Category: Mobile Payments

Ways to Make Mobile Work for Your Customers:

The fact that your business needs a mobile presence is by no means news. Brands today know that being accessible to the increasing number of smartphones and tablet users is a must NOW, the goal is to provide a top-notch user experience.

Mobile is opening the door for designing new experiences that complement a brand’s physical presence. The context of WHEN, WHERE and WHAT a customer is doing during their day allows companies to enhance a person’s interaction and customize device-specific experiences.

Brands will need to meet the following mobile experience expectations in 2015:

Combating fraud through mobile. Mobile users want to safeguard themselves against fraud, and 56 percent are willing to deal with a slightly more complex user experience if it means greater protection. Businesses can provide an intuitive, high-quality mobile experience that also protects against fraud by offering to validate transactions, set fraud controls and generate unique payment IDs through the user’s mobile device.

Complement, not copy: E-commerce providers must leverage mobile to complement the user experience, rather than provide a replica of what users get through a Web browser. Nearly 4 in 10 mobile users are most likely to use their mobile phone for shopping, so businesses need to ensure that those customers are getting something unique from their mobile interaction.

CRM through mobile marketing: Mobile marketing isn’t just for acquisition anymore. Today, it’s about boosting loyalty by using mobile for customer, consumers always have their mobile device on them and check it more than 150 times a day. Businesses can communicate with their existing customers through alert notifications, in-app, email and mobile Web. But don’t overdo it. The key to maintaining an effective relationship is doing so in a complementary way, giving users what they need when they need it.

Mobile apps and mobile Web: Got a mobile app but not a mobile-friendly website, or vice versa? You might want to put your energy into leveling out your mobile presence. Consumers are about equally split when it comes to their preference of app versus browser: The percentage of users who prefer their mobile browser when completing a task 28 percent is only slightly higher than the 23 percent that prefer to use an app. Both app and Web designs are critical for businesses in the mobile space, so it pays to do them right.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: consumers, crm, customers, e-commerce, mobile, mobile device, payment, provider's, Smartphones, transactions

Which is best, Mobile Payment System or Full POS???

Mobile Point of Sale (POS) systems have rocked the retail world and the trending topic when it comes to POS is all about the mobile kind. When one searches the term POS, nearly every article that comes up is all about mobile, and many seem to believe it will change the retail industry.

Is traditional POS on its way out? Not so fast.

While mobile POS is indeed a hot topic, it is likely to be an enhancement, rather than a replacement, to traditional POS

There is definitely a need and a place, for both.

Everyone was certain that dot.coms would eradicate brick-and-mortar stores; they are still alive and well, and traditional brick-and-mortar stores have, like traditional POS, embraced the Internet and allowed it to serve them in the capacity of extension.

Retailers everywhere have incorporated the Internet into their business model by creating multi-channel sales strategies, such as e-commerce, digital marketing, social media marketing, online product information, specifications, reviews and online customer service.

In addition to their online presence, these same retailers have started to bring the Internet in-house by integrating such services as customer centric promotions at point of sale, introducing loyalty programs and member registration, facilitating digital signage, offering e-receipts via email, and self check out centers; all at the traditional POS kiosk.

Why bother with mobile POS anyway?

While it is true that traditional POS systems won’t be going anywhere soon, and with good reason, mobile POS systems have allowed retailers to make great strides when it comes to efficiency and customer service, as well as customer satisfaction.

Since the advent of Mobile POS, companies have made big changes in the way they handle customer transactions in-store, thus affording faster checkout, waiting line reduction, consultative selling, and more.

The list of mobile POS benefits goes on and on:

Email Receipts: Better for the environment, more convenient for customers and faster to process. A digital purchase receipts sent via email tells the customer that you care about the earth and about them.

Expanded Reach: With mobile POS, your sales are no longer confined within the four walls of your brick and mortar store. Sidewalk sales, seasonal mall kiosks, and special sponsorship events are just a few examples of all the places you can take your retail sales to, with a POS in hand.

Inventory and Price Search: When customers can be assisted with finding an item color, size or availability on the spot, rather than having to wait in line to do so, it makes them happier. The same can be said for pricing. POS in the hands of store reps can go a long way toward customer satisfaction.

