Category: Best Practices for Merchants
June 1st, 2016 by Elma Jane
Close more sales and overcome some of the common strategic mistakes sales people make with the following strategies.
Become a partner – people don’t buy from companies, people buy from people. Building a relationship with a potential partner by getting to know them personally and know their professional needs is very important in sales. Your potential partner must value you before he or she can trust you with their business.
Be the expert – Show your knowledge and expertise about your industry. Offer a valuable service and be the expert in your field.
Communicate – in building trust with a partner, establishing and maintaining effective communications is essential. Follow up in a timely manner, be available, return calls promptly with the information requested. Keeping communications open is the best way to keep a partner.
Eliminate the difficulty of switching – it is vital to let your partner know the ease of transition and benefits to moving to your solution. No matter how great the product or service is, when a business considered making a change there still apprehension.
Focus on value – build value. Most are willing to pay fairly for a good service.
Make it simple – make your product, service or offer simple. Explain your offer in a way they can not only understand but convey to others.
Hard work and dedication are important in sales, but you will close more deals if you have a good sales strategy.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: industry, product, sales, service, solution
May 27th, 2016 by Elma Jane
Refunds – transfers funds from your merchant account to the customer’s account.
Refunds are always associated with a transaction that has settled.
A settled transaction – is funds that have already transferred from the customer to the merchant. You can only refund a transaction with a Settling or Settled status.
The refunded transaction goes through the typical settlement process. As the refund settles, the funds are sent back to the customer’s bank account. It is normal for your customer to experience a delay because the customer’s bank may take a couple of days to deposit these funds.
Voids – will cancel the transfer of funds from the customer to the merchant and can be issued if the transaction is either Submitted for Settlement or Authorized. The original authorization should disappear from the customer’s statement within 24 to 48 hours.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: account, bank, customer, funds, merchant, merchant account, refunds, transaction
May 26th, 2016 by Elma Jane
NFC stands for Near Field Communication. It is a technology that allows contactless data exchange between two electronic devices
Contactless Payment is a description for the ability to pay without touching anything.
How do mobile wallets fit into NFC?
Mobile wallets like Apple and Android Pay use NFC technology. NFC technology allows the data to securely pass back and forth between each device to make a contactless payment.
How secure are NFC Payments?
Tokenization converts or replaces cardholder data with a unique token ID. This eliminates the possibility of having card data stolen. These tokens help heighten protection and security for the consumer.
As a merchant, preparing to accept payments that meet customers satisfaction is needed. With the mobile wallet transaction process, it makes the traditional transaction quick and efficient.
NTC terminals allow merchants to accept NFC Payments, allowing you to process more transactions. For more information give us a call at 888-996-2273.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Security, Mobile Point of Sale, Near Field Communication, Smartphone Tagged with: cardholder, consumer, contactless, customers, data, merchant, mobile wallets, Near Field Communication, nfc, payment, Security, terminals, tokenization, transaction
May 25th, 2016 by Elma Jane
Gaining new customers? Gift cards are a great way for your business!
The gift card is your first opportunity to make an impression. Displaying your gift cards at your checkout counter in front of your point of sale terminal is a good idea, even if the customer doesn’t buy a gift card that day, they know that they have the option in the future.
Offering a special discount for purchasing a gift card such as 10% off the next purchase or a $5 certificate. This will bring your customer back.
Having a stock of customized gift cards is a great way to show that your cards are for every occasion. (Birthday, Anniversary, Get Well Soon and Congratulations cards)
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing Tagged with: customer, gift Card, point of sale, terminal
May 25th, 2016 by Elma Jane
No one likes waiting in a checkout line, the faster your checkout line moves, the faster you are able to turn more sales. Quick checkout lines lead to increased sales and higher customer satisfaction .
Cut your line and increase your sales by:
Upgrading your POS – if you haven’t upgraded your POS, do it now. Choosing a modern POS that is simple and easy to use like the iCT250, offers a smart, effective and highest security payment experience designed for merchants and easier for employees to understand.
Multiple Checkout – multiple checkout counters may be necessary depending on the size of your store. In a high volume situation such as the holiday season, more opportunities for checkout may be beneficial.
Accept A Variety of Payments – having alternative forms of payment by accepting credit, debit, EMV/NFC and mobile wallets, will open the door for a variety of customers, but also allow the customer to pay the way they want in a most convenient way.
Train Employees – most importantly, train your employees on how to use your new POS system. Employees need to be the expert on POS so that they are able to assist customers who may need help conducting their transaction.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: credit, customer, debit, EMV, merchants, mobile, mobile wallets, nfc, payment, POS, sales, Security, transaction
May 24th, 2016 by Elma Jane
Top terms in your Merchant Statement:
Interchange – are the variable fees charged by the card payment networks for processing transaction. Credit card brands set these non-negotiable rates based on card type, business size, and industry.
Ancillary Fees – this include statement, batch and customer service fees, monthly minimums and more.
Authorizations – this section shows the charges per authorization that come from an interchange plus provider and is then split by card brand and transaction type. On your statement, you will see these charges as either AUTH or WAT charges.
Deposit Summary – following the summary is the deposit summary, where lists of your account activity broken down by day and card type.
Discount Rate – every transaction percentage that is deducted as a fee. Rates are categorized as qualified, mid-qualified and non-qualified.
Processing Services – this states your discount rate charges that you receive from your interchanges plus processor. This is divided by card brand and sales volume.
