May
05
2014
May 5th, 2014 by Elma Jane

The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) has come under criticism as high profile data breaches continue to expose flaws in retailers’ data security systems. But telecommunications firm Verizon Wireless concluded that the PCI DSS is working.

Some Responses to Criticisms  

Nilson Report research from August 2013 that said card fraud cost the global payments market over $11 billion in 2012. Verizon added that the frequency of fraud schemes that the PCI DSS was designed to avoid is in fact growing. And yet most businesses are not fully compliant at the time of assessment. Only 51.1 percent of the companies it had audited had passed seven of the 12 requirements of the PCI DSS and only 11.1 percent of said companies had passed all 12.

Verizon addressed some of the criticisms leveled at the PCI DSS. One concern is that the standard promotes compliance as a test to be passed and forgotten, which distracts companies from focusing on improving security. Verizon responded by stating that breached businesses were less likely to be PCI DSS compliant than unaffected companies. It also said businesses improve their chances of not being breached by having the standard in place, and of minimizing the damage of a breach should one occur.

Another common complaint leveled at the standard is that it is too cumbersome and slow moving in relation to the quickly evolving threat landscape and nimble fraudsters ready to try new tactics. Verizon countered that the PCI DSS is meant to be a set of baseline security protocols. Achieving compliance with any standard is simply not enough, organizations must take responsibility for protecting both their reputation and their customers. Most attacks on networks are of the simple variety, with 78 percent of hacking techniques considered low or very low in sophistication. Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR)  research shows that while perpetrators are upping the ante, trying new techniques and leveraging far greater resources, less than 1 percent of the breaches use tactics rated as high on the VERIS (Verizon’s Data breach Analysis Database) difficulty scale for initial compromise.

Recommendations

There’s an initial dip in compliance whenever a major update to the standard is released, so organizations will have to put in additional effort to prepare for achieving compliance with DSS 3.0.

The newest version of the standard, PCI DSS 3.0, went into effect Jan. 1, 2014. Businesses have until Jan. 1, 2015, to implement it. The updated standard has new requirements and clarifications to version 2.0 that will take time for businesses to understand and implement, and this will result in more organizations being out of compliance.

To help businesses deal with their PCI DSS compliance obligations the firm offered five approaches:

Don’t leave compliance to information technology security teams, but enlist application developers, system administrators, executives and other staff in helping further along the process.

Embed compliance in everyday business practices so that it is sustainable.

Integrate compliance programs into enterprise-wide governance, risk and compliance strategies.

Learn how to reduce the scope of organizations’ compliance responsibilities, chiefly by figuring out how to store less data on fewer systems.

Think of compliance as an opportunity to improve overall business processes, rather than as a burden.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, Credit Card Security, Electronic Payments, Payment Card Industry PCI Security, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Feb
13
2014
February 13th, 2014 by Elma Jane

How To Target Customers Based on Past Purchase Behavior

One of the best ways to predict how someone will behave in the future is to look at what they’ve done in the past. By tracking a consumer’s past purchasing behavior, marketers can design highly targeted ads based on the specific preferences and tastes of individual customers.

The question, of course, is how to gain access to data about a consumer’s spending history without violating privacy standards. For many marketers, the answer is to partner with a vendor that provides card-linked offers. A survey of 300 marketers found that three-quarters believe card-linking marketing programs will replace existing types of advertising in the years to come – a strong vote of confidence from the very industry vendors are trying to tap.

 Here are tools that marketers can use to gather information about their customers’ past purchasing habits.

 1. BlueKai: Find prospects based on previous buying habits.

BlueKai offers marketers a third-party marketplace, known as the Audience Data Marketplace, where they can collect data on consumers in their target demographics. One type of data that marketers can collect is past purchasing behavior. Marketers can search for consumers who are likely to buy their products based on their previous spending habits. For example, an electronics brand may search for data about consumers who’ve purchased laptops in the past year. Using this information, marketers are able to create more targeted campaigns that are delivered only to those shoppers in qualified demographics.

