点击包装技术为数字交易带来速度和效率

由杰克·杰曼 » 电子商务时报 » ECT新闻网 2020年12月11日 4：30上午PT

随着假期的临近和大流行的激增，点击包装交易平台（CTPs）正在成为帮助企业应对在线交易量增加的宝贵工具。

CP 可帮助公司保护已联机或已移动的交易。这些业务交易是专为大量协议而构建的。点击包装交易取代电子签名，并提供在线交互的存档数字记录。

用户单击以选中复选框，或单击标签（如"我同意"或"接受"）的按钮，而不是签名。该行动授权包括的同意语言。

Aragon Research在 10 月发表了一份报告，确定了新的和即将发布的自动化技术，称为工作流和内容自动化 （WCA）。该报告将点击包装事务确定为 WCA 的关键功能。

随着企业实施越来越多的数字化转型计划，内容自动化已成为一个基础性组成部分。来自阿拉贡的阿拉贡工作流程和内容自动化研究全球突出了 WCA 类别中的 14 家主要供应商。

今年6月，阿拉贡研究公司将"PactSafe"命名为WCA类别中的热门供应商。10月，阿拉贡将PactSafe命名为阿拉贡工作流程和内容自动化研究全球创新者。PactSafe 是少数早期点击包装交易平台提供商之一。

"大多数企业清楚地明白，为了保持竞争力，他们必须完全数字化与这些文件相关的面向客户的文档和流程，"根据阿拉贡的报告。

"企业尚未听说过点击包装，因为它正处于采用的早期阶段。点击包装将和六年前的数字交易管理一样大，"阿拉贡研究公司的创始人兼首席执行官吉姆·伦迪告诉《电子商务时报》。

归根结底，这是一项紧急技术。他说，公司意识到，随着目前转向在线交易和电子商务，他们在尝试手动做事方面遇到了麻烦。

法律程序正在进行中

Clickwrap 是已在使用的合法法律术语。伦迪解释说，他的报告没有发明这个词。

PactSafe 是平台提供商之一。还有其他一些供应商。

取代在线交易数字签名的运动可以追溯到2013年前后开始的在线交易增长。伦迪说，作为过渡过程的第一阶段，人们正在争夺取消合同和纸质合同。

公司一直在寻找一个自动化游戏，试图消除在获得在线交易协议时经常长达一周的延迟。Paragon Research 在过去六年中一直在研究自动化 Web 交易的所有不同方法。

"我们开始深入了解在线自动化法律程序需求。这导致了点击包装背后的想法。整个想法是能够动态生成与购买产品时一起产生的条款和条件，并让客户单击他们同意的键。结果是存档记录，"他谈到在线交易验证流程的发展。

他估计过渡过程需要大约18个月的时间。点击包装仅在此平台提供几个月。

Lunday说："一路走来，公司一直采用本土化的方法零敲碎打地这样做。

点击包装底片

据文思安全首席产品官埃里克·普鲁格（Eric Prugh）介绍，PactSafe 的平台是专有的，专为处理电子商务或其他在线工作流中显示的点击包装交易的创建、演示、集成和审核而构建的。该平台位于专用的点击包 API 和微服务之上。

该技术包括许多 SDK，供开发人员轻松集成到自己的网站和应用程序中（如 Stripe 和 Twilio）。API 和集成对于点击包装事务平台至关重要。

"我们的目标是无缝集成到客户现有的技术和工作流程中，"Prugh 告诉《电子商务时报》。

点击包装的美妙部分，使它被实现到现有的业务工作流中。他解释说，CTP实际上可以自动化法律团队现有的许多手动流程。

例如，许多客户会将手动、劳动密集型合同（如 NDA）转变为自动化的标准化点击包装协议流程，因为这些文件通常不协商，应该更易于执行和管理。

Prugh 说："全球电子商务的爆炸式增长和移动购买的易用性不仅促进了在线交易验证中的变革，也促进了点击包装的采用。

律师不能用合同中断转换流程，但在采购过程中添加明确、显眼的条款和条件仍然非常重要。现在电子商务更加多产，法律团队需要一种创建、交付、管理、跟踪和归档客户和企业之间所有在线条款和条件的方法，"他指出。

Aragon 的研究表明，CCT 是解决方案，因为它们提供了企业在电子商务繁荣时期所需的可扩展性、自动化和安全。CP 支持通用的、可执行的条款，保护企业免受诉讼、重大争议、担保、退款等。

