75% of retailers are looking at crypto payments in 24 months: Deloitte
The biggest reason given for the desire to accept crypto payments is Improving the customer experience, increasing the customer base, and expecting their brand to be considered as the “cutting edge”.
According to a new survey, three-quarters of U.S. retailers plan to accept crypto or stablecoin payments over the next two years.
Noticeably more than half of the large retailers with revenue of more than $ 500 million are currently spending $ 1 million or more to build the infrastructure required for this to happen.
This data was published in Deloitte’s “Merchants Getting Ready for Crypto” report, printed in collaboration with PayPal on 8 June.
A huge majority, about 85%, of surveyed merchants admitted that they estimated that cryptocurrency payments would be ubiquitous in their respective industries in five years.
The survey surveyed 2,000 senior executives at U.S. retailers between December 3 and December 16, 2021, when crypto prices were still high, but the results were only published. Executives in the cosmetics, digital products, electronics, fashion, food and beverage, home and garden, hospitality and leisure, personal and household goods, services and transportation sectors were equally distributed.
Small to medium-sized companies also work with 73% of retailers with revenues ranging from $ 10 million to $ 100 million, investing between $ 100,000 and $ 1 million to support the required infrastructure.
According to Deloitte, costs will not stop and are only expected to increase beyond 2022. More than 60% of retailers say they assume a budget of over $ 500,000 to enable crypto payments in the next 12 months from December.
Consumer interest drives merchant acceptance, and 64% of merchants have stated significant interest in using crypto to pay their customers. About 83% of retailers expect interest rates to rise or increase significantly by 2022.
Nearly half expected their cryptocurrency adoption to improve the customer experience, almost the same amount believed it would intensify their customer base, and 40% expected their brand to be considered a “cutting edge”.
93% of the retailers who already accept cryptocurrency reported a positive impact on their customer metrics.
Acceptance challenges cited by carriers and merchants include security of payment systems (43%), variable regulations (37%), instability (36%), and lack of budget (30%).
The major challenge was the complexity of integrating cryptocurrencies with the legacy system at 45% and the complexity of merging multiple cryptos.
Deloitte stated that “continuous education” will create more clarity for regulators, permitting for greater adoption across a broader set of products and services.
