Restaurants in the UAE can now offer online payments

The Internet has changed every person’s purchasing patterns and their way they shop for goods today, be it for necessities or just for some leisures. If you look at the United States or European regions, online purchases have been drastically increasing over the past three years, not just only for hotel reservations and airline bookings but also for buying of almost anything from gadgets, clothes and accessories, and even to food purchasing and/or deliveries from a local food shop. Today, everything is merely done through the internet using credit cards as the payment method.

However, in the countries belonging to the GCC; online purchases are not common. Still, only few merchants are practicing this modern method brought by the advance technology from the Western countries. Creativo, a digital media company based in Dubai, UAE, were among the first organization locally to realize the reasons behind this technology inconsistency.

"There are many reasons for these differences", said Manfred Steichler; owner and General Manager of Creativo, "There are still a lot of nationalities in the UAE and some other neighboring countries that prefer to pay cash in each of their purchase." Manfred continues, "It is very difficult for small and medium - sized retailers or F & B's (Food & Beverage) to offer an online payment service. Most of these companies do not have Marketing or Business Development Manager that would receive and process bank requirements and compile demanding business plans, detailed sales forecasts and three years revenue projections. A lot of small and medium enterprises in the UAE are owner- driven with a flat hierarchy and do not have the time to engage in this type of work. Moreover, banks and payment gateway providers are, for good reasons, are trying their best to keep away serious companies from potential fraudulent once by implementing a very high down payment amount and challenging initiation and yearly renewable membership fees.

In addition to that, while online business has always been vulnerable to fraud, modern payment processing solutions include multiple security measures that verify every credit card number and intercept potential criminals before a transaction ever takes place. In our day and age of instantaneous data transmission, doing business online is no longer optional. Solidifying your business presence online will give you greater reach and maximize your profit potential. But it is also important to note that not all merchant payment gateway solutions are ideal for every type of business.

These were basically the reasons why we decided to create a payment gateway initially for the F & B industry." Manfred added, "With Creativo's Shopping Portal, restaurants, coffee shops and some other are able to utilize online payment gateway without massive and endless paperwork and most specially has no down payment at all. The application process is very basic and the online payment gateway, which covers the two main credit card companies in the UAE, would be installed within 14 days. Our intention with the establishment of "Creativo Shopping Portal" is to support small and mid- sized F & B's to be able to offer online payments to their patrons."

Azim is a web designer/content developer/blogger and an aspiring entrepenuer. She enjoys experimenting with various techniques in both print and web. Also one of the heads behind Creativo.