October, 2012:

Healther Clancy of Small Business Matters recently published a blog  post on ZDNet about how Harbortouch is giving away a free POS sales system to small business retailers in exchange for a 5 year comittment.  Choice Merchant Services offers free merchant equipment and software to its merchants in exchange for a 3 year contract comittment.  In addition, we have merchant service processing rates that start at 1.05% – which can save our merchants a lot of money in payment processing fees.  Yet, we are much more than that – we are a purpose-driven company.

With every purchase, 10% of our earnings help a child in need.  This is why our company mission is to, “empower leaders to do good by building a purpose-driven business that helps kids in need while helping businesses succeed. ” We have found that in business when your modivication is to do good, great customers come to you and are loyal to you.  In addition, great people come to Choice Merchant Services and want to be part of our great culture and ask to become a team member here.  They want to be part of something great.  They put their energy and drive into helping our company succeed becuase in doing so they are helping other businesses succeed and then helping kids through our 10% of earnings giving promise.  This purpose-drive culture at Choice Merchant Services find helps children in need by giving nutrition, healthcare, education, safety, love and faith to kids that need it.

Bottom line: Help customers by giving them a quality solution that saves them money and help others through charity.

This is the greater purpose of a company – to do good in everything that you do.

The the debate tonight between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan has spent a lot of time talking about the topic of job creation and taxes.  Joe Biden wants to raise taxes on small business and Paul Ryan does not.  Joe Biden wants to raises taxes on small business by about 20% and Paul Ryan wants tax rates to remain the same.  Being a small business owner, I ask, how can a 20% tax increase enable me to hire more people?  It can’t.

At Choice Merchant Services we strive to save our clients money by lowering the rates that companies pay to accept payments such as Visa, Mastercard, Amercian Express & Discover.  Since most companies pay about 2% of their revenues in payment processing fees, we can essentially give them a .25% “tax cut.”  Every month clients come to us because we can give them a .25% “tax cut” and that can do a lot to help their business.  If we can build an entire business around a .25% “tax cut” we provide to companies with merchant service savings, what business are Barack Obama destroying with his tax 20% hikes on small business?

TopCreditCardProcessors.com monthly lists the top 30 credit card processing companies based on their ranking criteria.  This is the result of their findings:

The Top 30 Credit  Card Processors for October 2012 are:

1.    Leaders Merchant Services

2.   National Bancard

3.    Cornerstone Merchant Services,  Inc.

4.   Chase Paymenttech Solutions, LLC

5.    National Processing

6.    Electronic Transfter, Inc.

7.    iStream Financial Services, Inc.

8.    First Data Corporation

9.    Merchant Express

10.    Leap Payments

11.    PaySimple

12.    Heartland Payment Systems

13.    East Commerce Solutions

14.    Merchant Warehouse

15.    U.S. Merchant Systems (USMS)

16.    Green By Phone

17.    NPC,  a Vantiv Company

18.    Global Payments, Inc.

19.    Harbortouch

20.    Velocity Merchant Services (VMS)

21.    PowerPay

22.    Priority  Payment Systems

23.    Certified Payment Processing

24.    Network Merchants, Inc (NMI)

25.    National Transaction Corp

26.    CyberSource Corp.

27.    Govolution, LLC

28.    Fiserv, Inc.

29.    Prolific Credit Card Processing

30.    CalliPay

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/business/prweb/article/The-Thirty-Best-Credit-Card-Processors-Ranked-by-3916463.php#ixzz28vN1QanD

Your merchant services provider should offer you free merchant services equipment.

Below is a list of some of the free merchant equipment and merchant services processing software that Choice Merchant Services offers our merchants through our partnership with North American Bancard:

• Authorize.net
• Dial Charge
• First Data FD100
• Hypercom T7P
• Nurit 8020
• Omni VX570
• PCCharge
• Plugnpay
• Verfione VX510
• Verifone VX570
• Verifone VX670
• Vivopay 4000
• Way Systems

Go to receive a merchant services processing quote and see if you qualify for free merchant equipment and software from North American Bancard.

This is a great 8 minute video for merchant services agents and ISO’s.  This video talks about how to be extradonionary in doing sales in the merchant services industry.

