January, 2012:

Practical Ecommerce recently wrote a good article aboutthe use of deceptive merchant services teaser rates by many merchant services providers.  The author points out that there has been a strong increase in this practice since Congress passed the Durban Amendment in 2011.

Practical Ecommerce point out some merchant services processing rates that quote as little as .39%.  The fact is those rates would be sold at a catastrophic loss to the merchant services provider if they did not immediately jack up fees once the contact closes, or offer per transaction fees of several dollars per transaction on top of the merchant processing rate.

It is important to know that all merchant providers pay the same wholesale rate as Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express pass these charges onto the merchant services provider, who then marks up these wholesale charges, also called interchange, and makes a profit.  If you want to maximize your savings on merchant services processing ask for interchange plus pricing.  This will save you a nice bundle in merchant services processing fees.

You probably heard about the ease of accepting wireless merchant services payments through the iPhone Mobile Card Reader merchant equipment.  Now watch this 1 minute video about the iPhone Mobile Card Reader merchant equipment and see it in action.  It is the easiest and most mobile way to accept wireless merchant payments.

Then, after you watch the video, go to Choice Merchant Services best merchant services quote page and get free wireless merchant equipment and a processing rate as low as 1.05%.

No matter what merchant services need you have, if you are taking in-person credit card or debit card transactions the OmniVX 570 is a great terminal.  In short it is a simple all-in-one terminal.

It offers:

1) A built in thermal printer
2) A built in touch pad for acceptance of debit cards
3) Acceptance of every major credit card as well as gift cards
4) PCI compliance
5) Face processing speed
6) Quick download of processing speed into Quickbooks.

Choice Merchant Services offers the OmniVX 570 terminal for free to our merchant services customers.

TheLedger.com recently ran a news story entitled, “Small Businesses See Mobile Payments as Way to Cut Costs.”  Here are a few highlights from the article:

There is a card reader called “The Square” that can be used to provide wireless merchant services for as little as $9.99.  The Square card reader plugs into the headphone jacks of most smart phones and tablets and turns them into merchant services equipment capable of handling swipe credit card transactions.  This allows companies to bypass getting a merchant account and what is typically costly merchant services equipment.  The Square is sold by companies like Target for as little as $9.99.

What the article does fail to mention is that companies like Choice Merchant Services offer free merchant services equipment to all of their merchants.  In the end with merchant services solutions from Choice Merchant Services merchants get a better deal. The savings of merchant services processing fees that come as low as 1.05% and the free setup that comes with free merchant services equipment Choice Merchant Services offers lower setup and monthly costs that solutions like The Square.

TheLedger.com article states:

Users pay 2.75 percent per transaction. That isn’t a cheap rate, but it’s the only fee users pay, the company says, while traditional payment systems can charge activation fees, monthly or annual fees, gateway fees and hardware rental.

Like we said above.  TheLedger is missing the boat.  1.05% transcation fees and no setup fees offer a better merchant services and merchant services equipment solution to any merchant no matter if they are procesing $1,000 per month or $20,000,000 per month in transactions.

Business News Daily recently published an article called “Choosing the Best Merchant Account Service for Your Business.”  Here at Choice Merchant Services we strive to provide the best merchant services to our merchants and it shows.  Based on the recommendations of the article we are the winning merchant services provider. Here are some highlights from the article:

1. Average merchant services approval rating.  Most merchant services providers approval about 98 to 99% of merchants that apply.

2. Merchant Services monthly costs.  Choice Merchant Services beats the costs of the two companies referenced with only a total charge of $10 per month, whereas Flagship Merchant Servies and Merchant Warehouses charge more – a total of fees that add up to about $30 per month.

3. Startup costs.  Choice Merchant Services has $0.00 in start up costs.

4. Account Setup Time.  Choice Merchant Services has a 24-hour setup time which is tied to the other merchant services providers in the article.