Summary – summary shows the processed sales by AMEX, Discover, JCB, MasterCard or Visa, as well as the total fees paid in order to process these sales. You can find this at the top of your statement.
Other items included in the summary:
Account adjustments, chargebacks, the breakdown of sales by card brand and number of refunds.
Understanding these terms on your statement will give you the confidence to read your merchant account statement with ease.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: card, chargebacks, credit card, customer, fees, merchant, merchant account, payment, refunds, service, transaction
May 23rd, 2016 by Elma Jane
Today, the information thieves want most from your customers is not their credit card numbers but their email addresses and account passwords. Criminals used stolen credentials to gain control of consumer accounts and open new accounts using their names to defraud merchants.
Data encryption and payment security are crucial for merchants, but so is helping customers keep their credentials secure. Encouraging customers to keep their information secure is a good thing.
Help customers practice good password habits – set up your system to require good passwords. Have account rules in place that require more secure passwords. ( a minimum number of characters and a mix of character types).
Remind customers what they can expect from your business – like your employee will never ask for customer account passwords or payment account information via email or no one from your company will call to ask for account passwords or credit-card information.
Offer security tips ahead of peak season – by reminding them ahead of time about account safety. Your business may receive a high volume of travel booking which means peak time for fraud attempts that need to be screened for fraud.
Keep your own fraud-prevention program updated – fraud prevention is an ongoing cost of doing business for merchants, but it doesn’t have to be too much expense. Working with your customers to keep their data and yours secure, will strengthen your business with them while protecting your business from fraud.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Travel Agency Agents Tagged with: credit card, customers, data, fraud, merchants, payment, payment security, Security, travel
May 20th, 2016 by Elma Jane
NATIONAL TRANSACTION WILL BE ATTENDING THE ASTA GLOBAL CONVENTION 2016 in Reno Tahoe, September 25-28. NTC BOOTH #92 SEE YOU ALL!
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants
May 19th, 2016 by Elma Jane
Transaction laundering, the new face of payment fraud is increasing and getting popular in the world of e-commerce.
Studies revealed that there are as many as 6% to 10% of additional unauthorized e-commerce sites that banks may be processing without their consent or awareness. A digital version of money-laundering, engaging in illicit commerce while using legal means to get paid.
Transaction laundering is another form of money-laundering and it is illegal.
Detecting fraudsters are becoming a major challenge not only for banks but financial service organizations like payment service providers as well. There have been dozens of cases where legitimate-looking websites were caught selling illegal products.
Acquirers, banks, and other institutions focused on websites as the central of transaction laundering while the mobile era has opened up a new ground for scammers to operate in. They provide new opportunities for fraudsters to do their work by routing payments for illicit goods and services through their own legitimate front accounts.
Mobile wallet apps, NFC chips, and payment apps are some of the new ways payments are being collected. Not to mention opening up an on-line storefront using web tools, which anyone can do is very easy.
Micro-merchants expansion of doing business on-line and the greater reach they have now to mobile technology, business opportunities for scammers doing transaction laundering have never been better.
It is important for the industry to know what is happening, and how great the risks are. It’s a new challenge for the payments industry, learning and educating ourselves on those dangers is a priority.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: banks, e-commerce, financial service, fraud, merchants, mobile technology, mobile wallet, nfc, payment, payment service providers, payments industry, transaction
May 18th, 2016 by Elma Jane
Terminals are ready, but the software isn’t – many merchants have EMV capable equipment, but has not been activated yet because it still needs to be certified.
The certification process includes security and compatibility tests.
For a small merchant, all you need to worry about is your equipment or software is EMV certified.
For software, developers, terminal manufacturers needs to get certification before they can deploy their products to merchants.
So many merchants who want to accept EMV, are now just waiting for their POS system to get necessary upgrades, which they can’t do until they’re certified.
Slower Checkout Time – common complaint by consumers. Dipping takes several seconds longer than swiping the card. There’s also a chance of forgetting your card because you have to leave your card inserted while waiting for the transaction to get approved.
The fastest Path to EMV – Depending on the nature of your business, the risk of landing yourself for credit card fraud is slim. The easiest way is to contact your merchant account provider and they will tell you what equipment and software you need and how much it will cost.
For our retail customers, we have the iCT250, the smart and compact desktop device designed for maximum efficiency. iCT250 offers a smart and effective payment experience on minimum counter space. Accept all electronic payment methods including EMV chip & PIN, magstripe and NFC/contactless.
For card-not-present, we have our payment gateway platform that accepts payments your way Online, In-Store and On the Go.
- E-commerce – manage your e-com business along with all of your other payment transactions in one, secure place.
- In-Store – accept payments in person with ease using your computer and a broad range of an optional device, like card readers and PIN pads.
- Back Office Mail & Phone – Process you mail and phone payments online. Converge is ideal for recurring and installment payments too.
- Mobile – Take payments on the go with an intuitive mobile app that’s compatible with most smartphones and tablets.
For more details give us a call at 888-996-2273 or check out our website for our products and services.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Reader Terminal, e-commerce & m-commerce, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Internet Payment Gateway, Mail Order Telephone Order, Merchant Account Services News Articles, Mobile Payments, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale, Smartphone, Travel Agency Agents Tagged with: card, card readers, Chip & PIN, consumers, contactless, credit card, customers, e-commerce, electronic payment, EMV, fraud, in-store, magstripe, merchant account, merchants, mobile, nfc, online, payment, payment gateway, PIN pads, POS, provider, Security, terminals, transaction