At Manchester Digital, we regularly shine a light on our members to understand more about their roles and their work within Greater Manchester’s digital and technology community. This week, we’re speaking with Joe Brunning and Christian Towner, Corporate Sale Directors at Worldpay.
Can you introduce yourselves and your roles at Worldpay?
Joe:
Christian and I are Corporate Sales Director with Worldpay. Our role is to help businesses unlock the full potential of payments, whether that’s reducing fees, enhancing customer experiences, or streamlining operations for greater efficiency.
What prompted Worldpay to join Manchester Digital, and why now?
Joe:
This strategic partnership with Manchester Digital marks a significant step in our commitment to fostering stronger connections within the North West’s thriving digital ecosystem.
By actively engaging with key industry players and participating in regional initiatives, Worldpay aims to ensure that the voice of local businesses is heard and that we can collaboratively address evolving payment challenges.
This move not only enhances our visibility but also enables us to share insights and innovations that support sustainable growth and competitiveness in the digital sector. This is something that we're particularly passionate about, as we know in order to be effective in our partnerships, it will require a broader education piece of Worldpay's overall capabilities and value propositions.
What are you most keen to change about how the Manchester tech and e-commerce community sees Worldpay?
Christian:
Worldpay historically has been perceived as a legacy platform for ecommerce, which at one point in time was accurate. Now, Worldpay has multiple, varied value propositions that are in-line with the market’s best ecommerce providers, facilitating best-in-class UX, cost savings and operational efficiencies for both businesses and their customers.
For Shopify merchants, what problems are you seeing most often around payments and total cost of ownership?
Joe:
Shopify is a market leader in the ecomm space, and has done a fantastic job in driving UX, conversions and AOV for businesses through online channels. Shopify have excelled in ensuring a closed eco-system when it comes to using their product suite, payments in particular, which has driven up costs for all retailers using the solution. We’ve seen rates coming in at 1.3% and £0.25 per transaction on merchants turning over £25m plus.
What Worldpay have done to combat this, is to integrate fully with Cybersource, that allows the full embedded checkout solution including ApplePay and GooglePay express checkout options, with the only button removed is ShopPay. With one of our merchants, who processes £50m online, were being charged £600k per annum on card fees alone, which marks a significant number against overall profitability. Worldpay has managed to reduce their fees by up to 50%, allowing for a far more cost-effective alternative, whilst maintaining all of the Shopify functionality and conversion rates.
What makes Worldpay’s Shopify solution different for merchants that want to improve checkout without disrupting the customer journey?
Christian:
Worldpay provides multiple gateways that integrate directly with Shopify, allowing for the only alternate provider offering on-site payments for embedded mobile wallets (Apple Pay & Google Pay). Worldpay is also able to significantly reduce processing fees for Shopify Plus users, upwards of 30% in many instances, by re-assessing the acquiring and gateway fees.
What kinds of businesses or agency partners are you most looking to connect with through the Manchester Digital community?
Joe:
We’re invested in meeting businesses who are experiencing challenges with their current payments set-up. Equally, we’re here from a perspective of sharing insights and educating on potential ways to solve said challenges.
We are also excited to meet with agency partners who may work with and represent businesses experiencing these challenges, as we’re keen to demonstrate how through strategic partnerships, we can bring greater value to a shared customer base.
What matters to you personally when building partnerships — and how do you like to work with businesses?
Joe:
It may be clichéd, yet we work with a consultative approach, with the aim to help understand the main problems and drivers of businesses and agencies in the Manchester Digital network. We’re here to become part of a massively growing sector, within one of fastest growing areas of the country in Manchester, facilitating the ongoing growth in the Northwest. We want to ensure that we do everything from a personal relationship perspective, which begins with us meeting the network in-person on a regular basis.
Outside of work, what should the Manchester Digital community know about you both as people?
Joe:
Away from work, I'm a South London boy who supports Man Utd, so I should get on with at least 50% of the network like a house on fire!
My background is within boxing and personal training, having moved to sales 7 years ago. Combining all that, I have a sporting mindset, continuously looking for marginal gains.
Christian:
Outside of work, I'm a big gym enthusiast and competed in bodybuilding 7 years ago. I now continue to train just to make sure I last a bit longer!
I also support a local CA group (Cocaine Anonymous) on Friday evenings as there is a large drug problem in the UK. This gives people an outlet to support them changing their lives.
Thank you Joe and Christian!
To find out more about Worldpay, click here.
