How digital payments helped a dog-walking app survive lockdown

Dog-walking services were hit particularly hard by the pandemic, when many of their clients stayed home full time and could take their pets out on their own.

Wag had to adapt quickly, deploying digital payments technology so it could focus more on the businesses it could sustain — pet food delivery, transportation for pet care, vet support and digital training — and move away from walking and boarding pets.

"As people stayed home, there wasn’t as much of a need for our core services, so we had to quickly pivot to offer services that could support pet parents and pet caregivers in other ways," said Alec Davidian, chief financial officer at Wag, a Los Angeles-based company whose namesake pet care app provides pet walking, sitting boarding, and training through a national network of contractors.

Wag uses Stripe to support payments between customers and the network of contractors that provide the pet services. It uses Bill.com to pay its own vendors and Wag's internal team used open technology from Twilio to power a chat function that allowed real-time medical consultations with vets. Given the mix of API-driven connections, the pet care company's main task was to find new "gigs."

"The pandemic has served as an inflection point for businesses to realize the benefits of digital adoption," said Oriana Branon, director of corporate communications at Bill.com.

Functions like ordering, customer service and payment processing happen off-site through a web connection; there's no office to upgrade and the workflow changes are minimal.

"There has traditionally been an overreliance on manual and labor-intensive processes like paper checks and invoices," Branon said. Stripe and Twilio did not return requests for comment by deadline.

Wag's new services are permanent, though the company still operates its original business lines in anticipation of economic recovery, using its suite of tools to support increases or decreases in demand for dog walking and boarding services.

"We are seeing demand for walking, pet sitting, and boarding pick back up with the tailwinds of the puppy adoption wave, return to work and travel with progress in vaccinations," Davidian said, adding there is monthly increase in app downloads.

Business adjustments over the past year are not unusual, as 77% of companies changed their business model because of the pandemic and its economic crisis, according to FTI Consulting's Resilience Barometer. The baromers also found 30% of companies have required restructuring or refinancing with average revenue declines of 10% and headcount decline of 12%.

The pandemic also sparked a well-documented rush to e-commerce, contactless payments and mobile commerce as companies looked to accommodate health protocols and changes to a remote business model. The U.S. card brands project these trends toward digital payments and e-commerce to support remote retail are permanent, even as traditional brick-and-mortar shopping returns.

"The contactless and mobile payment methods have been a lifeline for Main Street businesses to not only survive, but some to even thrive," Branon said.

Square, which has launched its own bank during the past year after becoming licensed, reports its merchants have jumped to contactless in response to the challenges brought on by the pandemic. Square reports a 10% increase in U.S. businesses accepting contactless pays from February 2020 through February 2021, with 74% of businesses now supporting the technology.

Square also reported a 15% boost in the share of U.S. businesses accepting online payments during the same time, a greater rate than the previous year's 3.3% growth.

"The coronavirus pandemic accelerated omnichannel commerce trends and quickly created the need for businesses to sell in different ways to meet consumer demand and preference," said Saumil Mehta, general manager of Square Point of Sale. Businesses that use payments tied to other business tools such as an online store that offers pickup and delivery and can adjust faster, Mehta said. "With all these tools in mind, it’s also important for businesses to understand their needs and what technology will work best for them."