February 20th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Android-iPhone-Credit-Card-Reader
Several options exist for mobile credit card processing.
Credit card processing on iPhone/ipad/Android/BlackBerry or Tablets – Using NTC’s portable credit card readers, merchants can now swipe credit cards on iPad or Android tablet devices. NTC’s Virtual Merchant solution allows users to download a secure application to interfere your smartphone with our merchant account services seamlessly. The application and credit card processing data on the carriers network or a WiFi connection to the internet.
NTC’s MagTek Bullet Swipe Credit Card Reader for Android Phones and Tablets.
Using any Android 2.2. or higher device you can process credit card transactions securely to the smartphone via Bluetooth and utilize wireless devices internet connection (WiFi or Carrier) to send the credit card processing data encrypted for processing approval.
Security anywhere. With the BulleT Secure Credit Card Reader Authenticator (SCRA), security comes with the flexibility and portability of a Bluetooth wireless interface. Small enough to fit into the palm of your hand, the BulleT enables secure wireless communications with a PC or mobile phone using the popular Bluetooth interface. Not only does the BulleT encrypt card data from the moment the card is swiped, but it also enables card authentication to immediately detect counterfeit or altered cards.
Ideal for merchant services accounts and financial institutions’’ mobile credit card processing, NTC’s BulleT offers MagnaSafe credit card processing security features with the convenience of a Bluetooth interface. This powerful combination assures credit card data protection, transaction security and convenience needed to secure mobile credit card processing with strong encryption and 2-factor authentication. The BulleT is specifically designed to leverage the existing magnetic stripe credit card reader as a secure token empowering cardholders with the freedom and confidence of knowing that their credit card transactions are secure and protected anytime, anywhere. Android Credit Card Swipe Reader for Android Phones and Tablets on your wireless mobile merchant account.
NTC’s MagTek iDynamo Credit Card processing swipe reader for iPhone and Ipad.
Credit card processing on an iPhone has never been easier. Simply attach NTC’s iDynamo card reader to your iPhone or iPad device, install our Virtual Merchant software from the App Store and you’re ready to go. Take advantage of lower credit card processing rates by processing swiped transactions instead of keying the credit card in later and get paid faster. From the company that leads with Security from the Inside MagTek has done it again with the iDynamo, a secure card reader authenticator (SCRA) designed to work with the iPhone and iPad. The iDynamo offers MagnasafeTM security and delivers open standards encryptions with simple, yet proven DUKPT key management, immediate tokenization of card data and MagnePrint card authentication to maximize data protection and prevent the use of counterfeit cards. Mobile merchants can now leverage the power of their iPhone/iPod Touch products without the worries of handling or storing sensitive card data at any time. Ideal for wireless mobile merchant accounts and mobile credit card processing, the iDynamo offers MagneSafe security features combined with the power of iPhone and iPod Touch products. This powerful combination assures convenience and cost savings, while maximizing credit card data protection and credit card transaction security from the moment the card is swiped all the way to authorization. No other credit card reader beats the protection offered by a MagnaSafe product.
Other credit card devices claim to encrypt data in the reader. NTC’s iDynamo encrypts the data inside the read head, closest to the magnetic stripe and offers additional credit card security layers with immediate tokenization of card data and MagnePrint card authentication. This layered approach to security far exceeds the protection of encryption by itself, decreases the scope of PCI compliance, and reduces fraud.
NTC’s iDynamo is rugged and affordable, so it not only withstands real world use, it performs to the high standards set by MagTek as the leader in magnetic credit card swipe reading products for nearly 40 years.