 2. Cardlytics: Learn where else your customers shop.

Cardlytics provides advertisers with insight into the purchasing behavior of more than 30 million households. Marketers have the option to target only those buyers who have been active in their sector. Cardlytics tracks where a consumer shops, when they shop, where they live, and how much they spend. For example, a retailer might only collect information about consumers who have spent more than $1,000 at competing businesses in the tri-state area. Using the Cardlytics platform, advertisers can create targeted offers meant to improve loyalty or build stronger customer relationships. Cardlytics offers pay-for-performance pricing.

 3. Cartera: Reward consumers for shopping at retail partners.

Businesses that are looking to improve the effectiveness of their rewards programs can use Cartera’s card-linked platform to gain additional insight into the spending patterns of their top customers. By connecting loyalty programs to their customer’s credit and debit cards, marketers can offer better rewards — including cash back and airline miles. Retailers also have the option to reward consumers for shopping at “complementary merchants.” A few of Cartera’s best-known clients include Best Buy and Charter Communication.

 4. Catalina: Actively pinpoint the shopping behaviors of specific buyers.

Using Catalina’s BuyerVision tool,  marketers are able to target their digital advertising –  including display, video and mobile – based on past purchasing behaviors. Catalina analyzes the in – store purchasing behavior of consumers and matches that data to online behaviors using cookies. For example, a grocery store could send recipe ideas to consumers who have purchased a specific combination of items in the past week. The company says it has access to transactions at more than 30,000 stores, allowing its clients to define their target audiences send mobile ads to more than 70 million households.

 5. Edo Interactive: Target consumers based on competitive spending patterns.

Brands, agencies, and even small businesses can use edo Interactive’s card-linked marketing platform to send targeted offers to consumers based on their competitive spending patterns. The company has partnered with more than 200 banks, giving clients access to information about 200 million consumers. As a result, marketers connect their advertising to in-store purchases and send consumers relevant offers that they’re likely to redeem. Taking it a step further, edo’s Geocommerce feature combines purchase data with location information. Edo operates on a pay-for-performance model, which means marketers only pay when the customers they’ve targeted make purchases at their businesses.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, Electronic Payments Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Feb
10
2014
February 10th, 2014 by Elma Jane

Impact on 2013 Holiday Sales’s Big Data

 Holiday season has ended and the analysis has begun to understand what worked and what did not for ecommerce merchants. Cyber Monday became the biggest online shopping day in history with a 20.6 percent increase in sales over 2012, according to the IBM 2013 Holiday Benchmark Report. Retailers are increasingly tapping into the avalanche of data from their own sites and from third-party sites to drive sales and better serve their customers. This article will address five key ways Big Data impacted the 2013 holiday shopping season.

 Contextual Promotions

The use of Big Data has enabled contextual promotions – mostly real-time push notifications based on consumers’ social media activity, tracking their locations, or capturing their interactions on the web and mobile devices. This holiday season contextual promotions were heavily used. IBM’s Cyber Monday Report states, “On average, retailers sent 77 percent more push notifications during the five day holiday shopping period when compared to daily averages over the past two months.” Retailers invested in social media sites like Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram (among others) during the November and December holiday season. This led to higher referral sales from these sources.

Several physical retailers, including Best Buy and Kohl’s, also deployed location-based promotions to push notifications while the consumer is in or near the store. Some retailers tracked consumers’ locations without their knowledge, raising privacy concerns. Other retailers required an opt in by consumers to receive these promotions.

Additionally, some retailers used mobile apps to send contextual promotions based on tracking shoppers’ activities on the app and their physical locations with using it. Macy’s and J.C. Penney, for example, partnered with Shopkick (a shopping app provider) during this holiday season to reward brick-and-mortar shoppers with discounts or song downloads for trying on clothes, scanning barcodes, or making purchases.

