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Avangate Launches First Digital Commerce Solution For The New Services Economy

New research reveals unique challenges and opportunities of selling services; Avangate responds with new features to help companies reduce the cost of customer acquisition, quickly create, package and market new services and speed overall time-to-market

Redwood Shores, CA - June 10, 2014 - Avangate, the leading Digital Commerce solution provider trusted by thousands of Software and Online Services companies to grow their business worldwide, today introduced the first Digital Commerce solution for the New Services Economy. With the Summer 2014 release of its Avangate Commerce Solution, the company is addressing the needs of the rapidly growing Online Services market.

"Online Services is the next trillion dollar market being accelerated by the explosion of cloud computing and mobility coupled with increased consumer demand to purchase whenever, wherever and however they want. This proliferation of new service offerings is cutting across all industries - from finding a limo driver, to accessing business software, to receiving legal advice. In this new world where buyers are in control, the expectations for online service providers to personalize and seamlessly sell, deliver and support have been permanently raised. We call this the New Services Economy," said Carl Theobald CEO, Avangate.

View INFOGRAPHIC A new consumer survey commissioned by Avangate spotlights the current state of the New Services Economy, how consumers buy Online Services, as well as some of the key drivers and detractors to consumer adoption. An infographic of the complete results can be found here.

Some of the key findings include:

• 63 percent of US adults already use at least one Online Service daily with over 50 percent of those adults paying for those same services
• Over half of US adults would consider paying for Online Services if they were offered as a trial (60%) or could be purchased with the ability to self-service modify their service options at any time (50%)
• 90 percent of consumers do not update their credit cards on file, directly dropping retention and revenue.
• Some of the top customer frustrations with Online Services include: difficult-to-reach live support (49%), inflexible purchasing options (41%), and slow customer service/resolution (35%).

"At HP Software, we clearly see a momentum shift toward online services for B2B software. We acquire and retain customers by providing a seamless trial, purchase, and post-purchase experience. Avangate's Commerce Solution helps us enable our customers to get started quickly and to flexibly choose the services they need," said Caroline Tsay, vice president of Web and eCommerce at HP's Software division.

"Over a year in the making, our new release brings together unique commerce requirements for the New Services Economy, enabling online services companies to quickly package and price service offerings with complex options; provision, manage and automate service entitlements; and drive critical retention via smart customer and payments management. This will help companies speed time-to-market, eliminate integration headaches, and rapidly launch new services in 180 countries worldwide without dedicating valuable resources and facing the constraints inherent to in-house, build it yourself from the ground up offerings," said Michael Ni, Avangate's CMO/ SVP of Marketing and Products.

The Summer '14 release of the Avangate Commerce Solution includes features designed to help companies accelerate their growth and better monetize how buyers are buying today. Some key benefits and features of this new release include:

Accelerate time to market with the flexibility to easily price, package and then commerce-enable every customer touch point to be able to order, activate, and service customers.

• Enhanced online self-service (hosted online carts and account management) - 1-click renewals, enhanced cart abandonment recovery AB testing tools, new cross-selling and renewal promotions, and rules-based retention flows
• Brandable, secure mobile cart - simplified ordering and mobile analytics
• Services Distribution - multi-language customizable partner-reseller portals, direct subscription registration, expanded affiliate attribution, categories, subscription payouts
• Call Center Console - full capabilities for call center and other agents to fully manage customers, orders, subscription management (suspend, discount, extend), as well as cross sell and manage trials on behalf

Simplify and enable the easy scaling of services businesses without having to add more "back office" teams of IT, finance, risk, and chargeback manpower.

• Automated Commerce Triggers - rules-based triggers for commerce and subscription billing events for cart abandonment, personalized cross-sell, retention, and recovery / dunning processing
• Secure Management of Cards on File - 1 click ordering, renewals and upgrades, multiple cards on file self-service
• Expanded Chargeback and Fraud Management - tools, automated processing, detailed insights per product, reasons, payment methods and billing cycles and services
• Continually Expanding Global Support and Compliance - Russian and Portuguese customer support, expanded local support numbers, SEPA and EU Consumer Rights adoption

Maximize conversion and profitable customer retention with smarter payments to leverage the best from payment providers around the world.

• Authorization Dashboard - recurring revenue analytics across retention & payment authorization strategies (e.g., Account Updater, Retry logic efficiency, routing, and others)
• Expanded Customer and Subscription Reports - cohort analytics, recurring revenue reports, renewal forecasts, customer lifetime value and history
• Intelligent Payment Routing (IPR II) - multi-payment processor management and optimization, local processing routing, cascading billing, Retry Engine+, integrated dunning and metrics
• Payments Beyond Credit Cards - support for recurring ACH and iDeal, expanded PO management and check processing, as well as expanded payment and alternative payment options in LATAM (e.g., installment payments, local cards) and CIS (local cards)

Learn more about the New Services Economy and how Avangate can grow your online revenues.