As part of the ritual of examining local commerce and SMB Saas strategies, Localogy goes right to the source: SMBs themselves. How do they feel about marketing and operational software? What features do they want? And how has their hunger changed during a global pandemic that has hit local businesses hardest?
Localogy’s upcoming Modern Commerce Monitor (MCM) wave 6.1 answers these and other questions across the SMB SaaS product set, which we preview in this Benchmark Bytes series. After the last installment examined SMBs’ use of online meeting tools, we now switch gears to look at their cryptocurrency adoption.
Starting at a high level, 79 percent of SMBs have at least heard the term before. But when looking at the SMBs who actually have adopted the technology, or offer cryptocurrency as a form of payment, the vast majority have not. Specifically, 6 percent of SMBs report doing so. These answers were given in Q4 2020.
What Does it All Mean?
Going a bit deeper, a few things jump out at us:
— SMB familiarity with cryptocurrency, ar at least the term itself, isn’t surprising as it’s become a sort of household name and a cultural phenomenon.
— Deeper levels of understanding are lacking however, as cryptocurrency has a sharp dropoff in people who have heard the term before versus those who truly understand it.
— That deeper understanding — or lack thereof — is validated in the relatively low share of SMBs (6%) who have begun to offer cryptocurrency as payment.
— Though 6 percent is low, it’s a suprisingly high adoption rate for the famously tech-laggard SMB segment.
— Cryptocurrency is on the more advanced end of the technology spectrum, versus other SMB-adopted technology like search marketing, social media or — as we examined last week — scheduling software.
— This adoption share among SMBs could grow, as cryptocurrency slowly assimilates. However, this is a wild card that’s dependent on the fate of the technology itself… which continues to be somewhat uncertain.
— Much of this future adoption could also be demand-driven. If consumers adopt crypto-currency en masse and start to ask for it as a form of payment, that will drive SMB adoption more than any other factor.
Time to Shine
Stepping back, online meetings, eCommerce and several areas of SMB adoption tracked by MCM continue to grow rapidly among SMBs. SMB SaaS startups are correspondingly thriving with exit velocity, funding, and public-market performance. SMB SaaS is becoming a leading subsector of the broader SaaS universe.
Meanwhile, new SMB SaaS users shown in these survey results could represent permanent adopters — a concept that’s accelerated in the Covid era as SMBs are forced to accelerate their digital transformation. This sends them into the arms of SaaS providers to accomplish a range of operational and marketing functions.
We’ll return in the next installment to go deeper on other pandemic-driven areas of SMB technology adoption. That will include top goals and what types of SMBs are adopting. Let us know what additional insights jump out at you from the above data, and stay tuned for more breakdowns in our Benchmark Bytes series.