5. Internet Based Features.  Choice Merchant Services offers integration with PlugNPay, iCommerceGatway, Authorize.net, and Quickbooks.

6. P.O.S./Swiper Based. The article talks about merchant equipment and the equipment that Flagship Merchant Services and Merchant Warehouse offer yet it fails to talk about one very important thing – free merchant equipment.  Choice Merchant services offers free merchant services equipment to all merchants.

So it seems that Choice Merchant Services wins the merchant services war in providing the best merchant services solution to any company.

This January Forbes ran an article about various merchant services for small business.

They list them as:

1. Credit Cards
2. Pin or Signature Debit Card Acceptance
3. eCommerce
4. Gift/Loyalty Cards
5. Mobile Processing

Here are the highlights:

1. Credit Cards – Accepting credit cards increases your sales.  If you are in retail, all you need is simple retail merchant equipment.

2. Pin or Signature Debit Card Acceptance – Accepting debit cards is a must for any business.  Doing this allows people without credit cards or people who prefer to use automatic debit cards to pay your directly.  You just need a pin pad that plugs into just about any merchant equipment to do this.  Or you can get all in one merchant equipment terminals to do this.

3. eCommerce – to accept payments online you need a merchant gateway, merchant account and a shopping cart.  There are many simple and easy to setup ecommerce merchant services solutions.

4. Gift/Loyalty Cards – Gift cards and loyalty cards have a dual function.  First, they increase the amount of money your business takes in.  Second, they act as a marketing tool that will promote your business.  Both are a great idea and can be integrated into just about any merchant services solution.

5. Mobile Processing – Wireless merchant services solutions offer you the ability to take payments anywhere at any time through a mobile device such as a smart phone like an iPad, iPhone, or Droid.

To see the full article from Forbes about merchant services solutions go here.

Think of all companies that made it to greatness in the USA.  What do they all have in common?  Great management.  The only exception that I can think of is Facebook. Facebook made it to greatness because of its unique value proposition.  All other companies had great management.

So this begs the question, what is great management…

Well managed companies have the following characteristics:

1. They focus on only a handful of goals or priorities at once.

2. They are innovative.

3. They find great leaders and give them autonomy.

4. They have a regular meeting rhythm.

5. The build their company around strong core values.

6. They solve problems for their customers.

If you run your company well and have these 6 characteristics, you just might have what you need to become a great American
company.

These are the things that I work to bring to Choice Merchant Services, merchant services equipment and merchant services solutions.

What are you doing for your company?

Any small business, in order to be successful and grow and thrive in good times and in bad needs to be built on loyalty.

If you are building a company that does any of the following you are setting yourself up for failure:

1) You make promises and break them.

2) You treat your people more like property, or parts of a machine, than you treat them like people.

3) You care almost exclusively about performance.

If you do this, and don’t care about the best interest of people and don’t want the best for them, not only are you a bad business leader, but frankly, you have to question if you are a bad person.  If your build your company on loyalty, your people will do just about anything to help the company and to help you.  Almost everyone will reciprocate goodness and loyalty with goodness and loyalty.

Choice Merchant Services is offering free merchant equipment to all new applicants for credit card processing in January 2012.

Get a merchant services quote for our best merchant services offer of 2012.

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, and 21st century business thought leader, had some very nice things to say about Mitt Romney on January 9th on CNBC.

“In my lifetime, Mitt Romney is the most qualified leader I’ve ever seen run for the presidency in the United States,”  Welch said.  He went onto say,  “We haven’t’ had anybody do all these things . . . Certainly Obama didn’t have those credentials, two years in the Senate,” he said. “Come
on, we got a guy a here who’s a leader that’s demonstrated beyond anything we’ve ever had, great family. We’re the luckiest people in the world to have this guy there at this point in time.”

This goes to show that business experience managing big companies can be a powerful credential when being President.  If you can manage businesses like Staples and many other great companies like Mitt Romney has, then you have a better chance of being a great manager of the Jurassic Federal government.