Gift Selection

Holidays are all about gift giving. Some retailers used their Big Data recommendation algorithms to make it simpler to select gifts. These retailers built predictive models that process data from multiple sources like social media, wish lists, gift registries, and past purchases to predict the right gift for an individual.

Improved Customer Service

The holiday season results in more traffic for ecommerce merchants, which naturally leads to an increase in the volume of customer service issues. To keep customers happy during this time and manage customer service costs, some retailers implemented Big Data solutions to monitor customer activity and proactively respond to negative social media posts or issues. After all, one negative tweet can significantly impact business during this time of the year.

Real-time data feeds inform retailers in advance if customers will experience issues like a slow site, out of stock products, or delayed delivery. Retailers can either proactively correct the issue or notify the customers afterwards. Fab.com, for example, automatically credits a customer the difference if a price of an item drops immediately after purchase. T-Mobile USA has integrated Big Data across multiple IT systems to combine customer transaction and interactions data to better predict customer defections. By monitoring social media interactions with transaction data and billing systems, T-Mobile USA has reportedly reduced customer defections in half in a single quarter. Dell uses Big Data solutions to analyze real-time feeds from weather reports, delivery trucks, and orders to proactively resolve delivery problems before customers are aware of them.

Integrated Analytics

Most large retailers serve customers across multiple channels and devices. This makes it critical for those retailers to have a single view of all customer and product activity using data from all sources. Some retailers are already using such solutions and several more deployed such solutions before the holiday season. This one capability is crucial to track other Big Data uses, such as contextual promotions, gift selection, personalized customer experience, and improved customer service.

 

Personalized Customer Experience

Retailers have used Big Data to personalize their site content for several years. This was a competitive differentiator during this holiday season, however, as indicated by pre-holiday survey by Baynote, a personalized customer experience solution provider. The survey noted that eighty-one percent of retailers planned to upgrade ecommerce platforms to focus on customer experience, and to increase engagement, revenue, and ultimately lifetime value from improved relationships with shoppers. Retailers can categorize each shopper into a segment of one with its own customized landing pages, product catalog, campaigns, and even content. The result is an enhanced customer experience and an improved conversion rate.

Amazon.com continued to maintain its dominance in this space by using its extremely rich data set to personalize the shopping experience for its millions of shoppers. Another benefit from personalizing the customer experience is increased impulse buys, which become more important during the holidays as shoppers are in the right frame of mind to spend money.

Posted in e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Internet Payment Gateway, Merchant Account Services News Articles, Small Business Improvement Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec
30
2013
December 30th, 2013 by Elma Jane

Earlier this year, American Express offered its cardholders free permanent membership in ShopRunner, a service that gives its members free, two-day shipping at several retail sites. Similarly, PayPal recently tested two-day free shipping offers with a few retailers, whereby shoppers could get free, two-day shipping without an annual fee if they simply checked out using PayPal. The offer had no minimum purchase requirement. Now, Global payment firm MasterCard announced that its customers will receive free, two-day shipping from five of the Internet’s leading retailers. MasterCard also offered a premium service that extends the free, two-day shipping offer to other online merchants. MasterCard joins American Express and PayPal in offering customers free, two-day shipping options at select online retailers.

Collectively ShopRunner, PayPal’s offer, and MasterCard’s recent move may be part of what some in the retail industry are calling the Amazon Prime effect, which is a trend to faster, free shipping services driven in part by Amazon’s Prime service. These offers are changing customer expectations, so that merchants, regardless of size, may need to change free shipping offers to reflect the two-day service available from Amazon Prime, ShopRunner, and now MasterCard.

MasterCard Offer Aims at Large Retailers

To take advantage of the MasterCard offer, shoppers must register at a special MasterCard site, sign in and shop from the site, select two-day shipping at checkout and of course, pay with a MasterCard. Customers will have to pay for the two-day shipping upfront and email the order confirmation to MasterCard to be reimbursed.

