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Merchant Services Goes to Digital Punch Cards?

Remember the days of punch cards at your favorite restaurant?  Make 10 visits and get a free meal?  Well this has now come to merchant services in digital form with digital punch cards.  Welcome to the world of Square.

Square which has made news as a mobile payment start-up has placed its bets on a future  providing merchants with a full suite of related tools. Square is working to fill expand its offering of services and with new loyalty tools such as digital punch cards.  This system allows merchants to create digital punch cards for merchant customers – increasing customer loyalty with the use of a smart phone – something now a days – most of us carry with us at all times.

eCommerce Conversion Rate Optimization With A Great Shopping Cart

It is important that you have a great shopping cart to maximize the amount of sales you get on your website per visitor.

For example, Amazon.com has a built 1-click check out system.  This allows a website visitor from  the page that he sees his product advertised to be able to complete a purchase with just 1 click.

On the other hand, I am sure you have been to a website where it takes 10 minutes to make a purchase because of all of the excessive questions asked of you and the several steps and clicks involved in making a purchase.  Even worse, on some website, despite your best intentions to purchase you literally did not know what to click on next to make a purchase.

When you own an ecommerce website, it is imperative that you find a good ecommerce merchant services partner that can give you a simple website checkout process that will yield the maximum dollars per website visitor for you.

There are two platforms that offer the versatility that allow you to choose your own shopping cart.  In addition, if you are on a tight budget both of these options come with free shopping carts that are easy to install on your website as well as easy for your website visitors to use.

PlugNPay.com – This solution is specifically built for eCommerce.  When you get it the EZCart Shopping Cart comes free with it, which is great for any ecommerce business.

Authorize.net – This is one of the best known and most used payment gateways.  It comes with all of the ecommerce capabilities you need.  Yet, in addition, it comes with some mobile payment options and retail payment options that can truly provide your business with an all-in-one payment solution.

Merchant Services Fees Go Up on Too Good to be True Rates

When you are looking for a merchant services provider you will come across rates being promoted such as .005% merchant processing fees. The saying goes if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. That definitely holds true here. Merchant services providers have to pay the merchant processing rates rate visa and mast card charge and with a rate that low the provider is losing at least 1.10% per transaction.

When you see rates that are that low it is a rate to get you to sign a long term contract – a contract that does not prohibit the merchant services provider from raising your rates to very high levels. Protect yourself and ask for interchange plus pricing.

Merchant Services Review of Square for the iPhone

This is a great 2.5 minute video of a merchant services review of the Square for the iPhone.

Merchant Services Savings Calculations

When you consider switching from one merchant services provider to another there are a few things you should look at to see your savings.

1. Total your current qualified merchant services average monthly volume and rate.
2. Total your current mid-qualified merchant services average monthly volume and rate.
3. Total your current non-qualified merchant services average monthly volume and rate.
4. Total your per transaction monthly total fees and rate.
5. Total your monthly merchant services fees.

Then get a quote for the 5 things above from your current merchant services provider and compare the total cost savings by switching to the new merchant service provider.

Visa’s Digital Wallet And the Future of Merchant Services

Here is a great two minute video that talks about Visa’s digital wallet and the future of merchant services.

High Risk Merchant Services Solutions

If you are accepting electronic payments and you fall into a high risk payment processing category you will need to get setup with a high risk merchant services merchant account.  Companies that need this type of service have a hard time getting accepted by most merchant services providers due to the following reasons:

1. High charge back rate industry vertical, for example, website hosting or online gaming.

2. Bad credit history

3. No credit history

4. eCommerce based business with no history and lack of strong personal guarantees.

If you fall into any of these merchant services categories you can actually get setup to accept credit cards, yet you will usually end up paying a few percentage points in premium for the higher risk the merchant services providers take by accepting your payments, this is because in the end of the day if you fall through, they are held financially responsible for whatever charge backs or fraud that goes through you.

How to Survive & Thrive in the Merchant Services Industry

Want to know what the people know that sell credit card processing services?  Watch this video about how to survive and thrive in the merchant services industry.

Top Merchant Equipment

In the quest for the top merchant equipment, we at Choice Merchant Services have narrowed it down to the following:

Best Retail Merchant Equipment: The Omni VX570, followed closely by the First Data FD100.

Best Tap & Go Merchant Equipment: The Vivopay 4000

Best eCommerce Gateway: The PlugnPay Gateway, followed closely by Authorize.net

Best Wireless Merchant Equipment, the Verifone VX670.

Restaurant Merchant Services: Take A Lesson From McDonald’s

In 2011 a major news story broke about a McDonald’s employee who stole credit card information of clients and passed the data onto a black market organization that participates in identity theft:

The news story reads:

A 16-year-old girl working the drive-through had been skimming customers’ credit card numbers, targeting mostly white females in expensive vehicles.

The girl worked at the McDonald’s on 7th street in Monticello, but Haggerty believes she is part of a much larger credit card skimming ring that extends into the Twin Cities. Wright County is in the process of compiling the list of victims, but both Lino Lakes police and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office are involved in the investigation.

The sheriff says the female employee skimmed credit cards twice–once for the purchase and once for the number, which she passed along to a “larger organization.

Setting up your restaurant merchant services account with PCI/PED complaint restaurant merchant equipment will help to lesson your risks of being liable for credit card fraud and identity theft happening to your business.