October, 2012:

Getting gift card programs setup for your business can be a really big deal – especially this time of year.  The Christmas shopping season officially starts November 23rd, yet in reality it starts November 1st.  The question is are you providing gift cards for your customers to give your products or services as a gift?  If not – you are missing out on major profit opportunities.  Here is why:

They give buyers the opportunity to choose what they   really want instead of having to deal with gift returns.

• 24% of gift card purchases are never redeemed.  So selling gift cards is 100% profit for about 24% of your sales.
• Gift cards bring you new customers.  Not only do they bring the original purchaser into your location, they also give you viral advertising as people give the gift card to a new patron of your business and people talk about your business as they unwrap their Christmas gifts.
• When a new customer comes into your store with their gift card, they will often come back again and again.
• Most gift card purchases result in the patron buying something in excess of the purchase amount.
• A recent study found that on average, people prefer to receive gift cards over any other kind of present.

Most merchant services providers, such as Choice Merchant Services offer gift card programs as your of their merchant services offering.  This can be very easy for you to setup and it can be done with little to no cost to you.

Hurricane Sandy is estimated to have caused $20,000,000,000 in damage in the United States in the past 36 hours.  The breadth of the damage is strong as the NYSE is closed for the 1st time since the days just after September 11, 2001.

Many of our providers that provide non-essential services to Choice Merchant Services have experienced downtime and server delays.  Offices as far west as Cleveland, OH are closed due to power outages, and flooding.  Personally, being a native Clevelander I was very surprised to have seen 20 foot waves on Lake Erie crashing onto the highway.

Yet, payment systems at Choice Merchant Services and our partners are up and running strong and well.  We have ensured the highest levels of redundancy.  This speaks to the importance of merchant services in today’s world and our dedication to making sure each transaction runs flawlessly and is completed in 5 seconds or less.  It’s all about providing the best merchant service experience no matter how big the obstacles.

ATLANTA — For small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs), the path to Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance can often resemble a rocky road. ControlScan, an expert provider of PCI compliance and security services, now smoothes that road for the merchants served by Allifide Merchant Group, a payment processing firm trusted by a national client base of hundreds of SMBs as well as more than 50 industry partners.

Data from ControlScan’s recent survey of merchant acquirersshows that as SMB merchants’ PCI compliance rates increase, the occurrence of a data breach decreases. The partnership between Allifide and ControlScan saves Allifide’s merchants time and hassle—and reduces merchant confusion—with high-impact education and support services that guide them through each step of the PCI compliance process.

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/10/29/4371919/controlscan-and-allifide-merchant.html#storylink=cpy

Hurricane Sandy is expected to effect nearly 50 million people from New York City to Indiana.  Choice Merchant Services is offering Capital for Merchants loans to small businesses that may be effected by Hurricane Sandy.

Oftentimes, in crisis such as these cashflow can be interrupted, property can be damaged, customers may not come, and workers may be unable to make it to work.  This may cause the need for short-terms loans needed for businesses that are hit by the hurricane.

Choice Merchant Services offers the Capital for Merchant program to all companies that process credit, debit, and eCheck payments through their network.  Contact our best merchant services represenatives to qualify for Capital for Merchants loans program.  We can have money moved to your business bank account within 48 hours.

In the world of high risk merchant services people can do some crazy things.  Gamblers, adult sites, etc. are all bad and no one should accept their payments.  This is the world of offshore bank accounts, scam artists and just plain bad people.  If you are in need of high risk merchant services we recommend that you work with a provider that does not accept adult sites, gambling and other bad activities.  The fact of turning down money made through bad activities will speak to the integrity of the company that you are choosing to handle some of the most sensitive parts of your business – the cash that funds your business, your employee’s pay, and your entire operations.

If want a lesson of a bad merchant services provider for high risk transactions, read this story from Bloomberg about Chad Elie whose company provided merchant service to gambling websites, and now is serving time in prison.  Article: Online Poker Payment Processor Gets 5 Months in Prison.

By now many Americans have heard of the mobile wallet.  Yet, what really is a mobile wallet?

Currently when you pay with a credit card at a retailer you open your wallet, get out your credit card, swipe it through the credit card terminal and complete your purchase.  In the future with a mobile wallet you will not have a need to carry around a wallet anymore.  Instead, you will simply tap your mobile phone to a credit card terminal and your purchase will be completed.

