Flute
Convenience. It’s the cornerstone of every modern innovation. Smartphones give you access to the world from your palm; self-driving cars make traveling effortless; delivery apps let you order food with the touch of a button. Every aspect of our lives revolves around convenience. Which makes it all the more jarring when we encounter a payment experience that obviously wasn’t designed with simplicity in mind.
There’s nothing more frustrating than getting to the front of the line at your local coffee shop or boutique to realize that you left your wallet in the car, and you can’t tap your phone to pay. It may seem like a non-issue at first, but those moments can mean the difference between a customer coming back to your shop or going to a competitor.
In our latest research report, we found that more than 50% of shoppers would reconsider shopping at a place after one bad payment experience. PYMNTS Intelligence also reports that 70% of consumers consider the availability of their preferred payment method very or extremely influential when deciding where to shop.
And that need for convenience goes both ways — to offer the best experience for their customers, business owners need payment solutions that go beyond basic, cookie-cutter features. That means flexible payment options, access to capital, and a dashboard that lets them manage everything from a single login.
To better understand how consumer demands are shaping the landscape and how payment platforms affect an operator’s ability to meet those expectations, we conducted two surveys: one of 1,000 consumers and a second of 210 small-business operators.
Across the respondents, we found that payments influence loyalty, trust, and growth. Consumers expect local businesses to offer the speed, clarity, and flexibility they get from larger chains and online retailers, while operators need payment tools that help them manage sales, cash flow, and day-to-day work without adding more complexity.
Keep reading for a highlight, or download the full report here.
The thing about payment friction is that it rarely makes noise. Unlike a bad product or a rude interaction, a frustrating checkout experience usually ends with a polite smile and a customer who has quietly resolved not to come back.
Data from our survey puts hard numbers to that pattern. Fifty-five percent of consumers said one bad payment experience would make them stop or seriously reconsider shopping at a local business. Another 37% of consumers have already decided not to complete a purchase at a local business because paying felt too inconvenient or confusing — not because of price, not because of the product, but because of how they were asked to pay.
That means the majority of your customers are deciding whether to keep shopping with you based on a single interaction.
Business owners have some sense of this, even when they can’t trace it directly. Thirty-eight percent of operators said their current setup has definitely or probably cost them a customer or sale. What’s harder to account for is the customer who left without a word — the sale that never happened and the loyalty that never had a chance to form.
The good news is that what consumers are looking for isn’t complicated. When asked what would make them more likely to spend at a local business, the answers were consistent:
Speed, transparency, and flexibility. These are the same things large retailers have been building into the checkout experience for years. As consumer expectations are shaped by those interactions, independent businesses are increasingly held to the same standard.
There’s also a gap between how business owners see their checkout experience and how customers actually experience it. Of the operators surveyed, 37% believe they offer a more personalized checkout than large chains. Less than 24% of consumers agreed. In fact, 63% said that checking out at an independent business feels exactly the same as at a chain.
The competitive edge local businesses believe they have at checkout isn’t registering the way they expect it to, and it’s cutting into their margins.
This isn’t just a “today” problem. The data shows clear generational patterns in how consumers respond to checkout friction — patterns that will shape the market for years.
More than half of Gen Z consumers have already abandoned a local purchase because the payment process felt too inconvenient or confusing. That compares with 44% of Millennials, 29% of Gen X, and 22% of Baby Boomers. Younger shoppers have grown up with fast, frictionless transactions as the default, and those expectations don’t soften as they age — they get stronger.
As Gen Z’s spending power grows, so will its influence over the checkout experience. The businesses that get ahead of that expectation now, with faster checkout, flexible payment options, and transparent pricing, are building relationships with a customer base that will define the market for decades.
More is riding on that moment at the counter than most business owners realize. The customer who can pay quickly, easily, and the way they prefer is more likely to come back. On the other hand, the one who hits a confusing or limited checkout usually won’t say anything about it. They’ll just stop coming back.