Posted in Credit card Processing, Credit Card Reader Terminal, Credit Card Security, Digital Wallet Privacy, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Internet Payment Gateway, Merchant Services Account, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Payment Card Industry PCI Security, Smartphone Tagged with: Android, android phones and tablets, authenticator, blackberry, bluetooth, card authentication, credit card processing data, devices, encrypt card data, encrypted, internet, ipad, Iphone, magnetic stripe, magtek bullet, merchant account, merchant services accounts, Merchant's, mobile credit card processing, portable credit card readers, process credit card transactions, processing approval, secure, secure application, secure token, smartphone, swipe credit card reader, swipe credit cards, tablets, transaction security, virtual merchant, wifi, wireless devices internet connection
February 13th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Becoming an e-commerce entrepreneur is an increasingly attainable dream for many aspiring business owners, as new online sales platforms and Web design tools continue to emerge. While just about anyone can launch an online business, it takes a dedicated salesperson to actually succeed, and that means staying on top of current marketplace trends.
If you’re ready to take your e-commerce business to the next level in 2014, watch these five current trends in online sales:
Access through smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Major gains seen in e-commerce usage of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, especially during the holiday season. Trend to accelerate as mobile adoption continues to increase and more mobile technologies become available. Small businesses should have a mobile version of their website, with mobile-optimized checkout to help facilitate a better mobile experience. Small retailers should also look at their site across multiple mobile devices and pay attention to new technologies, such as smartwatches.
Goodbye, traditional SEO. Google is constantly updating its algorithm in an effort to serve the best, most relevant content to its users. This means that traditional (SEO) search engine optimization tactics are falling by the wayside, and an increased push toward quality, unique content — along with social media signals — will be of huge importance in 2014. To help stay ahead of the SEO curve, small retailers should focus less on Traditional SEO Tenets like keyword usage and density, and instead aim efforts toward creating content that is tailored and useful for their target audience. Example, create more lifestyle-oriented content in the form of blog posts, videos and other types of media that encourage sharing by readers.
Increased dependence on data. Smaller online businesses continue to expand their presence across channels, the need to turn to performance data from both a channel-specific and holistic standpoint becomes even more important. Google Analytics is a good tool for this, because business owners can measure their site traffic from multiple devices and referral sites.
Small shops squeezed by larger merchants. Mega-retailers like Amazon continue to steal market share from other big-box retailers (both online and offline), smaller online businesses will need to become more nimble in how they compete, from a price, customer-service and marketing standpoint. This involves identifying true points of difference from larger merchants, showcasing these points in marketing and branding, and delivering personalized experiences.
The importance of multichannel selling. Customer shopping behaviors become more fragmented, so must the presence of small online businesses owners. Simply having an e-commerce site is no longer enough. Small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) should begin looking for efficient ways to expand their presence, including integrations with various shopping feeds and other outlets that can reach more consumers.
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, Small Business Improvement, Smartphone Tagged with: content, e-commerce, integrations, mobile adoption, Mobile Devices, mobile version, mobile-optimized checkout, multiple devices, online business, online sales, search engine optimization, shopping feeds, Small and medium-size businesses (SMBs), small online business owners, small retailers, Smartphones, smartwatches, social media signals, tablets
January 29th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Ecommerce and mobile-based e-commerce have grown significantly this year. Cyber Monday ecommerce sales, as an example, reached $1.735 billion originating from desktop and laptop devices, according to comScore. Even Black Friday, which is better known for brick-and-mortar retail sales, saw online spending reach $1.198 billion in the United States, again according to comScore. Mobile online spending may also have grown, as some reports indicate that mobile-based site traffic was up 55 percent around Thanksgiving.
Many ecommerce merchants are enjoying a robust holiday selling season even as some brick-and-mortar stores are seeing relatively flat Christmas sales. To ensure continued growth and success, Internet retailers may want to challenge their businesses to improve in several areas in 2014.
Retailers, however, should not rest on their current success, but rather should challenge their businesses to improve in several areas, including free shipping offers, mobile optimization, personalization, data driven decision making, and cross channel sales.
