Embedded Instant Payouts for Direct Selling Organizations

Foreword from Runa's Chief Revenue Officer

As the world continues to globalize and personalized, seamless digital experiences become the norm, direct selling organizations face numerous obstacles as they modernize to meet the moment. Chief among them is the need to ensure a unified experience for their network of distributors, who may be spread over a number of countries and regions.

Direct selling businesses face a multifaceted challenge keeping their diverse field motivated and engaged. And it is an increasingly urgent one, with the industry facing pressures from gig-economy companies. Distributors expect to be paid on their terms – end of story. That’s why real-time, accurate, and flexible payouts – sent to accounts, prepaid cards, e-wallets and gift cards – are a critical part of overcoming the distributor retention challenge.

Payment has long been a problem area for the direct selling industry, for a number of reasons. Setting up payout structures for every single territory can involve a huge amount of groundwork for finance teams. They must secure the necessary licenses and certifications, set up bank accounts, manage numerous banking and payment processing partnerships to ensure adequate local coverage, and put sufficient fraud protection measures in place. These time-consuming and costly processes require unique expertise that’s typically outside the scope of most finance teams, impacting on the organization’s bottom line. 

Direct selling companies with multi-country footprints also need to factor in currency conversions, adding further layers of complexity. Manual management of these processes causes bottlenecks, while traditional payout methods lack flexibility with payments taking several days – or longer – to clear. In addition, there are the hefty exchange rate fees that inherently hurt the pockets of both – direct selling organizations and their distributors.

With so much to consider and so many potential points of friction, there’s a high risk of distributor dissatisfaction. Any payment delays or inaccuracies could cause an irreparable breach of trust. This matters because competition for seller recruitment is high, especially from gig economy platforms, so discontent among distributors could have an irreparable impact on sales and profits.

This is why, in Runa’s view, it is critical that direct selling organizations embrace embedded instant payout solutions as a matter of urgency. 

Successful gig economy players turned seamless, instant payouts into an undisputed competitive differentiator. By bolstering their digital-first platforms with embedded mass payouts that support global coverage they’ve managed to attract and retain millions of workers in every corner of the world. Direct selling businesses need to take a look at the gig economy’s playbook and replicate this model if they want to compete. 

The very personal nature of direct selling necessitates that direct selling organizations have a people-first approach. They must do everything they can to keep the field happy and proud to represent the company. Embedded instant payouts give direct selling businesses a foundation on which they can build a truly distributor-centric experience. 

Happily, there's another key benefit to adopting embedded instant payouts. With direct selling companies seeing their profit margins being continuously squeezed, these solutions offer them a way of driving internal efficiencies and improving their bottom line. 

That’s not just a win-win – it’s a triple-win.

Embedded instant payouts give direct selling companies the potential to reduce processing costs, automate distributor payouts and rewards, take the hassle out of currency conversion, and ensure their field receives accurate and timely compensation with no fuss – no matter where they are in the world. In this guide, we will explain everything direct selling organizations need to know about embedding mass, instant payouts, and how Runa can help your business integrate them.    

Our platform is designed to help direct selling companies enable payouts at scale quickly and easily. Rewards for hitting targets and recruitment bonuses can be sent instantly, across territories, and in a variety of methods to suit distributor preferences. 

One single integration with Runa's API gives direct selling organizations access to more than 4,000 payout options in 190 countries and 160 currencies, with no minimum or maximum amount. There's no need to collect and manage distributors’ banking information – a phone number or email address will do – and there are flexible currency conversion options to fit individual business needs. Everything is automated and distributors receive their compensation instantly.    

With greater flexibility to meet the highly diverse payout preferences of sellers, direct selling organizations can build trust with their distributors and reap the rewards of greater loyalty. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in terms of benefits; the simplification of compensation management not only drives internal efficiency and keeps the costs of managing payouts under control, but it also provides a model that can be scaled up according to need and applied across different territories when expanding into new, untapped markets.

If you’re ready to take the next steps on the path to putting in place a seamless payment infrastructure for your direct selling business, get in touch with our team today at contact@runa.io

Tyron Bennion 

Chief Revenue Officer, Runa

Introduction: Embedded Instant Payouts for Direct Selling Organizations

Direct selling veterans will agree: if you've been in the business long enough, you know it's a people-first business. Motivated and engaged distributors who feel supported and appreciated by their company are at the heart of every successful direct selling company. An organization might have a fair compensation plan but, crucially, still miss the mark on making their distributors feel truly seen and valued because of how their compensation is disbursed. When payment practices don’t take distributors’ preferences into consideration, direct selling companies are passing up a crucial opportunity to create a trust-based, genuine emotional connection with their field. This bond really is the foundation needed to take the business to new heights.

Keeping distributors engaged and loyal in the face of competition from other direct selling companies, as well as gig economy platforms, relies on timely and consistent remuneration. For direct selling organizations, payout structures are often complex, with sales commissions, bonuses for hitting targets and recruitment to consider. Adding to the complexity, representatives in the field will have different payment preferences; evidence from the Incentive Research Foundation shows that 70% of distributors want the flexibility to choose how they get paid.