Regular online shoppers may purchase an annual subscription for $69.99, extending the free, two-day shipping to about 30 larger retailers, including Nordstrom, J. C. Penney, Home Depot, and GameStop. The premium annual subscription also raises the maximum limit from $500 for six months to $1,500 per year.

The “Free Shipping by MasterCard” offer features five of the retail industry’s best known merchants: Best Buy, QVC, Macy’s, Kohl’s, and Walmart. Online purchases made from these sellers can earn free shipping up to $20 per purchase and $500 maximum over a six-month period.

Implications for Small, Mid-sized Ecommerce Merchants

Free shipping is now or, at least is becoming a key to online ecommerce success. As an example, Forrester Research’s U.S. Online Holiday Retail Forecast 2013, which was released on November 25, found that many online shoppers will leave a site and not buy anything if there is not a free shipping offer available.

Customers may look at shipping as an extra cost or even a waste of money, which is different from how they calculate the gas and inconvenience of going to a store or mall. Even offering free shipping with a minimum purchase can make customers feel better about the checkout process.

Where MasterCard’s offer is different is that it is increasing the expectation around how long a package should take to arrive, and, perhaps, changing how sellers need to think about free shipping.

When an ecommerce retailer purchases pay-per-click advertising, invests in email marketing, buys banner ads, or even prints a brochure or catalog to include in the shipping box, that retailer is investing to acquire or keep customers.

When it comes to accounting for these marketing investments, pay-per-click advertising, as an example, is often taken as part of marketing expenses generally and not attributed directly to a single transaction. For this reason, it is possible that merchants are losing money on some particular orders because of the advertising and promotional expenses associated with those particular orders, but making a profit overall thanks to spreading out marketing costs over all orders and generally increasing the total number of orders and reorders.

Ecommerce businesses may need to start thinking about shipping costs, even two-day shipping costs, in a similar way, not necessarily associating these costs with individual orders, but looking at the business as a whole to see if the free shipping offers are increasing profitability or market share company wide.

New Opportunity for Payment Providers

Free, two-day shipping offers also represent an opportunity for payment companies, like MasterCard, since these free shipping offers could give a particular payment service a competitive advantage. After all, most shoppers will choose the payment card or payment option that provides free shipping over other payment choices.

For the most part, PayPal, American Express via ShopRunner, and now MasterCard are focusing on large retailers, but there may be another opportunity with small and mid-sized online merchants.

Posted in Credit card Processing, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Point of Sale, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec
19
2013
December 19th, 2013 by Elma Jane

10 Great Ecommerce & Mcommerce Ideas

 

Address Commonly-asked Questions

Instead of hiding commonly asked questions on an FAQ page somewhere on your site, display these answers in plain sight. Include your service agreement on every page, and provide frequent updates on orders in the mail, because one of the quickest ways to lose shoppers and sales is to make it difficult for them to do business with you.

Connect with Pinterest Influencers

Connect with the Pinterest influencers…accounts or boards with large followings…that relate to your product category. Ask for a pin here and there for a product you believe they would like. You’ll get large amounts of traffic, sales, and repins from their large followings. This method is repeatable and much quicker and cheaper than building a large following yourself.

Don’t Forget Comparison Shopping Engines

You’ve got a great ecommerce website. But is it hard to get traffic? Comparison shopping engines (CSEs)…like Google Shopping, Shopzilla, NexTag, Pronto, and Bing…deliver millions of shoppers to product pages every day. You list your items on the CSEs where purchase-ready shoppers will see them and click through to your site to complete the transaction. CSEs typically have a pay-per-click pricing model, and many merchants find it’s worth the cost.