Offer Free, Two-Day Shipping
The first challenge for online sellers in 2014 may be to find ways to offer free, two-day shipping to all or most shoppers. While it is likely there will still be minimum purchase and maximum weight requirements and restrictions, online shoppers are going to expect faster free shipping options thanks, in part, to the growth in services like Amazon Prime and ShopRunner.
Consider order fulfillment services, distributed warehouses, drop shipping, or even partnerships with other retailers to help meet this challenge.
Offer Personalization and Customization
Personalization and customization could be a significant competitive advantage in 2014.
Challenge your business to finally begin offering personalization and customization both onsite and in marketing. The easiest place to start may be with email marketing. Work to segment email marketing campaigns so that they address customers by name and with relevant products and offers that are based on an individual’s or group of shoppers’ stated preferences or on-site behavior.
Taking on this challenge means that the retailer’s marketing department will need to collect meaningful information about what interests shoppers and organize separate, custom campaigns around those interests.
Put Mobile Design and Marketing First
In November, IBM reported that mobile devices accounted for 31 percent of U.S. ecommerce-related web traffic around the Thanksgiving holiday this year, and that 17 percent of ecommerce transactions came from smartphones or tablets. On average, tablet users spent more than $126.00 per order, and smartphone users spent about $106 per order.
This data shows that mobile e commerce is not simply a novelty, but rather a must have for 2014.
If an e-commerce business is not optimized for mobile sales, 2014 is the year to take on that challenge, including offering a responsive design and mobile friendly payment options.
Sell Seamlessly Across Channels, Devices
Try to think of every way that a shopper might interact with an online store, and then make all of those touch points work together in 2014.
Retailers online or in physical stores need to offer shoppers a seamless, cross channel shopping experience that makes buying things easier for the customer. To continue to enjoy success in 2014, consider offering shoppers the ability to share orders across devices, applications, and even marketplaces.
In practice, this might mean that items added to a cart in an online store show up in the cart for the retailer’s iPhone app too. Or that a customer’s order history displayed on a retailer’s site shows orders placed on-site and via a marketplace like Amazon or eBay.
Use Big Data for Big Information
In 2014, find sources of good, usable Big Data, and put the resulting big information to use.
As an example consider, Weather Trends International, a Big Data company that uses historical weather information and advanced data processing to accurately predict weather 11 months in advance. This sort of Big Data information could show a snowboard and ski retailer what sort of winter major ski resorts are likely to have next year, and could inform purchasing and inventory choices.
Similarly, knowing that a particular region is going to have a warmer than normal July and August might impact how, where, and when a clothing retailer promotes shorts or bikinis on Facebook or AdWords.
Big Data is a popular trend in business and in marketing. The concept can mean different things to different businesses. For ecommerce, retailers should seek to use Big Data to gather big information, if you will, that may be used to make better buying and selling decisions.
Posted in Credit card Processing, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Internet Payment Gateway, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Smartphone, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: adwords, Amazon, big data, big information, brick and mortar, cross channel, cyber, drop shipping, e-commerce, ecommerce, Facebook, internet retailers, laptop devices, Mobile Devices, mobile friendly payment options, mobile optimization, mobile-based site, on-site, online, online shoppers, online store, onsite, personalization, retailers marketing, retailers online, shopping experience, smartphone, Smartphones, tablet, tablets
November 22nd, 2013 by Admin
As we move to smartphones and tablets as payment methods security and privacy concerns are a real issue. With recent NSA leaks shedding light on our data and the access others have to it, we have to consider security, privacy and health implications. This year alone e-commerce transactions on smartphones and tablets during the holiday season are set to grow by 15%. Although tablets, not smartphones will drive the bulk of that growth, smartphones are set to overtake mobile-commerce payments over the next 5 years. Tablet payments in the U.S. alone are expecting to reach $26 billion in transactions. Currently tablets are more convenient for m-commerce due to their size, but as far as the future of electronic payment processing, smartphones are where it’s at.
