I’ve got a close friend who has made a terrific living selling lobster dinners online – live and frozen – delivered overnight in the U.S. He is a master marketer, utilizing niche and obscure holidays and celebrations to promote deals and packages. Based north of Boston, he pays close attention to the calendar, planning specials,…
Category: Business Tips
How Merchants Can (and Will) Benefit From Pokemon Go
‘I wish I’d thought of that.’ We say it so often when we hear of brilliant marketing ideas, and Pokemon Go is one of them. According to Forbes, it is about to overtake Twitter for the most active app on Android mobile phones. People young and old are hooked. It has barely been a full…
5 Things to Watch For in a Merchant Agreement
If there is one piece of advice we can give merchants – and we do this on a daily basis – it is to read your merchant agreement. We understand that it’s not a Stephen King novel nor is it War and Peace. It is the duty of an e-commerce merchant. See, whenever a merchant account…
Reduce Checkout Abandonment With These 5 Tidbits
Let’s face it: The online checkout process can be annoying. The key is to make it the least degree of annoying possible. While e-commerce merchants are always concerned with getting more clicks on their website, they want the opposite for their checkout pages. The more clicks on a checkout page, the higher the probability a…
The One Key to a Successful Subscription Model
While sitting in a session titled No Recurring Nightmares: How a Subscription Billing Model Can Work for You, at the 2016 CNP Expo, the panel of four experts discussed the keys to a successful subscription model. There were numerous suggestions thrown around, but they all had one common denominator: Communication. And this comes with a…
An Open Letter to the Class of 2016 from the Payments Industry
Dear Class of 2016 – CONGRADUATIONS! You’re about to enter the workforce. Did you see all those credit card companies – Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover – exhibiting at random places on your campus the last few weeks of classes and exams? They’re there to sign you up for a credit card with incentives…
Effective Strategies That Will Reduce E-Commerce Fraud
There is a pivotal scene in the film Taxi Driver, when Travis Bickle (expertly played by Robert DeNiro), is well into the depths of madness and utters the famous profane-laced rant, “Listen you … Here is a man who would not take it anymore…A man who stood up against the scum…Here is a man who…
Why You Need P2P Encryption and Tokenization – Today
In the U.S. e-commerce industry, convenience seems to be the antithesis of security. Merchants’ stagnant adoption to 3D secure, at least from what Instabill merchant account managers have seen, is proof of such. In the age of the data breach, however, that school of thought can result in the loss of a business. 3D secure…
The One Hiccup with EMV Credit Cards
If your Netflix abruptly stops working, don’t be alarmed. If you start receiving renewal notices from the newspaper or weekly magazine to which you subscribe, you’re not alone. If you start receiving hate mail from the toll collection company, there’s a reason for it. Hopefully by now, most consumers in the U.S. have received their…
The Real Advantages of ACH Payments: Security, Dependability
What if a business or consumer has reached or exceeded the spending limit on their credit card and is unable to make a payment on an item or service? How does the creditor accept payment from the debtor? This is why, along with credit card processing, merchants need to offer ACH payments (short for Automated Clearing…