For example, this November Starbucks outlets throughout the United Sates will accept mobile wallet payments through Square, who has developed a mobile wallet app for Smart Phones.  The mobile wallet is a new and exciting thing.  When you walk into a more trendy place like Starbucks it makes sense that they would have the latest way to pay for something in their store.  Other competitors of Square such as Phone Swipe offer the same tap and go and mobile merchant services at a lower rate.

The concept of the mobile wallet is about 2 years new.  Providers such as Choice Merchant Services have offered the Vivopay 4000 tap and go terminal to their merchants for 2 year now.  The Vivopay 4000 allows customers to make a credit or debit card payment via tap and go with their mobile wallet, or via the use of a traditional swipe.  This tool allows both new and more tranditional forms of payment so a company can accept payments of early adopters who are using the mobile wallet as well as the traditional swipe methods.

Some pundits have said that this is a major change to the credit card processing industry that threatends traditional merchant service providers.  They are wrong.  The industry is simply evolving as new technology comes into existence.  As long as a company’s merchant services provider offers Tap and Go technology, Mobile Wallet merchant equipment, great customer service, and a lower merchant services rate compared to the competitor – they will continue to grow and thrive.

When your business depends on getting your customers to “Add to Cart” and then complete the purchase you need to have a good ecommerce merchant service partner to help make sure you maxamize your purchase per web site visitor ratio.   Second, you need a merchant service partner that helps you maximize the average purchase size.  Third, you need an ecommerce merchant service partner that helps you maxamize the dollars you keep from every transaction by minimizing the amount you pay your merchant service provider per transaction.  Here are three simple things you can accomplish through your merchant service partner to accomplish all of the above.

1. How to Maximize Your Purchase Per Web Site Visitor

• Add a Search Window for people to search your website in the top right corner of your website.
• Make the “Add to Cart” button prominent and simple.
• Make it so that people can complete a purchase in 1 click, just like on Amazon.com
• Make sure that the prices for each product are easy to see and understand
• Make sure that the benefits and features of each product are explained and showcased on 1 page.

2. How to Maximize Your Average Purchase Size

• Make sure that your eCommerce merchant service gateway and shopping cart offers a related products, upsell, just like the check out on Amazon.com.
• Offer promo codes and special deals on your website that expire – expirations create urgency
• Do follow-up “Shopping Cart Abandonment Emails” to folks that add to cart but do not complete a purchase
• Do follow-up “Shopping Cart Abandonment Display Ads” to folks that add to cart but do not complete a purchase.  Then bring them to a product specific landing page with a discount if they complete a purhcase.

3. How to Save on Your eCommerce Merchant Service Fees

• Request Interchange+ Pricing or Pay no more than 2.05% per transaction.
• Accept debit cards through your website and get your per transaction fee down to $0.10 per transaction.

Follow the 3 step plan above and get more orders, bigger orders, and pay less per transaction.  How do you do all of the above?  Get a merchant gateway such as Plug N Pay or Authorize.net.

Phone Swipe offers a mobile merchant services plug to turn your smart phone such as your iPad, iPhone, Droid, or other such device into a phone swipe credit card processing terminal.  See this 1 minute mobile merchant services video to see how it works.

Your can sign up for Phone Swipe here.

A mobile-payments service developed by wireless carriers will go live Monday in two test markets after being delayed last month.

Isis will allow consumers to make purchases by tapping smartphones equipped with a special computer chip against a merchant payment terminal. The service will be available on as many as 20 types of handsets by year-end, Jaymee Johnson, head of marketing for the service, said in a statement Wednesday.

Read the rest of the story here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444868204578062912058915182.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Dave Thomas recently wrote this article about how companies that have bad credit can get credit card processing services- also know as high risk merchant services.  His are the best parts of his advice below:

1. Have an answer for your credit score.  It is important before you search for a merchant account provider that you detail your credit history and have answers to explain your credit history.

2. Find a good high risk merchant service provider –  Research 4 to 6 companeis that have a history being able to get businesses and people with poor credit card history approved.  Really, if you find 3 that is probably enough to make an informed decision on your custom merchant service quote.

3. “Know the merchant fees and services – Just like you should review any business agreement you consider going into, make sure with each merchant account provider that you assess their fees, look for any hidden charges, terms of contract, etc.”   Use a tool like the merchant services rates calculator so you know how much you are paying and how much you are saving by using one merchant provider vs. another one.