The smart merchant sees this coming and realizes frictionless transactions increase sales. The more comfortable and less complicated a transaction is for a customer, the better. Smartphones, tablets, PCs, laptops and more can already process electronic transactions from credit and debit cards, gift cards, electronic checks and more. Money movement is easier than ever and more convenient than cash. Cash is king however in situations where internet connectivity and power are an issue. In India for example, a poor electric grid makes power outages a common occurrence. During natural disasters, when resources are badly needed, power outages or severed internet communications mean no electronic transactions can be processed. So physical currency remains a must, in the future we may see payment technology evolve to where digital money like crypto currency (BitCoin) may be stored on the device itself similar to having cash. As these electronic payment systems evolve, merchants need to position themselves to accept what their market prefers to transact with.
The smart citizen also sees this coming and has concerns that things like a National ID program being established may compromise their privacy.
As an extreme example of electronic transactions, a nightclub in Spain used subdermally implanted RFID chips in a woman that allowed patrons to pay for food and beverages without a credit card.
Posted in e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Check Services, Electronic Payments, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing, Merchant Services Account, Near Field Communication, Smartphone Tagged with: bitcoin, cash, connectivity, credit, crypto currency, currency, debit cards, digital money, e-commerce, electronic, electronic checks, frictionless, Gift Cards, health, internet, laptops, leaks, m-commerce, Merchant's, mobile-commerce payments, money, national id, nsa, pay, payment methods, payment processing, PCs, privacy, processed, RFID, Security, smartphone, tablets, technology, transact, transactions
October 22nd, 2013 by Elma Jane
The best place to start understanding your customer is to put yourself into every step of a buying cycle and analyze what influences various purchase decisions.
Who is your customer?
Basic demographics and usually includes the following:
Age range Education level Gender Income level Location Marital status Profession
Many of these basic demographics can be inferred from your interactions with customers. In many cases, you can simply ask them.
Beyond the basics, you will also benefit from more personal data, such as the following:
Interests Activities Political affiliation
That data is harder to access, but there are databases that will allow you to target individuals based on those criteria. Facebook’s ad platform provides an incredible amount of targeting data. You can infer your customer profiles by the types of results you get by running ads aimed at specific target markets. That will help identify the interests of your customers.
What? consider what consumers need to know about a product to make a purchase.
Are there ongoing costs? Does it need anything else to make it work? How big is it? How does it function? How long will it last? How much does it cost? Is there a warranty? What are its specs? What does it look like? What options are there? What sizes and colors are available?
To find those details, shoppers will seek different sources: articles, websites, blogs, and actually looking at products and trying them on. Make sure you understand the “what” questions for your products. Then, provide answers to those questions.
Why? The “why” questions are important. Do you know why your customers buy your products?
It could be for the following reasons.
Address an immediate need or desire. Loyal to a particular brand or store. Need flexibility to return products. Need product occasionally or on a regular schedule. Purchase because product is cool or trendy. Seek bargains. Seek high-quality products Seek little or no shipping or sales tax. Seek the lowest price possible. Shop around every time they buy.
Answers will surely vary. Consider also, what motivates your customers to purchase the products you sell and also why they purchase them from your company versus your competitor. This will help you better refine your value proposition of why shoppers choose your company.
How? This area is the most significant change in a consumer’s shopping cycle. As recently as 15 years ago, most product research was done in stores or catalogs or magazines. Today, product research is done in many ways. In the living room, in the boardroom, at the hospital, you name it. Most shoppers start their search at Amazon.com or on Google by searching on a product.
Many searches start with an opportunistic email promoting a product. From there, we may find the shopper looking at the item on that store’s website.
Consumers likely check product reviews, from other consumers. They may read professional reviews. Browse the Internet on SmartPhone.
The point is to understand your customer’s research process. It will vary widely. But in many cases it’s something like this.
An event triggers an interest in a product. Check other brands or alternative products. Conduct research by looking at a product’s pictures, reading descriptions. Evaluate the product’s real value, and eventually make a purchase decision. Narrow your selection and shop for price. Seek out reviews or ask friends.
