April 17th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Issuers participating in the MasterCard Rewards Platform can pursue greater engagement and value in their programs through a partnership MasterCard is announcing today with Points International Ltd. The companies say they struck the deal to take advantage of the popularity of travel and related experiences. Under the agreement, participating issuers can let their cardholders to exchange and trade earned airline miles, hotel points and loyalty currencies.
Travel happens to be one of the most popular redemption options for points on most programs today. So this is really about enabling consumers to get even more choice with regard to getting some redemption options.
Issuers individually will roll out the program later this year based on their own schedules. Any of the hundreds of banks that use the MasterCard Rewards Platform are eligible to participate. Participation is voluntary.
Enhanced flexibility in cardholder reward redemptions was a key driver behind the initiative, what this partnership allows to do is enable all customers that have points that they’ve gained from spending on their credit cards or debit cards to then exchange those points into a miles program or a hotel program that they tend to always have a lot of other points accumulated already.
Variable Exchange Rates
Cardholders will be provided with a conversation ratio applicable to the pair of rewards being exchanged. Ratios will differ by redemption transaction. Consumers also may choose to transfer small buckets of rewards points into one program and the rest in other programs. They can do transfers multiple times and across multiple rewards providers.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing, Travel Agency Agents Tagged with: airline, airline miles, banks, cardholder, credit cards, debit cards, hotel, loyalty, MasterCard, platform, programs, reward, rewards, transaction, transfers, travel, travel related
April 11th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Of the 17 percent of consumers who reported having had their credit card declined during a card-not-present (CNP) transactions. As many as one-third of those declines were unnecessary. The result is consumer aggravation, increased operational costs for banks and credit card companies and as much as $40 billion in lost revenue for online retailers.
TrustInsight which helps establish trusted relationships between financial institutions, merchants and online consumers conducted study. A report and infographic detailing the findings of the study found that avoidable online credit card declines lead to loss of trust for consumers, sales for merchants and increased operational costs for credit card companies and issuing banks.
Study also revealed that consumers handle credit card declines in a variety of ways all of which carried negative economic impact to at least one party in the transaction, resulting in unnecessary operating costs for banks, decreased loyalty for the credit card company and lost revenue for all. Almost half call their issuer immediately when their card is unexpectedly declined. This is a natural response. 34 percent of consumers try again another credit card, other use a different payment method and 24 percent will skip the purchase altogether or shop at a different online retailer.
No one wants to turn away business, and no one wants their business declined. The frustration and impact of wrongful declines is a real problem especially as more and more transactions occur in non-face-to-face situations.
Impact of consumer action in the face of a decline can have real and measurable effects on all parties, including credit card companies, banks and merchants manifesting itself in lost customer loyalty, lost fees and lost revenues. Creating a standard for online trust that enables credit card companies, merchants and issuing banks to better recognize trusted digital consumers and reduce the number of wrongly declined consumers avoiding unnecessary losses.
In a world where people are increasingly reliant on a variety of Internet-connected devices for everything from banking to shopping to entertainment and media, creating friction-free customer experiences and preventing online fraud are constant business challenges.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, Credit Card Security, Electronic Payments, Financial Services, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing, Merchant Services Account, Small Business Improvement, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: banking, consumers, credit-card, decline, declined, declines, different payment method, digital, digital consumers, financial, frustrate, internet-connected devices, issuing banks, loyalty, Merchant's, online credit card declines, online fraud, online retailers, shopping, transactions, wrongful declines, wrongly declined
December 20th, 2013 by Elma Jane
Third-party Cookies vs. Consumer Privacy
Some interesting tools that consumers and businesses should be aware of. As consumers, we will likely see more opportunities to opt out of online activities that collect data about our behaviors. We could also see more tools that allow consumers to provide more accurate information.
The Drive to Personalize
Most every ecommerce merchant uses data to personalize shoppers’ experiences. Some common personalization tactics are:
Present upsell and cross-sell offers.
Online merchants use first-party information from their own databases and cookies to track shopping behaviors. They also purchase third-party databases that help predict behavior and products that will appeal to a specific target shopper. Similar methods have been used with offline direct marketing for years. Online tools like third-party cookies…i.e. cookies left by a domain other than the one a user is visiting…and deep data mining have made the practice easier.