在运动中使用设置

许多电子商务公司已经在结账过程中实施了点击包装协议。例如，当客户创建帐户和客户进行购买时，Wayfair 具有简单的点击包装协议。

CTP 的新功能是，工作流的这一部分通常由产品或工程团队管理，而不是由法律团队管理。根据Prugh的说法，更新条款和版本控制是很难的，几乎不可能审核或搜索已完成的交易和已经到位的协议。

"大多数诉讼和争议还围绕协议被接受时的样子，这造成了一大堆问题和体力劳动的重现。从这个意义上说，它改善了整个业务运营，但并没有改变您的电子商务公司开展业务的方式，"他说。

PactSafe 的平台与其他工作流和内容自动化平台独一无二，因为它特别侧重于与简化协议工作流相关的复杂性和细微差别。其中大多数依赖于点击包装事务作为事务中的协议。

需要转变思维

Prugh 表示，采用点击包装要求企业将思维从传统的合同工作流，称为"签约思维"，转变为为客户提供更自动化、数字化、自助服务的工作流，称为"接受思维"。

像NDA这样的协议通常需要现场输入，如名称、公司、签名和协议日期。其中很多内容都可以通过移动友好型表单输入和时间戳来实现自动化。

问题是，大多数公司正在努力克服为其产品添加电子商务或数字本地购买选项的障碍。他们有一个复杂的承包过程，抑制这种规模。

"我们与许多公司合作，试图简化他们提供的产品，细分更多的标准产品，以简化购买流程，并使用点击包装作为完成在线交易的最后一步。重新审视签名和典型的合同工作流是否真的需要，这可以节省数千小时和数百万美元，"Prugh 解释道。

不可避免的收购

今天，地球上有4亿多个网站。随着时间的推移，更大的比例将建立电子商务到他们的进入市场战略。Aragon Research预测，到2025年，CP市场将达到155亿美元。

"每家公司都正在向成为电子商务公司转变，当他们这样做时，点击包装协议将成为确保每笔交易安全的重要组成部分，"Prugh 指出。

使用 clickwrap应从高容量、低复杂性的协议开始，因为这样很容易标准化协议并构建更简单的工作流。Prugh 建议，这可自动化当前的手动流程，并让您有时间探索更具战略性的举措。

"采用过程又回到了企业对合同的思考方式上。一旦你体验到了你能创造的自动化，你将有兴趣探索还有什么可以自动化，"他总结道。

Clickwrap Technology Brings Speed, Efficiency to Digital Transactions

By Jack M. Germain • E-Commerce Times • ECT News Network Dec 11, 2020 4:30 AM PT

With the holidays approaching and the pandemic surging, clickwrap transaction platforms (CTPs) are emerging as a valuable tool to help businesses navigate the increased volume of online transactions.

CTPs help companies secure transactions that are, or have moved, online. These business transactions are purpose-built for high volumes of agreements. Clickwrap transactions replace electronic signatures and provide an archived digital record of online interaction.

Instead of signing, the user clicks to check a box, or clicks on a button with a label such as 'I Agree' or 'Accept'. That action authorizes the included consent language.

Aragon Research in October published a report identifying the new up and coming automated technology called workflow and content automation (WCA). The report identified clickwrap transactions as a key capability for WCA.

Content automation has become a foundational component as enterprises implement more and more digital transformation initiatives. The Aragon Research Globe for Workflow and Content Automation from Aragon highlights 14 major providers in the WCA category.

In June, Aragon Research named PactSafe a hot vendor in the WCA category. In October, Aragon named PactSafe an Innovator of the Aragon Research Globe for Workflow and Content Automation. PactSafe is one of a few early clickwrap transaction platform providers.

"Most enterprises clearly understand that, to remain competitive, they must go fully digital with customer-facing documents and processes related to those documents," according to Aragon's report.

"Businesses have not yet heard of clickwrap because it is in its early stages of adoption. Clickwrap is going to be as big as digital transaction management was six years ago," Jim Lundy, founder and CEO at Aragon Research, told the E-Commerce Times.

The bottom line is this is an emergent technology. Companies realize that with the current move to online transactions and e-commerce, they are in trouble with trying to do things manually, he said.

Legal Process in Progress

Clickwrap is a legitimate legal term that already is in use. His report did not invent that term, explained Lundy.

PactSafe is one of the platform providers. There are a few others.

The movement to replace digital signing for online transactions goes back to a rise in online transactions that began around 2013. There is a race to getting rid of contracts and paper signing as phase one of the transition process, Lundy observed.

