December 19th, 2013 by Elma Jane
NTC’s BIG DATA
Improving Collection and Analytics tools to Create Value from Relevant Data.
Big data is a popular term used to describe the exponential growth and availability of data, both structured and unstructured. And big data may be as important to business…and society… as the Internet has become. Why? More data may lead to more accurate analyses. More accurate analyses may lead to more confident decision making, and better decisions can mean greater operational efficiencies, cost reductions and reduced risk.
With NTC Virtual Merchant product, it captures email addresses at the Point-of-Sale (POS) into a database to assist merchants and consumer stay connected, and for future Marketing.
In understanding Big Data For Merchants, NTC’s President Mark Fravel, provided a general overview of how online merchants can use Big Data. Large amounts of seemingly random data from many sources…can be used to create competitive advantages.
Necessity of Analytical Tools
Collecting Big Data is the easy part. Storing, organizing, and analyzing it is much more complex. One seam of data that several experts identify as a particularly rich, emerging source of information can be as diverse as CRM software, AdWords, and your own website. Mobile communications, including text messages and social media posts such as Facebook and Twitter. Making sense of it can be overwhelming without analytical tools. These tools facilitate the examination of large amounts of different types of data to reveal hidden patterns and correlations that are not otherwise easily discernible.
A good example is NTC, they could analyze data on visitor browsing patterns, login counts, phone calls, and responses to promotions…they can monitor to eliminate what isn’t working and focus on what does. Some of the off-the-shelf analytic solutions are so finely tuned, they can tell a vendor whether it needs to offer a 25 percent discount or if a 15 percent discount will suffice for a particular customer.
Association rule learning is another analytics method that is a good fit with Big Data. This could be, for example, a shopping cart analysis, in which a merchant can determine which products are frequently bought together and use this information for marketing purposes.
Uses of Big Data Analytics:
Big Data can be most useful in analyzing a customer’s shopping and purchasing experience, which can help a merchant in the following four ways.
Become more efficient by alerting you to merchandising efforts that are ineffective, and products that are not selling.
Encourage more purchases by presenting existing customers with complementary items to what they’ve purchased previously.
Enhance inventory management by eliminating slow-moving items and increasing the supply of fast-moving merchandise.
Example: A top marketing executive at a sizable U.S. retailer recently found herself perplexed by the sales reports she was getting. A major competitor was steadily gaining market share across a range of profitable segments. Despite a counterpunch that combined online promotions with merchandising improvements, her company kept losing ground….The competitor had made massive investments in its ability to collect, integrate, and analyze data from each store and every sales unit and had used this ability to run myriad real-world experiments. At the same time, it had linked this information to suppliers’ databases, making it possible to adjust prices in real time, to reorder hot-selling items automatically, and to shift items from store to store easily. By constantly testing, bundling, synthesizing, and making information instantly available across the organization…the rival company had become a different, far nimbler type of business.
Increase conversion rates by better identification of successful sales transactions.
Is Big Data Analysis Affordable?
NTC Data Storage is also a good alternative for small ecommerce merchants because it is relatively inexpensive and is scalable it can expand as data requirements grow.
Relying on data-driven decision-making is crucial in industries in which profit margins are slim. Amazon, which earns increasingly thin profit margins, is one of the most effective users of data analytics. As more Big Data solutions for small online businesses come to market and more online merchants incorporate Big Data into their business tool set, employing Big Data will become a necessity for all Merchants.
Using data wisely has the potential to boost margins and increase conversions for online merchants, and investors are banking on it.
This is Big Data for NTC we know WHO, WHAT,WHEN, AND WHERE a purchase took place.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Internet Payment Gateway, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Point of Sale, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: analyses, analytic, big data, communications, competitive, consumer, cost, database, decision, ecommerce, email, internet, marketing, Merchant's, mobile, monitor, ntc, online, orgainizing, patterns, point of sale, POS, profit margins, promotions, risk, scalable, solutions, storing, text messages, virtual merchant, website
October 24th, 2013 by Elma Jane
Reflecting recent research that concludes mobile payment adoption remains low, Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) issued results from a survey that confirm consumers prefer banking applications other than payments for their mobile devices.