Inventory Return Stations: There is always a certain volume of returns, but that volume increases for retailers particularly after the holidays. The implementation of mobile POS allows for retailers to set up additional return stations in order to avoid long lines and customer frustrations.

Mobile POS goes Mobile: Your investment in your company POS system doesn’t need to be one size fits all, regardless of store traffic volume in one location or another. Retailers may opt to have a blow out sale in one location, thus require additional checkout power for that location for a specific period of time. With mobile POS, devises and licensing can be utilized throughout different store locations on an as needed basis.

Optional Seasonal Subscription: The great thing about mobile POS is that you needn’t pay for a POS system year round if you’re not using it year around. Seasonal spikes in retail sales warrant the additional cost of extra POS licensing and hardware, but the rest of the year your budget shouldn’t need to encompass more than what is needed. Mobile lets you better manage your overall POS investment.

Storewide Promotion Opportunities: Mobile POS has allowed retailers to drive sales in various sections of the store by holding demonstrations or promotions in different departments to tout products or services. Customers can be marketed, and sold to, on the spot.

The growing industry of mobile payments doesn’t stop at in-store mobile POS. Digital wallets like Google Wallet and Apple Passbook, mobile-to-mobile cell phone transfers, Near Field Communication (NFC) payments, mobile device credit card swipe and other emerging technologies are quickly changing our cash and credit card world.

What about traditional POS?

Mobile payment systems are indeed terrific. So, when should you consider going with traditional POS? The reality is, in addition to the aforementioned benefits of traditional checkout kiosk functions, there times when mobile POS simply will not suffice.

Mobile POS is great when a customer wants to choose and pay for one item while on the sales room floor, but what about when the customer has a multitude of items? Ringing up and bagging groceries, removing anti-theft mechanisms, neatly folding and bagging clothing items and managing the sales of numerous agents, stations or departments are just a few examples of situations that often require the traditional POS checkout station.

By combining traditional POS strategies with mobile POS flexibility, retailers can leverage the command of a complex, and multi-dimensional, marketing and retail sales management system.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Point of Sale Tagged with: brick and mortar, credit card swipe, credit-card, customer service, digital marketing, Digital wallets, e-commerce, mobile device, Mobile Payments, mobile point of sale, mobile pos, multi-channel, Near Field Communication (NFC), POS, retail industry, social media

APP-BASED RENT PAYMENTS

Approximately $350 billion in housing rent is written out on checks or given in cash annually and until now more than 90 million renters in the U.S. didn’t have an option to use their credit or debit card to pay their rent. RadPad wants to be that option. The service works by allowing users to sign up and link their debit or credit card to their account, then asks for the Landlords mailing address and email, which presumably allows to mail the check to the Landlord. By saving the payments to the customers RadPad profile, Renters Can conceivably improve their credit score. Moreover, it allows roommates or others who split rent to pay communally. They can get both terms to go mainstream by letting people pay their rent by phone.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Mobile Payments Tagged with: card, cash, checks, credit, credit score, customers, debit, debit card, email, housing rent, payments, phone, renters

Visa tokenisation roll out begins

Visa has taken advantage of the hoopla surrounding Apple’s application of digital account tokens to replace card numbers for online and mobile purchasing by initiating the roll out of its Token Service to US clients.

Visa Tokens will be made available to issuing financial institutions globally, starting with US banks next month, and followed by a phased roll-out overseas beginning in 2015. The technology has been designed to support payments with mobile devices using all major mobile platforms.

More than 750 staff from across the Visa organisation globally were involved in the effort, working closely with initial launch partners – financial institutions, merchants and processors to ensure the ecosystem was ready. Today, Visa is making these services available and believe it will help transform connected devices and wearables into secure payment vehicles.

Visa Token Service replaces sensitive payment account information found on plastic cards with a digital account number or token. Because tokens do not carry a consumer’s payment account details, such as the 16-digit account number, they can be safely stored by online merchants or on mobile devices to for e-commerce and mobile payments.

The release of the service has been given added urgency by a spate of successful hacks on merchant card data stores, such as the recent plundering of card account data at Home Depot and Target.