Retarget shoppers who have visited a store but did not make a purchase; Segment and personalize merchandising offers in your online store. Target emails at selected consumers who are more likely to buy a certain product;
When used properly with ad networks and ecommerce personalization and recommendation engines, third-party databases increase conversion rates and average order values. They also increase customer loyalty by providing a better customer experience.
Data Collection
Most of the data is now collected with third-party cookies or other means that consumers have opted into, even if they did not necessarily think of it that way. Every time you agree to a license agreement, for example, it’s likely that you are agreeing to share your data in aggregate and anonymously with third parties. Most companies put that in their agreements to protect themselves in the future, regardless of whether they collect the data now.
If third-party cookies are eventually eliminated, there will likely be some type of replacement system that will provide similar functionality. In fact, there’s already a scarier method of tracking consumer behaviors…using digital fingerprinting techniques that profile your computer.
This technique is virtually impossible to block as other devices can see things like your operating system, browser type, your fonts, screen size and depth, time zone, cookie settings, browser plugins, and http header information. The good news is that the use of fingerprinting is relatively small. But, some observers believe this will be a future alternative to third-party cookies.
Tools for Consumers
Axciom, one of the larger data providers, is now offering a tool at AboutTheData.com that allows consumers to see information that Axciom has collected about them and actually correct it if they choose. The bad news is that you have to provide Axciom with even more information than it already has to view the information it has on file. However, you can also choose to opt out of its databases.
You will need to create a login and answer a series of questions to verify your identity. Once that is done, you can review your data, which is broken into several categories.
You may be surprised by the amount of information Axciom maintains. Realize that this is just one of many databases that have information about you that is used in online and offline applications.
Posted in Digital Wallet Privacy, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments Tagged with: anonymously, average, browser, cookies, customer, data, data mining, databases, digital, domain, ecommerce, fingerprinting, identity, license agreement, loyalty, offline, online, operating system, opted, order, privacy, purchase, Rates, shoppers, values
December 3rd, 2013 by Elma Jane
De-clutter
A messy workplace is annoying, distracting, and can get out of hand. Keep clutter at bay by regularly tidying up.
Clutter can also exist inside the mind. Having piles of paper on your desk can keep you from finding a pen, having too many thoughts can curb your focus.
Fix this by de-cluttering your mind. Use a mind-mapping tool to organize all the ideas, tasks, or worries in your head.
Eat your Frog Early
When you arrive in the office every morning, do you dive right into your biggest task or do you get the minor stuff out of the way first? Author and personal development coach Brian Tracy says that the former is more effective in terms of productivity.
In his book Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, Tracy cited a famous Mark Twain quote, “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”
He used frog eating as a metaphor for task completion, in which the frog “is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it.” Finish that task as early as possible, and you can spend the rest of the day knowing that you’ve accomplished a big goal.
Resist the urge to complete smaller jobs first. Doing so will only feed your procrastination and won’t take you any further towards completing your big tasks.
When deciding on what to prioritize in your business, always put your highest-impact goals at the top of your to-do list. What step can you take today that will have the biggest effect on your company? Start with that, and either delegate or hold-off on the low-level tasks. This tough to do.
Follow the 80-20 Rule
The 80-20 rule, developed by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto states that for many situations, about 80 percent of the effects or outcomes come from just 20 percent of the causes.
In business, the 80-20 rule comes into play when 80 percent of a company’s clients are generated from 20 percent of its sales staff, or when 80 percent of returns come from 20 percent of its customers.
Determine how the 80-20 principle applies to your business, then address that 20 percent so you can generate more results, or eliminate problems.
For instance, if you discover that 80 percent of your profits come from 20 percent of your customers, then nurture your relationships with those customers and reward them for their loyalty. Or perhaps you notice that 20 percent of your online marketing efforts are bringing in 80 percent of your site traffic. Stop spending resources on the low-performing strategies, and focus your efforts on the channels that work.
Have a Meeting Policy
If you must hold meetings in your company, keep them brief. Always have an agenda and a clear purpose for the meeting.
You may also want to consider having company-wide policies that tell people when and how to set-up meetings. Some companies for example, always hold meetings on the same day and time each week…e.g., Monday mornings, Thursday afternoons. This schedule enables people to plan their days and weeks more effectively.
Optimize your Relationships with Vendors
You optimize your site for speed and user-friendliness. Why not do the same for your suppliers and service providers?