Emphasize Product Photography

Whether you use high-quality renderings or actual product photography, make sure you take the time to present your products in the best possible manner. With the proliferation of product and photo sharing sites like Pinterest, The Fancy, Instagram, and OpenSky, having a beautiful product shot is imperative. Lifestyle shots of your product in use could also significantly increase conversion rates.

Make Research Easy for Prospective Buyers

Research (for buying decisions) is a massive resource cost to businesses around the world. It is also a primary reason for lost deals. Were you to provide comprehensive information that was easy to find and on which a buying decision can be made, then your close rate would substantially improve. Add to this, an easy purchasing process and, rather than scouring the web, a buyer would see your site as a preferred source.

Mimic the Brick-and-mortar Experience

Regardless of what channel they may be using to shop, online consumers are demanding the quality of the brick-and-mortar experience. They want to zoom in on a product, rotate it, change its colors…in short, they want to interact with the item as though they were physically in the same room with it. Retailers with rich interactive media that can offer this in omnichannel have a significant competitive advantage during the holiday season and can convert at rates of 30 percent higher than those that don’t.

Offer Support via Social Media

Nielson research discovered that in 2012 one-third of social media users prefer to contact a company via social media than by phone. On your support pages, provide links to your social media profiles. Set up notifications in the social media accounts so you know when someone contacts you. This way you provide timely customer support to those who want it…in the way they want it.

Stay Ahead of the Curve

“It doesn’t take a lot of time for cutting-edge to become old hat. Keep researching to be aware of the latest tools and technology. If you stay still, you will find that your competitors will quickly surpass you.

Take the ‘E’ out of ‘Ecommerce’

Retailers need to realize that the lines of commerce have been, as John Donahoe, CEO of eBay, said, obliterated. It’s no longer a world of online and offline commerce. It’s just commerce. Retailers are competing on a global scale with everyone, everywhere. You need to give shoppers a compelling reason to buy from you. Find a way to differentiate and make sure you can grab shoppers attention and keep them coming back.

Think Like a Shopper

Keep your site’s design simple and clean, make calls-to-action clear, and focus on the product. Go through the flows of your site: search, browse, and buy a product, or have a friend do it and watch him without helping. Pay attention to areas where anything is confusing, doesn’t work the way it should, or takes too many steps. Then make adjustments.

Posted in Credit card Processing, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Internet Payment Gateway, Mobile Payments Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec
12
2013
December 12th, 2013 by Elma Jane

A new study reveals that a staggering 68% of smartphone owners plan to use their devices to assist with their holiday shopping this year. According to Deloitte’s 28th annual survey of holiday spending intentions and trends, 56% of smartphone owners plan to use their phones to search for store locations. 54% will compare prices with their phones and 47% expect to use their phones to learn more about the products they wish to purchase.

The survey showed smartphone shoppers plan to spend 27% more on holiday gifts than non-mobile shoppers. Smartphone ownership has skyrocketed in 2013, rising from 42% last year to 61%, a change that is sure to influence the biggest buying season of the year.

The study also showed 38% of the consumers in the survey owned a tablet. 63% of those tablet owners will use their devices for holiday shopping this year. “Tablets are a two-way street for retailers. They have opened up an entirely new consumer touchpoint, where shoppers can view multiple retailers’ products regardless of their location…from their couch to the point of purchase. Retailers can also put tablets to work in their stores, providing both their sales team and customers with a broader lens into merchandise selection,” said Alison Paul, a vice chairman of Deloitte LLP retail & distribution. Now that the majority of consumers also own smartphones, these two devices have altered the way they interact with a brand, while also yielding a higher spend per customer.

Posted in Electronic Payments, Mobile Payments, Near Field Communication, Smartphone Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Oct
31
2013
October 31st, 2013 by Elma Jane

While credit card processors and retailers have made strides to combat credit card fraud, it is still rampant across the U.S. In fact, credit card fraud jumped 17 percent between January, 2011, and September, 2012, according to the most recent data from the FICO Falcon Fraud Manager Consortium.