MasterCard has its own equivalent Digital Enablement Service, which will be released outside of the US in 2015.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Security, e-commerce & m-commerce, Mobile Payments, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: account details, card, card account data, card data, data, digital account, digital account number, e-commerce, financial institutions, MasterCard, merchant card data, Merchant's, mobile, Mobile Devices, Mobile Payments, mobile platforms, online merchants, payments, processors, Token Service, tokens, visa, Visa organisation, Visa Token Service, wearables

Unified MPOS?

The move to mobile point of sale (mobile POS) is radically changing the face of customer interactions and payments, as both customers and merchants grow increasingly comfortable with the concept of mobile payments. In the current, crowded marketplace most mobile payment solutions are not compatible with each other. Instead of unifying the payment experience they create islands separated by technology or usage that are tailored to individual providers in the market. Multiple devices are currently needed in-store to process different payment types and the challenge is how they can make payments unified in such a way that only one device is needed in store.

The use of cash by customers also adds a level of complication to the mobile POS story. The removal of IDM terminals, removal of customer queues and ability for customers to simply walk up and pay an assistant or to leave a store and have their bank card automatically debited certainly suits the expectations of customers today, however a large number of customers still use traditional cash methods to pay for goods and services. A number of stores that have gone down the route of implementing mobile POS now have a problem dealing with cash because the wandering shop assistants and personal shoppers can only accept card or web-based payment options. The future for mobile POS has potential to be bright, a dominant player will have to emerge in the market. This will break down the technology barriers and usage barriers between different players. The success to mobile POS lies in the payment process being truly unified with one device in one place and very seamless workflow. This will be very complicated thing to achieve, there have been a lot of attempts and a lot of false starts in the history of mobile POS. MPOS will be the future. Five years from now people will be amazed that they did transactions with landlines. NO child will ever see a telephone with a cord attached. Never a popcorn on top of the stove since we developed microwave ovens. Technology changes, and we are slow to adopt new stuff. Once we change we don’t know how we did without it.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: bank, card, cash, customer, devices, IDM terminals, Merchant's, mobile, mobile point of sale, MPOS, payment solutions, payment types, payments, point of sale, POS, provider's, services, technology, terminals, web-based payment

The push that mobile payments need – iPhone 6

While Apple doesn’t talk about future products,latest report that the next iPhone would include mobile-payment capabilities powered by a short-distance wireless technology called near-field communication or NFC. Apple is hosting an event on September 9^th, that’s widely expected to be the debut of the next iPhone or iPhones. Mobile payments, or the notion that you can pay for goods and services at the checkout with your smartphone, may finally break into the mainstream if Apple and the iPhone 6 get involved.

Apple’s embrace of mobile payments would represent a watershed moment for how people pay at drugstores, supermarkets or for cabs. The technology and capability to pay with a tap of your mobile device has been around for years, you can tap an NFC-enabled Samsung Galaxy S5 or NFC-enabled credit card at point-of-sale terminals found at many Walgreen drugstores, but awareness and usage remain low.  Apple has again the opportunity to transform, disrupt and reshape an entire business sector. It is hard to overestimate what impact Apple could have if it really wants to play in the payments market.

Apple won’t be the first to enter the mobile-payments arena. Google introduced its Google Wallet service in May 2011. The wireless carriers formed their joint venture with the intent to create a platform for mobile payments. Apple tends to stay away from new technologies until it has had a chance to smooth out the kinks. It was two years behind some smartphones in offering an iPhone that could tap into the faster LTE wireless network. NFC was rumored to be included in at least the last two iPhones and could finally make its appearance in the iPhone 6. The technology will be the linchpin to enabling transactions at the checkout.

Struggles

The notion of turning smartphones into true digital wallets including the ability to pay at the register, has been hyped up for years. But so far, it’s been more promise than results. There have been many technical hurdles to making mobile devices an alternative to cash, checks, and credit cards. NFC technology has to be included in both the smartphone and the point-of-sale terminal to work, and it’s been a slow process getting NFC chips into more equipment. NFC has largely been relegated to a feature found on higher-end smartphones such as the Galaxy S5 or the Nexus 5. There’s also confusion on both sides, the merchant and the customer, on how the tech works and why tapping your smartphone on a checkout machine is any faster, better or easier than swiping a card. There’s a chicken-and-egg problem between lack of user adoption and lack of retailer adoption. It’s one reason why even powerhouses such as Google have struggled. Despite a splashy launch of its digital wallet and payment service more than three years ago, Google hasn’t won mainstream acceptance or even awareness  for its mobile wallet. Google hasn’t said how many people are using Google Wallet, but a look at its page on the Google Play store lists more than 47,000 reviews giving it an average of a four-star rating.