The complexities and costs of orchestrating high volumes of low-value payments, and managing currency conversions, fraud prevention across geographies, and maintaining data security and legal compliance further complicate the matter.

Traditionally, global direct selling companies have adopted a market-by-market approach, meaning multiple integrations into each territory’s banking system, compliance processes handled at a local level, and payouts managed manually. This approach is expensive and inefficient, increasing the pressure on already-squeezed profit margins, and can impact payout times, jeopardizing distributor satisfaction. 

It's possible to address this challenge through the adoption of embedded instant payout solutions. These platforms offer simple, scalable payouts, with automated functionality driving efficiency and streamlining complex commission structures, ensuring that sellers receive the compensation they’ve earned instantly and with no unnecessary fuss. And instant payments are a big draw for the field; research shows that instant payouts can support a 20% lift in distributor retention.

As well as better payout terms for sellers, organizations can improve their bottom line with embedded instant payouts. Automated payments and currency conversions save companies time and money, while local integrations into payment schemes and banking networks mean greater efficiency. Staff that were handling payment processes manually can be reassigned to higher-level tasks, while reduced operating costs mean a healthier profit margin for the business. 

In this guide, which is tailored for C-level executives, finance, sales and marketing leaders, and distributor experience teams, you’ll find a comprehensive breakdown of the benefits of embedding instant payouts specifically designed for direct selling. We will cover: 

Key terms

Strategic Advantages of Embedded Instant Payouts with Flexible Payout Options

Challenges and Risks 

Distributor Benefits of Embedded Instant Payouts

Key Takeaways

Runa’s Future-proof Approach to Embedded Instant Payouts

Key Terms

To fully appreciate the value and transformative impact of embedded instant payouts within direct selling companies, it's vital to understand how this concept can help to create a unified experience for all distributors within the organization's network. 

Here, we will explain some of the key terms and where they fit in to providing an efficient compensation structure that meets the expectations of the current generation of distributors.

Embedded instant payouts

Embedded instant payouts represent a sophisticated application of embedded finance that can revolutionize the way direct selling organizations compensate their distributors. 

This technology streamlines and automates the management and disbursement of tiered commissions, rank-based bonuses, and recruitment incentives enabling direct selling organizations to pay the field instantly in their preferred payout method anywhere in the world, at any frequency and in any amount – including micropayments.

The seamless integration of embedded instant payouts gives direct selling companies the flexibility to control the entire payment experience while significantly reducing the cost of payout operations, enhancing efficiency and enabling them to expand their reach.

Rewards

By integrating various payout options – such as digital gift cards, e-wallets, prepaid cards, or direct deposits – direct selling organizations can enable instant and bespoke rewards for achieving sales milestones or recruitment goals without external processing hassles.

Reward programs can be tailored to the needs of each company, and can reflect local or generational preferences. For example, Gen Z sellers in the US might prefer to have their earnings sent to an e-wallet, distributors in a particular territory may wish to receive gift cards, while those in another region opt for prepaid cards. 

With the flexibility offered by embedded payouts, programs can easily take individual preferences into account, making sure every distributor receives their rewards in a way that makes sense to them. 

Distributor engagement

Meeting the modern distributor's demand for immediacy and convenience will play a key role in increasing distributor engagement and loyalty. 

Using instant, flexible payouts will allow your distributors to manage their finances on their terms motivating them to grow their networks and increase sales.

Giving distributors the tools to reward the teams they have recruited in a flexible and convenient way ensures they can effectively run their own business within the larger business. 

Strategic Advantages of Embedded Instant Payouts with Flexible Payout Options

For direct selling organizations looking to recruit distributors, competition is high. Having an effective program of compensation and rewards that takes into account distributor preferences is vital for recruitment and retention. 

At the same time, reducing internal complexity is vital to direct selling organizations that want to streamline their operations and drive efficiency. On top of this, direct selling companies that want to expand into new territories need a payments model that can be rapidly scaled and deployed across multiple regions. 

In this section, we will break down all of the strategic benefits of adopting embedded payouts for direct selling companies.

Differentiation through flexible payment options 

Direct selling organizations can use embedded instant payouts as a point of differentiation from their competitors. A reward and compensation scheme that is more flexible, that takes into consideration the field’s preferences for how they’d like to get paid for their work – instantly, with gift cards, virtual cards and e-wallets – signals to the field that they are valued members of the organization. 

And by enabling their distributors to extend this reward and compensation program to the teams of sellers they recruit, they themselves have access to a key differentiator that can help them to build their network quickly. 

Improved distributor retention

A common challenge direct selling organizations face is keeping their field motivated, engaged and loyal. There are entire ‘distributor experience’ and ‘field success’ organizations dedicated to improving distributor retention and boosting their productivity. With embedded payments, direct selling companies can enable instant payouts, building trust and loyalty with distributors, while issuing on-the-spot rewards for achievements such as recruitment, hitting targets or graduating to a higher tier. 

Embedded instant payouts also offer flexible payment methods, including gift cards, prepaid cards, push-to-account and push-to-wallet, meaning that distributors can receive their payments and rewards in a way that makes sense to them, increasing satisfaction. Having multiple payout options means direct selling companies can meet diverse distributor preferences across different territories and regions.