Check with your vendors to ensure you’re working efficiently. Ask if there’s anything you can do to make their jobs easier, or recommend any improvements that they can implement. Don’t view your relationship as a service provider and client. Instead, treat your vendors as your partners.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Environmentally Green, Internet Payment Gateway, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale Tagged with: agenda, business, ecommerce, loyalty, marketing, mind-mapping, online, optimize, organize, policies, prioritize, procrastinate, procrastinating, procrastination, spending, strategies, suppliers, task
October 22nd, 2013 by Elma Jane
American Express cardmembers can now use their accumulated loyalty points to pay for taxi fares in New York City through a partnership with VeriFone.
The programme will roll out on VeriFone’s in-taxi devices that process more than 200,000 payments a day in more than 7000 cabs throughout NYC.
Leslie Berland, senior vice president, digital partnerships and development at American Express, says: “With this announcement, we’re leveraging our unique technology to bring it to life at the most critical commerce touchpoint – the physical point of sale.”
The integration is currently limited to New York taxis, but it doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to see it expanded to include other VeriFone point-of-sale systems.
At the end of the ride, AmEx members who have chosen to pay by card will be given the option to use points for their ride fare, including tip and tolls.
Posted in Credit card Processing, Electronic Payments, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: American Express, amex, card, cardholders, cardmembers, commerce, devices, digital, fares, integration, loyalty, new york, nyc, partnership, payments, point of sale, points, reward, systems, taxi, tip, tolls, touchpoint, verifone
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: associate, best practice, cash, commercial, communications, companies, consumer, credit, credit-card, customer, e-receipts, email, emailed, incentive, interaction, list, loyalty, offers, personally identifiable information, pii, point, point of sale, POS, retailers, rewards, sales, script, subscriber, timely, touchpad, transactions, transparent
October 17th, 2013 by Elma Jane
VeriFone and National Payment Card Association (NPCA) debuted a mobile payment and rewards solution that enables convenience store and petroleum retailers to provide customers with smartphone-based payment options at the pump.
Utilizing VeriFone’s Smart Fuel Controller and NPCA’s mobile payment solution, c-store and gas station operators with VeriFone payment acceptance systems can quickly implement a fixed low-cost mobile payment and rewards program built on existing infrastructure used for merchant branded debit cards.
Consumers are increasingly drawn to rewards-based fuel purchase programs and they expect to be able to use their mobile phone to complete transactions at the pump. NPCA and VeriFone are showing how easy it is for CSPs to offer mobile payment and reward options to customers that increase loyalty and sales.
VeriFone Smart Fuel solutions make it easy for CSPs to offer forecourt pump POS payment without incurring the cost of installing new dispensers. The Smart Fuel Controller combines pump and pay-point support into a single unit, simplifying installation and maintenance, and eliminating the need for third-party interface devices to integrate pay-point management with in-store POS systems.
Merchants can develop their own mobile app, or apply their brand to a mobile app supplied by NPCA, to enable customers to pay for purchases and receive loyalty incentives using their smartphones.
Consumers today would rather utilize the capabilities of their smartphones versus pulling out their wallets. Using this solution, retailers can easily and cost-effectively create mobile loyalty programs that attract and reward high-value customers – without having to replace their existing payment infrastructure.
NPCA’s debit-based payment programs provide retailers with the ability to drive customer loyalty and reduce the cost of payments. Fuel discounts are funded from interchange savings that retailers would otherwise pay to banks. Payment processing is done by NPCA using the automated clearing house (ACH) system to clear debits to cardholder checking accounts and net settle with retailers each day. The company holds five patents related to the processing and methods for ACH-based decoupled debit and mobile payments.
Come November VeriFone and NPCA mobile payments solution will be available for beta testing.
Posted in Electronic Payments, Mobile Payments, Point of Sale, Smartphone, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: acceptance, ach, app, apply, cardholder, consumers, cost, debit cards, devices, infrastructure, interchange, interface, loyalty, merchant, mobile, pay-point, payment, payments, phone, POS, Processing, rewards, sales, smart, Smartphones, solution, transactions, verifone, wallets
October 3rd, 2013 by Elma Jane
National Transaction Gift Card Programs
Features & Benefits
Why National Transaction Gift Card? A gift card program offers you a great opportunity to boost sales by increasing customer loyalty and enhancing your business brand. Gift cards are used like credit cards and can be loaded with any dollar amount. NTC offers customized gift card processing merchant services tailored to your gift card processing needs. It’s secured and easy to manage.