The Puzzle

Apple has quietly built the foundation to its mobile-payment service in Passbook, an app introduced two years ago in its iOS software and released as a feature with the iPhone 4S. Passbook has so far served as a repository for airline tickets, membership cards, and credit card statements. While it started out with just a handful of compatible apps, Passbook works with apps from Delta, Starbucks, Fandango, The Home Depot, and more. But it could potentially be more powerful. Apple’s already made great inroads with Passbook, it could totally crack open the mobile payments space in the US. Apple could make up a fifth of the share of the mobile-payment transactions in a short few months after the launch. The company also has the credit or debit card information for virtually all of its customers thanks to its iTunes service, so it doesn’t have to go the extra step of asking people to sign up for a new service. That takes away one of the biggest hurdles to adoption. The last piece of the mobile-payments puzzle with the iPhone is the fingerprint recognition sensor Apple added into last year’s iPhone 5S. That sensor will almost certainly make its way to the upcoming iPhone 6. The fingerprint sensor, which Apple obtained through its acquisition of Authentic in 2012, could serve as a quick and secure way of verifying purchases, not just through online purchases, but large transactions made at big-box retailers such as Best Buy. Today, you can use the fingerprint sensor to quickly buy content from Apple’s iTunes, App and iBooks stores.

The bigger win for Apple is the services and features it could add on to a simple transaction, if it’s successful in raising the awareness of a form of payment that has been quietly lingering for years. Google had previously seen mobile payments as the optimal location for targeted advertisements and offers. It’s those services and features that ultimately matter in the end, replacing a simple credit card swipe isn’t that big of a deal.

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: app, Apple, card, card swipe, cash, checkout machine, checks, chips, credit, credit card swipe, credit-card, customer, debit card, Digital wallets, fingerprint recognition, fingerprint sensor, Galaxy S5, Google Wallet, iOS, Iphone, market, merchant, mobile, mobile device, mobile payment, mobile wallet, Near Field Communication, network, Nexus 5, nfc, payment, payment service, platform, point of sale, products, sensor, services, smartphone, software, statements, swiping card, terminals, transactions, wireless technology

Apple and Visa about mobile payments

Apple talking to Visa about mobile payments

Apple is in talks with Visa as it ponders launching a mobile wallet this autumn. The latest bout of rumours suggest that the ability to make instore payments could finally arrive with the iPhone 6, although the information’s sources offer contradictory takes on the technology, with one saying that the system is likely to be NFC-based and another suggesting that it will rely on Bluetooth and WiFi. The report suggests that Apple will not be going down the host card emulation route, instead making use of the Secure Element, although the famously proprietorial tech titan has no intention of giving up any control to wireless carriers. Apple hopes that working with Visa will also help it bypass the payment processing chain, helping it to lower costs for merchants and customers.

Posted in EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Mobile Payments, Smartphone, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: Apple, bluetooth, customers, host card emulation, instore payments, iPhone 6, Merchant's, mobile wallet, nfc, payment processing, secure element, visa, wifi, wireless carriers

Scan Your Groceries with a Grocery Shopping App

Scanning your groceries yourself with the supermarket’s handheld scanner is something you may well have already done. Instead of waiting in line for a cashier to scan, tally and bag your groceries, you save time by scanning as you go and doing your own check-out. However, now in certain grocery stores you can go even further by using a bar code scanner app in your own smartphone to scan each grocery item you’re buying and to expand your shopping experience by receiving personalized offers, syncing with loyalty cards and tracking your budget while you shop. The first supermarket company in the United States to make this available to customers has been the Stop & Shop Supermarket Company LLC, with its Scan It! Mobile app service. Starting with three grocery stores and plans to roll out the capability to 45 more of its stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The company could extend the service to the 400 or so grocery stores it operates in total, including the other states of New Hampshire, New York and New Jersey. 

