# Enabling Small Businesses to Compete
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/blog/enabling-small-businesses-to-compete/index.md

Authors: John Conneely. In early 2020, just as the pandemic started to impact lives across the globe, our team at Mastercard Payment Gateway Services (MPGS)launched a program to integrate Simplify Commerce quickly into acquiring banks for their small business customers worldwide. Simplify Commerce is a small business white label platform within MPGS, that is offered to our banking partners. This platform empowers small businesses with the ability to process digital payments. It includes features such as hosted payments and a fully hosted store option to create and manage their own branded e-commerce store. While there has been a gradual transition for small businesses to go online, last year accelerated this need. An online presence for small businesses was no longer a nice to have, but essential, as it kept their employees safe and their businesses running through lockdown. Offering a buy online, pick up in-store option for small businesses We saw that small business owners were turning to their banking partners for support with digital payment solutions. While they were able to create a webstore and accept online payments with Simplify Commerce, they needed a way to compete with big businesses who were offering an alternative way to shop with click and collect - buy online then pick up curbside or in-store. As a result, last year before the holiday shopping season, we pushed to our acquiring partners worldwide, a new feature for small business customers on Simplify Commerce called Simplify Click and Collect. A simple and effective solution to offer and integrate Flexibility is essential for small businesses and critical to our platform's success. Because of this, we have given our small business merchants the option to set delivery options by product level. For merchants, the process to set up Simplify Click and Collect is easy and straightforward. We've ensured all aspects of our platform do not require our merchants to have any coding knowledge or skills to operate. In the merchant's store settings, they can adjust their shipping rules and add in their click and collect details, including the address for pick up, instructions to the customer where to park and if they should send a text or call. Then on the product pages, merchants can select which delivery options are available per product i.e. shipping, collection or both. Once an order is ready for pickup, the merchant can mark the product ready for collection and provide the customer with any additional instructions. These details and instructions will be sent to the customer through their preferred email. From a consumer perspective, we've made sure the delivery options are clearly communicated throughout the shopping and payment process. Consumers are informed that their product has been purchased, when their order is ready for them, and what they will need to complete their pickup. Looking ahead to new payment trends and needs The pandemic has accelerated digital payments and emphasized the need to offer small businesses innovative digital payment technology that can help them compete with larger companies and keep their employees safe and healthy. This massive shift to digital is here to stay and in order to keep small businesses surviving in this new environment, we will continue to build out new features on Simplify Commerce that help bridge this digital gap and can be flexible to a variety of industries and needs.