Every successful small business knows the value of a great reputation for quality customer service. In the highly competitive retail marketplace, customer experience often creates a stronger differentiation from your competition than product selection and even price. The checkout process is often overlooked in the context of customer experience. After all, the customer is already converted and waiting to hand over their payment, right? The reality is that the checkout process will remain in the customer’s consciousness as they leave your store and has a strong impact on their likelihood to become a return customer. Here are some...

Many of the retail sales at brick and mortar stores and essentially all e-commerce retail sales involve shipping the products that are sold to customers. Historically, the expense, time, and hassle involved in packing and shipping have placed a large drag on small business efficiency and overhead expenses. In this post, we’ll look at some modern practical solutions for small retail businesses that ship products to customers.

Pay Careful Attention To Packaging Choices

Everyone knows that heavier packages are more expensive to ship than lighter ones. However, many businesses are not aware that package dimensions can also be used to c...

All types of restaurants are finding pay-at-the-table apps more popular as alternatives to traditional point of sale systems traditionally used to process card payments. Pay-at-the-table allows servers and customers to complete payment processing in a single trip to the table by the server with a tablet that contains the entire payment system. In this post, we will examine some of the pros and cons that restaurants find when investing in pay-at-the-table technology.

Pros

Increased Security

Customers enjoy a greater sense of security when they do not have to part with their card during the payment process. The restaurant industry has...

Efficient and cost-effective marketing is the lifeblood of many small businesses. Digital marketing should generate new business leads and also keep current customers engaged and returning. Email marketing has been around for some time and continues to produce strong results, and has moved beyond sales and promotions to involved strategies for providing useful content that attracts valuable customer attention. In this post, we’ll examine some of the most important benefits that email marketing currently provides to small businesses.

Targeted and Individualized Marketing

Maintaining a detailed email list with different variables all...

Seasonal demand is extremely important to many retail businesses. Products that enjoy increased demand during the warmer spring and summer months provide a huge revenue boost for many small businesses. Restaurants and food service businesses, clothing stores, and recreational equipment companies often see increased revenues through seasonal demand. Here are some tips for getting ready to reap the benefits provided by warm weather products.  

Keep a 12-Month Perspective

Businesses with seasonal peaks and valleys should keep a full-time focus on maximizing the value of their highest revenue months. Many businesses that have stro...

As digital technology continues to advance in amazing leaps and bounds, our financial lives become more streamlined and functional every day. Unfortunately, every new technology invites criminals to devise schemes to exploit developing systems. Businesses who accept and process payments through credit and debit cards are prime targets from modern-day fraudsters. Credit card companies will look to hold vendors responsible for illegal transactions that they accept when possible, and every company that accepts card payments should be on constant alert against scams and fraudulent transactions. The best defense against fraud and liab...

Cash only businesses were very common historically for most small retailers. The delay and expense in card processing and lower security than cash transactions long made the cost-benefit analysis cut against accepting cards for many vendors. The advances in card, smartphone, and card processing technology have changed the market considerably in recent years. In order to be competitive, many retailers find that they have to be responsive to their customers’ payment preferences. Many customers today carry little or no cash and expect to be able to present a card for virtually every purchase, no matter how large or small.

The traditi...

We are all familiar with our personal New Year’s resolutions and how beneficial they can be when we can stick to them. Your business can always use some inspiration to improve and you should consider some simple and effective resolutions that are great for a fresh start as the new year begins or at any time. Here are some ideas for things that can provide real improvements for your business.

Streamline Your Overhead and Watch Your Cash Flow Improve

Habits usually form more from routine than from conscious effort. Take the time to carefully analyze your monthly expenses and be sure that your business is not suffering from unnecessar...

The major merchant services company Square recently announced new pricing that is applicable to all customers as of November 1, 2019.

The most important update for companies that have small-ticket transactions on average is the change from a flat 2.75% fee for on-site tapped, dipped, or swiped card transactions to a 2.6% fee plus 10 cents per payment. 

Square has been a very popular merchant service company with many retail businesses because of its flat-rate processing charge. However, businesses with smaller average tickets will see a significant impact on their overall payment processing costs as a result of the pricing change....

Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance is important whether your business consists of a single retail location accepting card payments or maintains multiple storefronts and eCommerce sites.  Any location or web presence where you have a credit card merchant account requires your careful attention to ensure PCI compliance. Every business that accepts credit card payments is expected to be PCI compliant.  Businesses that are not compliant can incur liabilities to card providers or face card company audits. PCI compliance is critical to your company’s reputation and ability to smoothly accept card payments.

What is PCI complianc...

Gift cards have recently become among the most requested and popular gifts for all occasions.  In addition to the traditional rush of gift-giving associated with the holiday season, gift cards have become go-to presents for birthdays, graduations, baby showers, and even weddings.  In addition to providing convenience and enjoyment to gift-givers and recipients, gift cards can also provide outstanding benefits to your business as well.

Gift Cards Build Brand Value and Awareness

Gift cards are an effective way to turn your existing customer base into active recruiters and marketers for your company.  Most of your happy customers...

Online shopping continues to grow in relation to brick and mortar sales, and customers today demand easy to use and safe payment methods when shopping online.  Your eCommerce store is only as strong as its ability to satisfy customer needs regarding easy payment options.  

Your eCommerce Store Must Have a Payment Gateway

Payment gateways are the different methods available for collecting payments from customers who make direct purchases from your eCommerce store website.  Payments are generally collected and managed on your site’s shopping cart page, and your payment gateway refers to the methods of payment that you accep...

Our clients have told us many stories over the years about some of the sales pitches they have been given about credit card processing fees.  Some companies promise rates of 1% and even less. Here’s why those promises are not real and how they can wind up costing you much more than an honest and transparent rate soon after the overblown promises evaporate.  We also want to show you what you can expect in return for a fair and transparent rate that you can depend on.  

Credit Card Processing Fees are Often Presented in Deceptive Ways

If you have shopped for credit card processing services for your brick and mortar ret...

Growth - every businesses goal. Small, Medium or Amazon-sized businesses all strive for continuous (quick) growth.  But, let's face it, it's not so simple. It takes hard work, creative thinking and action. This is a very exciting generation of business - there are hundreds of inspiring and motivating business success stories.  With new technology, endless marketing techniques, innovative scaling strategies, easier ways to diversify your client base - the list goes on.  We've put together 3 ways that could help grow your business fast - some of these options may require some business funding - but don't worry we have that covered...

So many of your have expressed interested in learning more about contactless payments (🎉 - yes, this would be a reason we would use this emoji internally!)

We created a simple guide to give you more information on contactless payments - how they work, how to accept them and critical in-store to-do's.

If you do not have a machine that accepts contactless payments - the first step would be to upgrade to a machine that accepts this payment type. If you have done this already that's a big ☑️off the to-do list already!

See our guide below or download it here.