Debit cards obviously have better safeguard measures in place, since debit card fraud rose less than 1 percent between January, 2011, and September, 2012. Plus, the average fraud loss per compromised account fell by 3 percent.

Card-not-present (CNP) fraud is the biggest challenge by far, accounting for 47 percent of all credit card fraud. CNP fraud – which includes payments via the internet, mail and phone – grew 25 percent over the two-year period. So, where the problems with credit cards lie.

Unfortunately, CNP fraud may get worse before it gets better, in FICO’s Banking Analytics Blog. This problem may even intensify as the US moves away from magnetic stripe and toward EMV [chip] card technology. In other countries adopting chip-based authentication technology, we’ve seen counterfeit fraud decline, but as a counterbalance, fraudsters often ramp up efforts around CNP fraud.

However, there was a glimmer of light in the credit card fraud fiasco. While card fraud attempts rose, the average loss per compromised account dropped 10 percent. Plus, the ratio of fraud to non-fraud spending remained constant. “In other words, the volume of card fraud increased proportionally to the volume of consumer credit card spending.

Even though many retailers have implemented successful fraud prevention programs, Visa provides retailers with the warning signs for CNP fraud, including:

Multiple cards used from a single IP address. Orders made up of “big ticket” items. Orders that include several of the same item. Shipping to an international address. Transactions with similar account numbers.

Posted in Digital Wallet Privacy, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Mail Order Telephone Order, Payment Card Industry PCI Security Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Oct
25
2013
October 25th, 2013 by Elma Jane

Some brands have managed to pull themselves together to mobilize their online sites…that’s design them to be visually friendly to mobile users.

Earlier this month the quick-service restaurant debuted a new item on its menu…the Smoke Brisket Sandwich…with a campaign that involved a number of social media components. Included among those were a game that awards points based on a customer’s tweets, the online challenges he or she wins and the photos uploaded to Instagram.

It starts with a purchase of the sandwich at an Arby’s outlet. When the customers receives her receipt she takes a picture of it and uploads it to  mobile site PunchTab created for the campaign.

What sets this campaign apart from many others is that it is coordinated at the point of sale.

For this campaign, PunchTab created  mobile Web onto which Arby’s customers upload a receipt. When users make a purchase, they can take a picture of their receipt and submit it via the mobile website. From there, points are dispersed, the players advance…and hopefully, return to Arby’s for more purchases, err, points.

Helping Business

There’s definitely been a trend in the POS and payments industry to add value offerings by helping businesses better understand their customers. This trend is built on the wealth of transactional data being collected by POS and payments companies, and the goal is to present simplified consumer behavior analyses that can be used by merchants to generate more revenue.

Looking ahead, more and more retailers will understand the value that capturing this customer data can unlock for this business, and will put the software in place to tap into a customer’s purchase history and thus their preferences.

Now the focus is on salespeople delivering a personalized experience to customers. The next stage, will focus on extending to individual customers the inside track on new products that will appeal to them and complement or replace things they have previously purchased.

Pimping Out The POS    

Engaging with the customer at the point of sale is hardly a new idea. It certainly is an established practice in traditional brick and mortar operations…think credit card solicitations and offers for loyalty points and cards…as we all as e-commerce sites, where a customer is usually presented with several offers before the checkout is complete.

Now CRM is making its way into the mobile POS and customers are finding that there are a number of unique benefits to the model.

In the case of PunchTab, it ties the receipt-scanning functionality that doesn’t require an app…not to mention several other benefits to the system.

For example, Marketers get greater insight into purchasing behavior because a receipt is usually involved. Consumers are right there and thinking about the campaign…which they wouldn’t necessarily be when they got home to go online, and it is relatively easy system to set up.

Arby’s for example, has 40 POS systems and because it is a franchise, it requires coordinating with multiple owners. For them, mobile is the best and easiest way to engage with customers at the point of sale.