Companies have been looking for an automation play in an attempt to eliminate the often-week-long delays in getting agreements signed for online transactions. Paragon Research has spent the last six years looking at all the different ways of automating web transactions.

"We started getting insight into the need for automating the legal processes online. That led to the idea behind clickwrap. The whole idea is to be able to dynamically generate the terms and conditions that go with the purchase of a product and have the customer click that they agree. The result is an archived record," he said about the developing online transaction verification process.

He estimated the transition process will take about 18 months. Clickwrap has only been available with this platform for a couple of months.

"Along the way, companies have been doing it piecemeal with a homegrown approach," Lunday said.

Clickwrap Primer

PactSafe's platform is proprietary and is purpose-built for handling the creation, presentation, integration and auditing of clickwrap transactions presented in e-commerce or other online workflows, according to Eric Prugh, chief product officer at PactSafe. The platform sits atop a dedicated clickwrap API and microservice.

The technology includes a number of SDKs for developers to easily integrate into their own sites and apps (think like Stripe and Twilio). APIs and integrations are crucial for clickwrap transaction platforms.

"Our goal is to seamlessly integrate into a customer's existing technology and workflows," Prugh told the E-Commerce Times.

Part of the beauty of clickwrap is that it is implemented into existing business workflows. A CTP can actually automate many of the existing manual processes for legal teams, he explained.

For example, many customers will turn manual, labor-intensive contracts such as NDAs into an automated, standardized clickwrap agreement process because these documents generally are not negotiated and should be easier to execute and manage.

"The explosion of global e-commerce and the ease of buying on mobile have acted as catalysts not only for change within online transaction verification but also for clickwrap adoption," said Prugh.

Lawyers cannot interrupt conversion flows with contracts, but it is still super-important to add clear, conspicuous terms and conditions to the purchasing process. Now that e-commerce is even more prolific, legal teams need a way to create, deliver, manage, track and archive all the online terms and conditions between customers and businesses," he noted.

Aragon's research illustrates that CTPs are the solution as they provide the scalability, automation, and safety that businesses need during this e-commerce boom. CTPs enable common, enforceable terms that protect businesses from lawsuits, major disputes, warranties, chargebacks, and more.

Adoption Set in Motion

Numerous e-commerce companies have already implemented clickwrap agreements into their checkout process. Wayfair, for example, has a simple clickwrap agreement when a customer creates an account and when a customer makes a purchase.

What is new about the CTP is that this part of the workflow is typically managed by a product or engineering team -- not by the legal team. Updating terms and versioning is hard, and it is nearly impossible to audit or search for completed transactions and the agreement that was in place, according to Prugh.

"Most litigation and disputes also center around what the agreement looked like when it was accepted, which creates a whole host of problems and manual labor to recreate. In that sense, it improves the business operations as a whole but is not changing the way your e-commerce company does business," he said.

PactSafe's platform is unique from other workflow and content automation platforms in that it focuses specifically on the complexities and nuances associated with simplifying agreement workflows. Most of these rely on clickwrap transactions as the agreement in a transaction.

Shift in Thinking Needed

Adopting clickwrap requires businesses to shift their thinking from a traditional contracting workflow PactSafe calls the "signing mindset" into a more automated, digital, self-service workflow for customers called the "acceptance mindset," according to Prugh.

Agreements like NDAs typically require field inputs like name, company, signature, and dates on the agreement. Much of that can be automated with mobile-friendly form inputs and timestamps.

The problem is that most companies are working to get over the hurdle of adding e-commerce or digitally native buying options for their products. They have a complicated contracting process that inhibits that level of scale.

"We have worked with a lot of companies that are trying to streamline the products that they offer, segment out more standard products to simplify the buying process, and use clickwrap as the last step to complete an online transaction. Revisiting whether signatures and typical contract workflows are really required can save thousands of hours and millions of dollars," explained Prugh.

Inevitable Takeover

Today there are over 400 million websites on the planet. As time goes by, a larger percentage will build e-commerce into their go-to-market strategy. Aragon Research predicts the market for CTPs will hit $15.5 billion by 2025.

"Every company is shifting to become an e-commerce company, and as they do that, clickwrap agreements will be an essential part of securing every transaction," noted Prugh.

The adoption of clickwrap should start with the high-volume, low-complexity agreements because it is easy to standardize the agreement and build a simpler workflow. That automates currently manual processes and gives you time to explore more strategic initiatives, suggested Prugh.

"The adoption process comes back to businesses shifting the way they think about contracts. Once you get a taste for what kind of automation you can create, you will have fun working through what else can be automated," he concluded.