Sam Langsford
Ingka Group’s Inbound Payments Specialist for IKEA
Learn how a payments provider supplies real-time data for every store and country where it works with IKEA — and how it helps the retailer make better business decisions.
Elavon processes an amazing 7 million monthly transactions for the Swedish multinational retailer IKEA, covering in-store, eCommerce and remote sales, as well as software point-of-sale terminals. However, the relationship covers much more than just payments.
Secure payment partnership
Ingka Group is IKEA’s parent company, franchising 482 IKEA stores across 31 markets and counting. Each year, around 657 million people visit these stores, with over 3.8 billion visits to IKEA.com. “We strive to make sure IKEA customers can pay [for their goods] with the payment product they want to pay with and feel safe and secure that their payment is protected,” explains Sam Langsford, Ingka Group’s inbound payments specialist for IKEA.
Within this global framework, the partnership with Elavon goes back a long way — starting in Belgium in 2012. This relationship has grown into 11 markets since then, and so has the range of payment options for shoppers. “It’s not just store and eCommerce: it’s also remote sales and software point-of-sale terminals,” says Langsford.
Aiding logistics and expansion
Since 2009, when IKEA opened its first Irish store in Ballymun, shoppers have taken the retailer — and its famed meatballs — to their hearts. Now, delivery times for Irish customers are even faster. Several ‘plan and order’ points have also opened across the country. Tracking orders around Ireland, and the world, must surely be mind-boggling. That’s where Elavon comes in.
It’s not just store and eCommerce:
it’s also remote sales and software
point-of-sale terminals.
More than just payments
To help the retailer make better business decisions, the payments provider supplies real-time payments data for every store and country where it works with IKEA. “One of the great things about having a key relationship with a global partner is the transferability of their core services to every facet of our operation,” says Langsford. “So, if the customer’s presenting a card at a terminal in the checkout area, that’s the same as the customer writing in their card details on the website. It goes into the same channel of information.”
Elavon operates the same platform across the 11 markets where it works with IKEA. This is important to the retailer: the ability to pull data and run its operations in a consistent way — wherever the store or customer is located. Not only can it deliver what IKEA needs when it comes to payment reporting and analytics, but it can bring ideas to IKEA as well.
“One of the things we’ve been able to deliver together is what we call a ‘data foundation’ of payments: a wealth of almost real-time data on our payments for every store and country we’re operating in — telling us more than we used to know about our payments, our customers and a lot more that we can take to the business, to help make better decisions,” Langsford explains.
“For example, we’re able to see what kind of customers are using a corporate card, but not actually presenting themselves as a business customer. That’s valuable information for us as a business because we can target that type of customer a bit better. We didn’t have that information before.”
Shared business values
IKEA started as a tiny mail-order company in rural Sweden. Yet, even now, as a global home-furnishing brand that brings affordability, design and comfort to people all over the world, its vision remains the same: to create ‘a better everyday life for the many people’.
“Elavon embodies quite a number of the IKEA values. The principal one I’d point to is ‘togetherness’ — or ‘tillsammans’ in Swedish,” Langsford explains. “I can pick up the phone or send an email to our key relationship manager and feel like my question is going to be answered in a very simple way, quite quickly.” Langsford sums up his working relationship with the payments provider in one word: “Easy.”
Elavon Financial Services DAC. Registered in Ireland – Number 418442. Registered Office: Block F1, Cherrywood Business Park, Dublin 18, D18 W2X7, Ireland. Elavon Financial Services DAC, trading as Elavon Merchant Services, is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.