If you are processing in excess of $1,500 per month in credit cards then a traditional merchant services solution is best for you because it will save your company money.  If you are processing less, than $1,500 per month then a mobile merchant services solution such as Phone Swipe is best for you.   Today, there are several credit card processing apps, such as Square, GoPayment & SAIL for smart phones and tablets that have made the process of accepting payments, more mobile, and more cost-friendly to low volume merchants.   The best and lowest cost solution is Phone Swipe.

What are traditional merchant services solutions?
This is the way you are familiar with making credit card payments such as going into a retail store like Home Depot, Target or Walmart, and swiping your credit card through the terminal.  Getting setup to accept payments in this manner gives you a lower discount rate, or a % of each transaction you pay to your merchant services provider.  Traditionally, getting setup with merchant equipment would cost smaller businesses more money.  Companies like Choice Merchant Services through their partnership with North American Bancard offer free merchant equipment to companies that want to have access to their merchant services processing.  These are all in one-solutions that allow for easy credit card processing that can integrate into about any business.  Some of this free equipment that is offered is:

• PCCharge
• Verfione VX510
• Verifone VX570
• Nurit 8020
• Omni VX570
• Hypercom T7P
• First Data FD100

Traditional merchant services here come with a monthly fee that is about $10 to $20 per month in addition to a credit card processing rate, that will svae your company money if you are processing in excess of $1,500 per month.  Rates start at 1.05% and this is where you have a big cost savings over a Phone Swipe setup if you are processing more than $1,500 per month in credit card processing volume.

What are mobile merchant services solutions?

Phone Swipe offers no setup fees, no monthly fee, and not software or hard ware fees.  All you pay is 2.69% per swiped transaction.  You simply download a free app, for your iPhone, iPad, Android, or Blackberry.  Then 24 hours later you are shipped the Phone Swipe card reader and you are accepting credit cards.  Your only charge is 2.69% per transaction.  This is a great mobile merchant services solution if you are processing less than $1,500 per month as there are no other fees.  This solution is also less expensive than any other mobile merchant services solution and even has the option to print our or email receipts to your customers.  To get Phone Swipe go here.

(Reuters) Retailers such as Gap and Bed Bath & Beyond have joined a mobile payments network that intends to battle similar services from Google Inc and other companies.

The Merchant Customer Exchange, a confederation of retailers, has already attracted Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Target Corp and Japan’s 7-Eleven Inc since announcing plans in August.

The service, also called MCX, is at an early stage and has yet to set a launch date. On Monday, MCX told Reuters it had signed up several new members. In addition to Gap and Bed Bath, they include Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc, Dillards Inc and convenience store operator Sheetz Inc.

Mobile payments are expected to rise nearly four-fold to more than $1.3 trillion annually by 2017, according to a recent report by Juniper Research.

The technology allows shoppers to turn their cellphones into devices that can be used to pay for goods and services. Analysts tout it as a promising area as retailers seek ways to make checkout easier and streamline the shopping experience.

MCX is intended to match similar services from Google which began operating its own system last year on its Android devices. The retailer-led initiative is seeing “tremendous interest” from merchants of all sizes, said Dodd Roberts, an MCX executive.

The group has 21 publicly traded members so far.

“One of the reasons why there has not been widespread adoption of mobile payments is because the experience is not yet seamless for consumers,” a spokesman for MCX said. “We think (MCX) will help in adoption of mobile payments.”

The founders of MCX hope the burgeoning membership, including some big-name retailers, could give mobile payment the critical mass it needs to take off.

In August, Starbucks Corp announced a deal to use startup Square Inc to process payments at its U.S. coffee shops.

Industry experts said that move could threaten established payment processors and Wal-Mart, Target and 7-Eleven followed with word that they were developing MCX.

 

 Amazon.com is launching a new business offering loans to some of its online sellers, a move that could boost the growth of its Internet marketplace while exposing it to potential credit risks.

The new program is called Amazon Lending and sellers on the company’s marketplace have been sent emails offering loans from Amazon Capital Services, a unit of Amazon, according to a merchant who received such an email from the company recently. The merchant did not want to be identified because Amazon has not announced the program publicly.

An Amazon spokesmen declined to comment.

Getting into the lending business is a big step for Amazon that will expose it to more credit risk but may also fuel more sales by merchants on its marketplace. Amazon takes a cut of those sales, so revenue and profits could get a boost.

Even more so than that, Amazon will charge their merchants interest for the loans and make income off of that.  This service is of good benefit to their merchants as most of them are small businesses and they need loans in order maintain cash flow.  Because of Amazon’s closer risk with knowing their payment processing history, and their ability to withhold merchant services batch deposits to make sure they get repaid for loans – the upside of this program is good for them.  It is a win-win for Amazon’s merchants and Amazon, and after all that is just good business.