While reinforcing the dominance of debit and credit cards as payment mechanisms, the TSYS 2013 Consumer Payment Choice Study revealed that mobile devices are used as a tool for ancillary financial services, such as checking account balances and accessing discounts and rewards.
“For now, the hype largely remains hope for mobile from a payments standpoint,” the survey said. “On a relative basis, consumers would overwhelmingly prefer to have the ability to use their smartphone to monitor transaction activity or prevent fraud versus using their mobile phone as a form factor in a transaction.”
Columbus, Georgia-based processor TSYS found in its third annual survey that, out of 1,000 consumers surveyed online in the summer of 2013, 40 percent of respondents were interested in using mobile devices to instantly stop illegitimate transactions. Additionally, 37 percent indicated that the ability to view in real-time the transactions made with debit and credit cards was also an important feature.
Receiving instant offers and promotions from stores being visited (33 percent); temporarily blocking and unblocking purchases using certain bankcards (29 percent); and paying for purchases using reward/loyalty points (28 percent) rounded out the top payment-related uses for smartphones.
At the bottom of the scale was to pay for purchases with mobile wallets (25 percent) and to use credit or debit card-funded prepaid accounts for the same purpose (22 percent). “Industry observers regard mobile payments as an assumed eventuality,” TSYS stated. “Our survey results indicate that consumers are presently more interested in increased non-payment functionality on their mobile device.”
But the processor remains optimistic about the promise of mobile payments. “We believe that as the infrastructure matures and the ability to use mobile payments becomes more widespread, this trend will change,” TSYS said.
Prepaid undermarketed?
In addressing the role of prepaid cards in the payment mix, TSYS expressed surprise that prepaid cards are apparently not being marketed aggressively by financial institutions. The processor noted that major banks jumped into the prepaid card industry in 2012 to offer general-purpose reloadable (GPR) prepaid cards as checking account alternatives.
But TSYS found that just over 10 percent of survey respondents indicated they had received GPR card offers from their banks. TSYS attributed that low percentage to the fact that the survey respondents were by default credit and debit card users, while GPR cards are primarily targeted to individuals without access to credit or debit cards.
Regardless, survey respondents aged 35 and younger accounted for 64 percent of those who had received such offers. “It could be that the younger demographic on average represents a less profitable checking relationship for banks, or that banks perceive them to be more receptive to the offering,” TSYS said.
Steady goes debit and credit
Consumer payment preferences in 2013 remain relatively unchanged from previous years, according to TSYS. Debit still trumps credit as the preferred payment instrument overall, with both methods being favored by every eight of 10 survey respondents. Debit is still the clear winner when it comes to supermarket shopping and gas purchasing, while credit is preferred when dining out and shopping in department stores. But when it comes to fast food cravings, cash is still king.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, and also consistent with TSYS’ 2012 report, only 11 percent of respondents said being able to set up text message alerts for account balances and transactions was most valuable, and a mere 6 percent valued the ability to register payment cards in mobile wallets.
However, credit tops debit for online purchases, TSYS said. Further of note is that PayPal Inc.’s digital wallet service rivals debit online, with both payment methods favored by roughly one-fifth of respondents. But for small-dollar purchases, like coffee and donuts, cash remains the preferred payment vehicle, despite innovative mobile schemes offered by companies like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts.
Posted in Credit card Processing, Digital Wallet Privacy, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing, Internet Payment Gateway, Mail Order Telephone Order, Merchant Services Account, Mobile Payments, Smartphone Tagged with: account, adoption, applications, banking, checking, consumers, credit cards, debit, devices, discounts, financial services, form factor, general-purpose, gpr, infrastructure, low percentage, mechanisms, mobile, mobile wallets, non-payment, offers, online, payment, payment related, phone, prepaid, processor, profitable, promotions, real-time, reloadable, reward/loyalty, rewards, smartphone, transaction, tsys