At the same time, local businesses need payment tools that are simpler, clearer, and faster. They need enterprise-level convenience without the high costs, faster access to funds, clearer pricing, fewer systems, and human support when money gets complicated.
Payments have moved from a back-office consideration to a competitive differentiator, and the growing businesses that treat it like one — by giving customers the speed, flexibility, and pricing clarity they’re already asking for — will be better positioned to build the kind of loyalty that sticks.
Download our full report to learn more.
You run a growing business. Payments should be the easy part. For many owners, it wasn’t even a real choice. A sales rep called the previous owner, a deal got done, and you’ve been running on infrastructure that wasn’t built for you.
Or maybe you did pick your processor, but you chose speed over fit. You needed to take payments immediately, so you went with the biggest name you knew. It got you live in an afternoon. But ‘easy to get started’ turned out to be the only thing it was good at, and the barriers you hadn’t considered started showing up fast.
If you run a salon, restaurant, vet clinic, jewelry store, or other growing business, you know exactly what we’re talking about. You do real volume, and you generate real revenue, but the options have been the same:
Up to now, you’ve had to pick which set of problems you can live with.
The people who built Aurora understood this. They built the infrastructure, developed the merchant relationships, and kept improving the platform even when the brand didn’t keep pace.
Everything was already here except the name.
Rebranding to Flute means the platform we spent years building finally has a name that matches it. We built a full-stack payment platform with our own gateway, our own FSP license, sponsored BINs, and multi-processor connectivity. And more features are on the way.
We own every layer, end-to-end. We’re not cobbling together third-party tools and hoping they hold. We own the infrastructure. We control the economics, the experience, and the outcomes for you.
That matters more now than ever.
Look at where the market is. You’re more aware than ever of what you’re giving up under a legacy model. Flat-rate pricing used to feel like simplicity. Now it’s just stifling. When you’re processing high volume, the difference between flexible, transparent pricing and a flat markup is hundreds or thousands of dollars a month.
At the same time, the bar for software has also risen. You know what good technology looks like. You shouldn’t have to go backward just to get a merchant account. We’re the only option that doesn’t ask you to.
The longer you’re on Flute, the more the platform works for you. Working capital is underwritten by your actual processing volume, so it fits your real cash flow. Instant payouts, analytics, and recurring billing all get more valuable the longer you stay.
The same goes for SaaS platforms and ISO partners. The technology is easy to build on, and support actually knows your account.
When you sign up, you get a merchant account in your name. Funds settle on your timeline, disputes get handled by someone who actually knows your business, and you’re never buried in fine print.
Flute is a new name on a platform we’ve been building for years. We built it for owners who’d run out of patience with what the market had to offer. If that’s you, let’s talk.
— Derek
Maria runs a specialty kitchen store just off the main square. For one week every summer, the sidewalk outside her shop gets quiet, and it has nothing to do with the heat. Her customers are scrolling Prime Day deals, loading digital carts, and waiting for a little grinning box to show up on their doorstep. Foot traffic moves to someone else’s cart, and Maria spends the week watching it happen.
If you run a business, you know the feeling. Amazon Prime Day has grown into one of the largest shopping events of the year. In July 2025, U.S. consumers spent an estimated $24.1 billion online across the four-day event, nearly the same as Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
That’s a lot of money flowing away from independent retailers, service providers, and local businesses.
Thankfully, Prime Day doesn’t have to be a total loss. Growing businesses have real advantages that the biggest players can’t match, like personal relationships, flexible payment options, and hands-on service.
Let’s look at six sales strategies to help you stay competitive during Prime Day and the weeks that follow. We’ll focus on how your payments setup can do a lot of the heavy lifting and how to prepare before the big day this June.
Prime Day does two things well:
People who might have walked into your store in August are now checking whether they can get something similar online for less. But you don’t need Amazon’s scale to give customers a reason to buy from you. You just need to meet them where they are, with the offers, payment options, and experiences that fit how they actually want to shop.
Let’s dive into six strategies you can follow to hold your own during the Prime Day rush. Mix and match what works for your business, and lean into the payment-focused tactics, since those are the ones big retailers can’t personalize the way you can.
