Following its acquisition by iCreate and a rebranding from its original name Mobile Edge Solutions, GetPaid is now looking to grow its business which involves providing e-commerce support solutions to businesses, most of which are micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

Started in 2016 as Mobile Edge Solutions by founder and CEO Leighton Campbell, the company was rebranded after a 51 per cent interest was acquired by iCreate Limited earlier this year. The founder, who continues to have operational oversight of the day-to-day running, said the company is in the process of reimagining how it meets the e-commerce needs of its clients.

Campbell told the Jamaica Observer that while companies were treating “e-commerce” and “digital transformation” like buzzwords during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company was already “at the forefront of technology” helping companies with payment settlement by setting up e-commerce gateways and landing pages on their websites.

In addition to helping companies build out their own e-commerce websites, the company also works with an Amazon consultant to onboard companies interested in listing their products on the e-commerce giant’s website, which Campbell pointed out is a complementary service.

“This is one of the areas of e-commerce we are tapping into and that also shows that we are not only building platforms but integrating all assets. We encourage persons to participate in as many e-commerce activities,” he said.

With COVID-19 occasioning shifts in the e-commerce space, Campbell said “there was a need to really empower companies to do business online; service your customers anywhere, any time.

“So we’ve been working hard in COVID to service these needs…and driving innovation,” he explained.

“Based on the needs coming out of COVID, the market enablers for e-commerce have improved. Mobile penetration was an enabler but Internet penetration brings us that much further with [it] being at 70 per cent” on the island, Campbell added.

Moreover, he pointed out that while there were two payment service providers through businesses could access online payments prior to COVID, there are now up to five commercial banks offering payment services. With GetPaid already providing payment service solutions, the founder believes that the next logical step for the company is to become a “one-stop shop for everything e-commerce”.

At present, the GetPaid CEO shared, the company is working with firms across various industries to enable their e-commerce participation. While pointing out that some projects are at a “sensitive stage”, he added that government entities are included in this number as well as clients in North America, the Caribbean and Switzerland.

“So now we can collect payments, but a lot of persons don’t understand the e-commerce space, how to leverage it, how to put it together, how to build strategies around it. So you have persons with e-commerce websites who are struggling, you have persons with payment gateways who are struggling to implement correctly, [and] there are persons who need a certain level of specialisation in how their services work but they don’t have the technical expertise,” Campbell said.

One of the challenges that he said businesses have navigating the e-commerce space is the issue of formality. In this regard, he said GetPaid is looking to provide simpler, ready-to access solutions that are more turnkey and which will help MSMEs formalise, noting that it is a “market segment that banks” do not cater to.

“E-commerce is not just about collecting payments online of putting products on a website. It is how you position a business, a product to get online,” he opined, adding that it also involves attracting and retaining customers.

“So one of the services we about to launch is not necessarily a payment or website development service, but more so an advertising where we’re enabling companies to be able to tap into SMS marketing services in a way that they could never before. Through a recently signed off partnership with Digicel, we are now giving Jamaican businesses the ability to advertise through their [Digicel’s] database at volumes that were never accessible before,” Campbell informed Business Observer.

As a result, “mom and pop” businesses will be able to market their products and services via text messages to 8,000 potential clients while segmenting them by age, sex, location and spending power. Although the SMS service has been resident in GetPaid’s suite, Campbell outlined that only large corporates could afford the service previously.

However, the company has leveraged its parent company iCreate’s relationship with Digicel to create the new service, which will now allow local MSMEs to access customers across the Caribbean region. By searching for customers based on demographics, MSMEs can build a profile of their customers and better understand their needs, according to Campbell.

This, he said, will be a top-two revenue earner for the e-commerce service provider.

Another service GetPaid is fine-tuning is providing customer service to e-commerce customers through a live chat.

“We do have a BPO partner who we’re finalising things with. So we’ll provide the live chat system but they will provide agency,” Campbell disclosed, noting that the service can be for pre-sale service, post-sale service or both.

As GetPaid aims to provide full-service, end-to-end e-commerce solutions, Campbell indicated that the next leg of the chain is building out its logistics management service offering.

“Logistics is in the road map. GetPaid should be able to provide this support to customers anywhere in the world,” Campbell said.