Podium, the leading customer messaging platform for local businesses, announced that Podium Payments is now including chargeback guarantees to all local businesses in the United States.

Local retailers in the United States typically see $40 billion in chargebacks annually when consumers or bank’s dispute a charge and force a refund from the retailer’s bank due to suspected fraud. In addition to the loss of merchandise or services, retailers are also typically assessed a chargeback fee and run the risk of financial destabilization and closure of their bank accounts.

E-commerce retailers have been able to mitigate these losses in recent years through more sophisticated fraud prevention at checkout. Before Podium Payments, however, local retailers of all sizes had yet to see a payment platform that could provide them the same level of protection.

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Podium Payments combines the fundamental benefits of its best-in-class suite of messaging tools with a rich fraud prevention platform that can guarantee against chargebacks. Designed specifically for local businesses, companies can set up Podium Payments and begin accepting contact-free payments from customers in less than an hour. After which, businesses will instantly have the tools to start customer messaging, webchat and receive better feedback and online reviews using text and messaging channels that customers already trust.

“Chargebacks remain one of the most difficult and costly risks retailers experience in the course of doing business,” said Eric Rea, co-founder, and CEO at Podium. “By offering a chargeback guarantee for the first time for local businesses to handle offline purchases, Podium is able to provide peace of mind and allow our customers to not only have the most modern way of receiving payments but also allow them to continue to focus on gaining new business instead of often fruitless disputes of chargebacks. Now more than ever, local businesses need to productively utilize their time, marketing, and financial efforts. We couldn’t be happier to provide this to them through Podium Payments.”

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Podium Payments has also included several other improvements for retail customers, including:

• Offering consumer financing – Retailers will now be able to use Podium Payments to offer a financing option at checkout.
• Ability to create recurring payments – Merchants who offer layaway or Cash on Delivery (COD) are now able to use Podium Payments to automate recurring payments until items are paid in full.
• Increased functionality within Podium’s messaging platform – Podium Payments seamlessly integrates within Podium’s messaging platform allowing retailers to continue messaging conversations with customers using the same thread where the payment was made.

“Prior to COVID-19 hitting, we added the Podium Payments service to our plan and we couldn’t be happier with it,” said Tom Priola, co-founder of Primetime Audio Video in Rockford, Illinois. “Before and during the pandemic, Podium Payments has been the only payment solution that is really easy to use. We love the simplicity of it, it’s cost-effectiveness, and the opportunity to provide our customers with a contactless payment option. Podium Payments really has been the icing on the cake for us!”

In just over five years, the Podium platform has been used by half of all smartphone owners in the United States to interact with a local business. Since the pandemic, Podium’s Payments product has doubled its expected growth as more businesses have chosen contactless payment options. Podium now has 60,000 businesses using the platform across the United States, Canada, and Australia, ranging from single-location SMBs to large enterprise companies with thousands of physical locations.

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