Benefits to Consider:
Brand Building and Loyalty Gift cards can be a great source of advertising for your business. Gift cards are re-loadable; customers often reload them and continue to use them.
Cash Flow Enhancement Prepaid gift cards are purchased prior to customers receiving their goods and services from you. You can re-invest these dollars back into your business. Earn money; research shows that customers tend to spend more than the value of the gift card.
Easy to Manage Merchant gift cards are easy for your customers to use and easy for your employees to issue and redeem, as they work similar to credit cards.
Eliminate or Remove Cashback Don’t have to use the full balance of the card – the balance remains on the card. It can be issued for returned merchandise, thereby reducing fraud. Gift cards can only be activated by swiping through a POS terminal.
Get and Bring New Customers Using gift cards as presents (e.g. Showers, Mother’s Day, Birthdays, Graduation and Christmas) is more popular than ever before. Offering a gift card program can help bring new customers to your business, thereby increasing sales.
Increasing Brand Awareness Gift cards customized with your business name or logo are an effective way to advertise your business and leave a lasting impression with customers.
Electronic gift card vs paper certificates? An electronic gift card solution provides a number of benefits over certificates, such as:
Minimize Fraud – card are difficult to duplicate while paper certificates can be photocopies or duplicated. Save Money – cards can be reloaded. Paper certificates can only be used once. Save Time and Maximize Efficiency – gift cards can be loaded and redeemed easily, and provide electronic reporting. Paper certificates require manual work.
NTC Gift Card Operations How does a Gift Card work? Cards are activated through your NTC merchant account with a dollar value requested by your customer and not dependent on things like proprietary equipment. Once the card is activated, it’s ready to use as payment at your location.
Are my Gift Cards reloadable? Yes, and may be reloaded as many times as you wish. You may consider offering an incentive to thank your customers for their loyalty. Incentives can range from providing a free product or service from your store.
What NTC Merchant Services terminals do I need to process NTC Gift Cards?
Your NTC Gift Card will function on any Standalone, Wireless and Bluetooth terminals.
Card Ordering/Design
What is the standard gift card size? Most gift cards are the exact same size as a credit card:
What options do I have to advertise my business name on my cards?
To help promote and advertise your business brand on your cards, you can choose one of these options:
Basic – Include your company’s name, address and phone number on a pre-selected style. Standard – You can choose from an attractive selection of pre-designed card styles. Add a single color logo or customized text in your choice of font style and color.
Custom Cards – Custom cards designed by you or with our help, invest with style.
How long does it take for me to be set-up and receive my gift cards?
Your application and set-up on NTC systems will take approximately 5 – 7 business days. Non-peak times (outside Christmas) – 2 weeks Peak times – 4 to 6 weeks
How many cards I can order? Quantities of 50 for Basic, 100, 1,000 for Standard.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Electronic Payments, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing, Merchant Services Account Tagged with: advertising, bluetooth, certificates, credit cards, earn, electronic, function, gift, gift Card, loyalty, merchant account, ntc, payment, POS, Processing, re-loadable, reload, reporting, secured, standalone, Swiping, terminal, terminals, value, wireless
September 30th, 2013 by Elma Jane
Future of Marketing Lies in Mobile Payments…Why?
Marketing and payments might seem like strange bedfellows to the average retailer, but in fact, they are converging rapidly to bring more value to consumers and merchants alike. Here are 10 reasons why the future of marketing is inextricably linked to payments innovation:
1. Cross-Platform Acceptance
Better yet, these targeted offers can be acquired and redeemed through different mediums…online, offline and mobile…and utilized interchangeably. This makes life easier on the consumer and thus makes them more likely to engage with new loyalty and rewards programs. Moreover, as the Internet and mobile solutions continue to merge, the digital “wallets” that many of us use online today (think PayPal) are, logically, moving to our phones. When these payment and marketing applications are accessible from the same device, customers can seamlessly receive pertinent offers and pay for goods at the same time in the same place. Other apps will give consumers the ability to shop in one medium and buy in another, simplifying omni-channel marketing to affect commerce across all channels. This kind of convenience and value is a win for both customer and merchant.
2. Loyalty and Rewards get Simpler
The reality is that it’s much easier to issue and redeem loyalty rewards, gift cards and discounts when they are integrated into the POS experience and don’t require customers or merchants to alter the existing in-store purchase or checkout stream. You can see these simplified applications already in practice at chains like Starbucks, as well as independent merchants that use systems like LevelUp.