Real-Time Offers         

Other companies…such as Groupon with its Breadcrumb mobile app…are adding even more advanced CRM capabilities, such as reporting at the mobile point of sale.

It is a growing trend for all mobile applications and most especially apps in the mobile POS to bring more CRM capabilities into their service platform.

Eventually, some of these CRM-infused mobile POS systems will be able to make offers in real time to customers based on their purchase at the moment and accumulated knowledge about the preferences of other customers that make similar purchases. Example it might be noted that in 20 percent of all purchases of a particular type of coffee the customer also purchase a biscotti, then the server can offer up the option as a reminder for purchase/order.

The example assumes the mobile POS system has access to customer data about purchase and preferences…which is somewhat rare now, but a trend gaining momentum.

Posted in Credit card Processing, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Internet Payment Gateway, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Point of Sale Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Oct
22
2013
October 22nd, 2013 by Elma Jane

Sponsored by Artisan Mobile, this webinar on Nov. 7, 2013 from 2 p.m. – 3 p.m. will cover the challenges and opportunities that will come with the transition to iOS as well as what it means for retailers and marketers that rely on the mobile medium for success.

The iOS 7 release is the most significant mobile operating system update since the launch of the iPhone. And while mobile developers are testing new features and debating the merits of Apple’s latest overhaul, it is not clear that  C-level executives are aware of the enormity of the effect that iOS 7 will have on retailers and marketers.

The Apple update brings along with it a new mobile user interface, new gestures, more sophisticated background processing support and auto-layout updates. The changes will not only affect existing iPhone and iPad applications, but will significantly shape app design strategies moving forward.

Posted in Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Oct
21
2013
October 21st, 2013 by Elma Jane

Retailers today collect email at every point of interaction. Collecting customer information in the store at the point of sale (POS) offers the greatest potential to build retailer’s email list quickly and to drive timely offers and communications that increase customer loyalty and retention.

The practice of collecting email addresses at the point of sale (POS) isn’t a new one. However, more companies are embracing the trend, and they’re doing so with increasing regularity.

 E-Receipts

One popular technique among retailers is to ask shoppers if they would like a receipt emailed to them. It is important to note that an agreement to receive an e-receipt should not be necessarily interpreted as consent to be added to a commercial email list unless this intent is adequately communicated to the consumer and they consent. It always best practice to reference their consent to marketing emails at the same time as the e-receipt request.

It is possible to collect (PII) Personally Identifiable Information at the counter in a

careful and conscientious manner if you follow guidelines.

1. Be transparent about the commercial intent. A consumer who feels misled is more likely to complain and to seek redress under the consumer protection laws. If following different scripts is a challenge,  apply the same disclosure/request script for both credit and cash transactions.

2. Consider using the credit card terminal or other touchpad device for customers to enter their email rather than using the sales associate. The device should first prompt the customer to consent to receiving an in-store e-receipt and/or marketing communications, ideally before proceeding with the transaction, it could be after as well.

3. Decouple PII collection from the credit card purchase. Ask customers for their email addresses before taking their credit cards or after they sign off on the purchase so it is clear that email is not required as part of the transaction.

4. Fulfill any incentives offered at the counter through email. Provide each consumer with a dynamic and unique link. A consumer will have less of a reason to give you a valid email address if you offer and fulfill the incentive at POS. Limiting the use of the incentive to email will help you avoid incentive abuse.

5. Send a welcome permission pass. Don’t assume that the customer wants anything more than an in-store e-receipt even if you can legally claim to have this right. Let the customer make an informed decision at the counter or in a subsequent email.

6. Validate submitted data. Ask customers to verify the accuracy of their PII before submitting. Use appropriate list management tools to prevent avoidable domain errors.

Clients that take the proper steps to overcome POS challenges and risks will reap the rewards of subscriber loyalty, a stronger reputation and better inbox performance in the long run.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, Electronic Payments, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing, Point of Sale Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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