Choice Merchant Services has been offering a program like this called “Capital for Merchants” as part of our merchant services offering since our founding.

Some online merchants lack upfront cash to buy all the inventory they would like to sell on Amazon.com, especially heading into the crucial holiday season.

Banks and other sources of loans for merchants pulled back in the wake of the financial crisis, leaving an opening for alternative sources of financing. Factoring, a common source of financing in the retail business that is provided by lenders such as CIT Group and Wells Fargo, can be tough to tap for smaller merchants.

“Some of these businesses are only constrained by cash flow,” said Scot Wingo, chief executive of e-commerce advisory firm ChannelAdvisor.

“These spot loans will help these folks grow by getting them extra cash to buy more product.”

ChannelAdvisor helps online merchants sell on Amazon, eBay (EBAY) and other online marketplaces. Wingo posted a copy of one of the Amazon Lending emails on ChannelAdvisor’s blog on Thursday.

Amazon is competing against a start-up called Kabbage, which extends cash advances ranging from $500 to $50,000 to online merchants.

“We’re flattered that Amazon is building a business modeled on ours,” said Kabbage co-founder Marc Gorlin. “It’s validating that big companies are getting into the small business financing space.”

Former PayPal President and Yahoo (YHOO) ex-CEO Scott Thompson joined Kabbage’s board on Thursday.

Amazon is lending up to $800,000 to some merchants, Wingo said, adding that this is a pretty aggressive entrance into merchant financing. The company is charging some sellers interest rates of up to 13 percent, but some other merchants are being offered rates as low as 1 percent, he added.

“This is definitely cheaper than credit cards and faster and easier than banks, so may fill a big hole for sellers,” Wingo said.

Amazon is pre-qualifying some sellers based on their performance on the company’s online marketplace. The money can be used by sellers to buy more inventory and increase sales on Amazon.com, according to the email.

Sellers can sign up for loans through their existing Amazon merchant accounts and if approved, Amazon said it will send the money to their bank accounts within five business days. Monthly interest payments on the loans will be deducted automatically from merchants’ Amazon seller accounts, the email explained.

“We would absolutely be interested in borrowing money like this,” said Joshua Wood, vice president of operations at Ozbo, an online merchant that sells on Amazon.com.

“We have a 65,000-square-foot warehouse that we would love to fill with inventory that we would blow through during the holiday season,” he added.

Ozbo is limited in how much inventory it can buy because most of its cash flow is being plowed back into other projects to grow its business, he explained.

Getting a credit line from a bank has been difficult because lenders require a personal guarantee from Ozbo’s main investor, Wood said.

A loan from Amazon to buy more inventory would also lower Ozbo’s per-item costs to buy the products it sells, he added.

“Everything is driven by volume,” Wood said.

Kabbage, backed by investors including David Bonderman of TPG Capital, United Parcel Service and BlueRun Ventures, advances money to merchants to pay for a wide range of things, including inventory, supplies and to hire staff.

Amazon’s financing must be used for inventory sold on Amazon.com, while Kabbage advances cash to sellers on Amazon.com, eBay, Yahoo!, Etsy and Shopify.

“The main differentiator is that we are platform agnostic,” Gorlin said. “Our goal is to support merchants wherever they sell.”

Kabbage merchants pay 2 percent to 7 percent for a 30-day advance. For an advance of up to six months, they typically pay 10 percent to 18 percent. That depends on the performance of their business and sellers’ credit information, although no one is turned down solely for their credit score, Gorlin explained.

To get an advance from Kabbage, sellers provide the login for their online stores, a login for their bank account and their social security number.

Kabbage checks sellers’ creditworthiness with this information, but it also analyzes their sales on online marketplaces, how they interact with customers on Facebook and Twitter and their record of shipping products with UPS.

This process is automated, so sellers can get cash advances in their PayPal accounts or bank accounts quickly – sometimes in as little as seven minutes, Gorlin said.

eBay does not offer a service like this for its sellers. However, Gorlin said eBay is a “good partner” of Kabbage. eBay may not provide its own advances, because the company may not want to upset its sellers by sometimes turning down their requests for working capital, he added.

Amazon shares closed up 2.8 percent to $256.59 on Thursday.