3. Merchant adoption
The payment technologies that succeed will be the ones that are ultimately adopted by merchants, which in turn will lead to consumer usage. Key technologies that will likely facilitate widespread adoption of mobile payments…either proactively because merchants want to see what they can offer them, or passively as they upgrade devices…include:
EMV (chip and pin), which will force merchants to update their POS systems, likely catalyzing them to update all points of interaction.
NFC – Cloud Computing – Geofencing – QR Codes and even Basic Bar Codes
4. More Value for Consumers
And for consumers, the convergence of payments and marketing should deliver highly valuable deals, offers, comparisons information and more, ultimately providing drastic improvement of the buying and shopping experience.
5. More Value for Merchants
So what does this value look like? For merchants, the convergence of payments and marketing should bring in new customers, increase sales from existing customers, and provide more customer data. It should also create a more streamlined multi-channel experience so consumers have little barrier to adoption.
6. No Single Technology will Win
These new technologies introduce an interesting question: What should merchants do to prepare for this brave new world where payments and marketing collide? For one, merchants should avoid betting on any one technology. In fact, the POS needs to morph into something a little more complex, becoming instead a POI, where a broad variety of payment types, loyalty programs, coupons and more can be redeemed. Merchants should be in a position to choose what types of payment they want to accept and in what medium, and not be limited to fixed payment tenders.
When the convergence of marketing and payments will happen
The increasing adoption of mobile payments by merchants and consumers, when combined with new POS environments, will jump-start the convergence of marketing and payments. However, we’re still in the early stages.
Mobile commerce technologies are widespread but still working to gain traction from consumers en masse. Additionally, merchants haven’t yet felt the need to upgrade their POS systems to accept mobile payments
However, the October 2015 EMV Liability Shift, a date set by Visa and MasterCard for certain charge-back liabilities to fall to the merchant unless they have upgraded to EMV-capable POS systems, is likely to push merchants to upgrade their systems.
Once merchants begin to upgrade these POS systems, the smart ones will take the opportunity to add more features and functionality to the systems, including the ability to accept payment…and marketing-driven solutions from mobile handsets. That’s when we’ll see the value of two-way communication between merchants and consumers dramatically change the shopping experience and bring payments into the marketing mix.
7. Smartphone Adoption is Speeding Up
Consumers’ mobile phones are already equipped to deliver highly valuable offers, and adoption is increasing at a rapid pace. Smartphones bring with them new app technologies that include not only mobile payments but also loyalty and rewards programs that are designed to drive preference for stores, good and services.
8. Targeted Offers and Single-Use Applications
Of course, these solutions are still in their infancy. Elegant single-use applications, such as mobile wallets and gift cards, will soon grow to provide highly targeted offers that take into account everything from shopping preferences to location, providing incentives as a customer walks the aisle of a store. Just about every player in the payments ecosystem is thinking about these new commerce technologies. The winners will be those that demonstrate clear value for both the merchants and customers.
9. The “POS” is now a “POI”
A point-of-sale (POS) solution used to be a place where goods were purchased and money traded hands. Usually, this took the form of a cash register or credit card machine. Though these still exist, a wave of new value-added marketing services, such as targeted offers, discounts and highly valuable loyalty applications, have led to the transformation of the POS into a point-of-interaction (POI), a place where consumers and merchants meet to exchange value for value.
10. Two-way communication
When embedded in smartphones, new technologies…like near-field communication (NFC), QR codes, geofencing and cloud authentication solutions…allow for two-way communication between the consumer and the POS solution, enabling merchants to deliver coupons and offers directly to customers’ mobile phones through targeted integrated programs.
Posted in Digital Wallet Privacy, e-commerce & m-commerce, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: bar codes, cloud, device, EMV, handsets, innovation, loyalty, marketing, merchants, mobile, nfc, offline, omni-channel, online, payments, PayPal, phones, POI, point of interaction, POS, qr codes, rewards
Areas Include:
MasterCard, American Express, Discover
A new report shows that American Express, MasterCard, Capital One, Discover and Western Union were focusing on electronic transaction processing. While American Express Company (American Express) recently announced a new executive vice president and a new chief financial officer. Read more of this article »
Posted in Mobile Payments Tagged with: Digital Wallet, e-commerce, electronic transaction, gift, loyalty, m-commerce, mcommerce, mobile point of sale, MPOS, point of sale, POS, rewards