How Can You Use a Bar Code Scanner App?

By using a grocery shopping app like this in your smartphone, you can not only get directions on how to find the store in the first place, but once you’re there, you can also get relevant and specific offers according to where you are in the store and what you’ve already bought. With targeted coupons being sent to your smartphone for each shopping trip, you can save money as well; Stop & Shop estimates possible savings for customers on groceries of between $250 and $500 per year. The grocery shopping app also gives customers access to online accounts, including checking for gas points, A+ School Rewards and personalized savings, as well as to daily information about sales promotions for stores in general. To use the app to scan your groceries, you aim the camera of your phone at the bar code of a grocery item to see the price on your phone screen and to add it to an electronic shopping basket. When you’ve finished shopping, the bar code scanner app transmits the information via the supermarket’s Wi-Fi network to the point of sale, where you pay as you would normally. The same wireless network also allows the retailer to send you personalized information.

Happy customers and increased sales are not the only benefits for grocery stores making such bar code scanner apps available to customers with smartphones. Because the customer has in effect already financed the scanning device (the smartphone), grocery stores can envisage making corresponding savings by reducing the amount of in-store scanners they have to buy, as well as decreasing labor costs, which are typically between 12% and 15% of their total expenses.

Check Your Smartphone Compatibility

Using your mobile to do this means having a compatible smartphone. Currently for the Scan It! Mobile grocery shopping app you’ll need either an iPhone 3GS or 4G, or a compatible Android device. The list validated so far includes Android 2.2 running on Nexus One, Motorola Droid1, Samsung Galaxy, and HTC Thunderbolt 4G. The app can be downloaded for free at the Apple App Store or the Android Market.

 

Posted in Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: Android device, Android Market, app, Apple App Store, bar code, bar code scanner app, coupons, electronic shopping, HTC Thunderbolt, in-store scanners, Iphone, loyalty cards, mobile app, Mobile app service, Mobile grocery shopping app, Motorola Droid1, Nexus One, online accounts, point of sale, Samsung Galaxy, scan, scanner, shopping app, smartphone, Stop & Shop, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi network, wireless network

PayPal Select brings back rewards for top shoppers

PayPal has begun testing a new loyalty program called PayPal Select that seeks to promote use of the digital-payments network by offering more rewards for its most active members. The program launched by invitation only based on users’ history on PayPal and follows by about 18 months the cancellation PayPal’s previous loyalty program, PayPal Advantage. As PayPal looks to continue to build its volume of use on mobile devices off of eBay, driving repeat use and loyalty will be key. The challenges for the offer part will be the same as any other deal/offer program – namely the quality of the offers and inbox-offer fatigue. Like any big-screen concept that gets downscaled onto mobile, there is the challenge of how to hook people in the first couple of screens. CreditCall is not involved with PayPal Select. The payment platform is a division of San Jose, CA-based online auction giant eBay. It offers both a mobile app and an m-dot site for mobile payments.

Posted in Mobile Payments, Smartphone Tagged with: CreditCall, digital-payments network, ebay, loyalty program, m-dot site, mobile, mobile app, Mobile Devices, Mobile Payments, PayPal, PayPal Advantage, PayPal Select, rewards

LCL’s Mobile PIN issuance

French financial services company LCL has introduced a service that securely issues payment card PIN codes to customers via SMS texting. The programme has been introduced initially for cardholders who forget their confidential code when out shopping or withdrawing cash. In a second phase, the bank intends to extend PIN issuance to coincide with the mail-out of newly-created cards.

LCL is using Gemalto’s Netsize platform, which offers direct connections to more than 160 mobile operators globally for message delivery. LCL recognizes the mobile channel as a new opportunity to support their continued drive to optimize card activation rates and be the top-of-wallet choice for payment. Enabling cardholders to get their PIN code on their mobile phone prompts them to start using their banking card as soon as they receive it.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Mobile Payments, Smartphone Tagged with: bank, card, cardholders, codes, customers, mobile, mobile channel, payment, PIN, Rates, sms, wallet