Where? That leads us to the where customers are researching. They could be reading relevant blogs, going to brick and mortar stores, checking comparison shopping engines, and reading trade publication articles. They may be looking at Pinterest boards, Facebook posts, and checking with their network of friends on Twitter.
They will be using tablets (increasingly the shopper’s preference), smartphones, laptops, desktops, Xboxes, and store visits.
Can an ecommerce merchant be in all of these places with your message? Likely no. But you can identify where your customers are looking for information as they move through their cycle and try to make sure you are seen. You can also ensure that your messaging and content are mobile friendly.
To compete in the future, your store needs to provide input and information to support all those steps. If you lack reviews, your customers will seek them out elsewhere.
Most ecommerce merchants can describe their customers in a general way. They likely know basic demographics – age range, gender, income level. But, do they understand the “why, where, when, and how” their customers make their purchases? These basic tenants of marketing are more important than ever.
The buying process has never been more complex. Consumers have hundred of places online to purchase products that meet their needs. They may shop at home, at work, in the grocery store. They may be using an Android phone, an iPhone, or an Xbox.
Posted in e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Internet Payment Gateway, Mobile Point of Sale, Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: alternative, Android, brick and mortar, comparison, competitor, consumers, content, costs, customers, cycle, data, databases, desktops, ecommerce, Facebook's, flexibility, Iphone, laptops, leads, Merchant's, mobile, ongoing, online, phone, pinterest, platform, price, product, profiles, purchase, selection, shop, shoppers, smartphone, store's, tablets, target, trigger, value, websites, xbox
October 1st, 2013 by Elma Jane
Google announced Wednesday that it is opening its Google Shopping Express service to shoppers in the entire San Francisco Bay Area, marking the official launch and first big expansion of the company’s same-day delivery service. Google began testing the retail delivery service this year among a limited set of invited consumers in a few areas within the Bay Area, but the new announcement extends the service to anyone in an expanded region ranging from San Francisco to San Jose. With the service, online shoppers can place online orders from several chain stores and have those products delivered within the day.
Also on Wednesday Google released an app for iOS and Android that allows users to browse the shopping sites and order products directly from their smartphones. New users who sign up before the end of the year can get six months of free, unlimited delivery service; it costs $4.99 per store order.
Race to Deliver
Google is not the only company to experiment with the same day delivery offerings. Walmart and eBay are both testing similar services…eBay now even offers the delivery within an hour, although consumers can only shop from a single store. Amazon is also following in the footsteps of companies like Fresh Direct and rolling out same-day deliveries on groceries to consumers in Los Angeles and Seattle. Google understands that it will have tough competition in the space and can afford to take a loss on the service at first, which is why it is offering the service for free for new users, said an e-commerce consultant. It is evident from the low price and free sign-up offer that Google is not interested in making money in the short term, that will come once there is a widespread adoption of their service…
A Lot of Challenges Ahead
Although Google is not a retail hub at its core, the company has other strenghts that could help it gain an advantage over its competitiors. Being a default search provider for many millions of users on all platforms, from desktops to tablets right through to mobile phones, can give Google an edge over Amazon and eBay.
Still the key element to a successful e-commerce platform is logistics. Google might have deep pockets and effective algorithms, but it has a a lot of cathing up to do to make sure its delivery service could compete with those of companies like Amazon and eBay, which have years of experience delivering products to consumer worlwide.
“Google certainly has the stamina and budget to give it a good run, but there are a lot of moving parts”. Being a big data company doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be good at the logistics, so they’re going to have a lot of challenges ahead.
Posted in Credit card Processing, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Merchant Account Services News Articles Tagged with: Amazon, Android, app, delivery, desktops, e-commerce, ebay, google, iOS, mobile phones, online, platforms, shopping, tablets, walmart
