technologies into a practice, and the importance of building business in optical retail with a smarter approach that includes pre-setting the patient for purchase. “The whole concept is one of helping the patient to purchase instead of working to convince the patient,” he explained.

“Patients want to buy from us,” he said, noting that the challenge for ECPs is to make the purchase journey productive, efficient and easy.