Going head-to-head on price during Prime Day is usually a losing game. Instead, run your own event that leads up to or follows Prime Day. For example, a pre-Prime Day promo can capture shoppers who haven’t committed yet, while a post-Prime Day event can pull in people who missed out or are still comparison shopping.
Keep the sale focused and easy to understand. Bundles are fantastic for attracting buyers without lowering prices. If you’d prefer to offer a discount, a straightforward 10% off site-wide sale usually lands better than a complicated tiered promotion. And don’t forget the checkout itself; a great offer loses its shine when the payment process is clunky, so make sure your checkout supports repeat purchases, digital wallets, and online options that match how your customers pay.
One of the biggest reasons customers choose online giants during Prime Day is how little effort the checkout process requires. Your card, address, and preferences are already saved, so buying feels like tapping a button. The Baymard Institute found that 18% of U.S. shoppers abandoned an online purchase last quarter because the checkout process was too long or complicated, not because they changed their minds about buying.
The best way to fix this is with tokenized payment data. When a customer pays, their information is saved as a secure token that stands in for the card number. The next time they buy something, they don’t have to re-enter their payment details — they just click “buy now,” and they’re done.
Digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay are also tokenized, so accepting them gives repeat customers a fast, secure way to pay online and in-store. The customer gets a premium, no-friction experience, and your business never holds the actual card data, which keeps most of the PCI compliance burden off your plate.
70% of consumers say the availability of their preferred payment method is very or extremely influential in deciding where to shop. That means offering flexible, one-click payment options is key to competing with bigger players during special events.
A small-business rewards program is one of the best ways to bring customers back, and Prime Day offers a great opportunity to launch one or to promote the one you already have. Research published in Harvard Business Review found that increasing customer retention by just 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%.
The simplest loyalty programs tend to work best: a punch card, a points system tied to spend, or a tiered program that rewards frequency. You can also tie rewards to specific payment methods, like double points for customers who pay with a saved digital wallet or who enroll in autopay.
If you sell items or services that customers need more than once, consider setting up a subscription or membership program. Here are a few examples of what that might look like:
Subscriptions give you predictable revenue, smooth out seasonal dips like the Prime Day slump, and build the kind of relationship big retailers struggle to replicate. They also make life easier for your customers, since they don’t have to reorder, rebook, or remember to shop for necessities.
Prime Day’s real hook isn’t always the price. It’s the convenience: a customer gets something delivered in a day or two without spending hours browsing aisles. One way to match that convenience without slashing shipping costs is with click and collect. This option, also called buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS), lets customers purchase on your website and pick up their order within hours, not days.
The demand is already there. U.S. click-and-collect retail sales are projected to hit $177.9 billion in 2026, up more than 15% year over year, and 85% of BOPIS shoppers report making an additional purchase when they come in to pick up an order.
That’s a built-in opportunity to turn a single online purchase into a larger in-store sale, and it works across categories, from clothing and home goods to specialty foods and service packages.
A customer who buys from you during Prime Day and has a great experience can be yours for years. Use the weeks after Prime Day to follow up thoughtfully, with a thank-you note with a small credit, a text reminder about a related product, or an invitation to your rewards program.
Your payment data is a powerful tool here. Knowing when customers buy, how often, and what they prefer will help you personalize their experience. That personal touch is what turns a Prime Day impulse buy into a regular customer.
Here’s a list of things you can do right now to get ready:
Remember, doing two or three of these well will move the needle more than trying to do all five at once. If you’re not sure what to change in your payments setup, your provider is the right place to start — they can tell you what’s already built in and where to go next.
This Prime Day, the question isn’t whether you can outspend Amazon but whether you can provide a better experience. By offering a variety of unique promotions and simple, invisible ways to pay, you can make it easier and more rewarding for customers to buy from you than from anyone else.
At Flute, we build tools that turn checkout, both online and in-store, into one connected experience — the kind that keeps customers coming back long after Prime Day ends. Ready to see what that looks like for your business? Get started today.