Posts Tagged ‘mobile credit card processing’

Advance Your Merchant Services for Your Small Business with Mobile Credit Card Payment

Monday, July 11th, 2011

The RAZR was once the biggest advancement in mobile phones in the U.S. Consumers went nuts to get the latest technological advancement. Now the RAZR is a thing of the past. If someone is seen with one of them they are often seen as outdated.

The same may be said one day for classic credit card processing terminals. You know the ones that are still connected with a phone line to a modem. Even those bulky, slow wireless credit card processing terminals are becoming a thing of the past.  Now there are companies that are developing the next age of credit card processing machines.  You may have even seen one if you have been in at an Apple Store lately!

With technological advancements such as, Pay Anywhere, it is possible to accept credit cards anywhere on your smartphone. This advancement is crucial for those who take their business on the go. Imagine a customer paying for a delivery order through an iPhone credit card processing terminal. Don’t have an iPhone? That’s fine you can turn your iPad, Blackberry, or Android into a credit card processing terminal as well. Not only is this tech savvy, it is also green! Seconds after the card is swiped, a receipt is text messaged and/or e-mailed to the customer. The best part is the fees associated with many monthly credit card processing contracts are more manageable that traditional card processing machines.

No Scary Fees

A lot of small businesses, and businesses that are constantly on the go fear that the fees of processing credit cards will out weight the extra business they bring in. It can be scary for a small business owner to commit to a lengthy contract that requires a monthly rental fee, monthly minimum fee, and the most dreaded cancellation or early termination fees. It is especially hard to compute if it will be worth it for a business to begin accepting credit cards, since there is no way to accurately predict the number of credit card sales that they will receive once they begin accepting them.

Pricing

Providers like Pay Anywhere makes accepting credit cards less scary for any business owner looking to expand their payment options. With almost none of the previously mentioned fees, a business owner has nothing to fear in trying it out. Even a freelance artist who would only use a credit card terminal a couple times a month could maybe benefit here too from this technology. No longer will you watch a sale walk away because the cost exceeded the cash in hand that the potential customer had. You may be able to get some providers to even eat the cost of the credit card reader as the provider gives that to their clients for free. At other places these could exceed the cost of 150 dollars. Try to find a provider that has no fees associated with the application process.

Some Benefits

This mobile processing technology, it is takes off, will benefit anyone whose business has them constantly traveling from sale to sale. The fear of a check bouncing for services rendered will be eliminated as you can have that customer simply swipe and sign with their debit card instead. General contractors will attract more job prospects by sampling accepting credit cards. Don’t be the one with the RAZR in 2011, be the one who had the iPhone in 2007!

We would love to hear about your experiences with credit card processing over a smartphone. Tell us about them please in the comments below.

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Posts Tagged ‘mobile credit card processing’

When Will Mobile Phones Replace Our Credit Cards?

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

I was reading this article in the Denver Post the other day about how in 3-5 years a majority of consumers will no longer carry credit cards or cash but will instead use their phone to pay for goods.  While I am not so sure that this will be the case in such a short time period I think that consumers in the United States are definitely moving in that direction.

As this article points out, there are already convenience stores in Boulder, Colorado, and Starbucks coffee shops in Seattle that allow their customers to pay by using applications on their smart phone.  Most of the stores that currently allow shoppers to pay by phone do so through the use of a web-based account that the shopper has to pre-register for and “load” money into their account.  These consumers then bring their phone into the store and login to their account on the merchant’s website or through their “app” on their phone that displays an account number or bar code that the merchant can use to deduct the value of the goods purchased from the consumers account.  While this process is definitely a little less time consuming for both the merchant and shopper and no longer requires the shopper to carry a credit card, it really isn’t all that revolutionary to the bricks and mortar world.

Here is a new product from a company called “Square” that does have the potential to change how and where merchants and shoppers interact at a retail location: the Square Card Reader (pictured in this post).

Square is a new smartphone application for the iPhone and most Android-powered phones that allows merchants to sign-up for a free account and receive a free Square Card Reader that easily plugs into the headphone jack on their phone.  Merchants can then use the card reader to swipe a consumer’s credit card for payment or they can also just type in the credit card number into the smart phone application in order to accept payment.  The merchant is charged 2.9%-3.0% of the value of the transaction plus $0.15 for each transaction which is comparable to what other online payment companies, like Paypal, charge.  I think that Square has the ability to change how we define a “merchant” since their product makes it easier for the smallest of companies to compete with the larger players in their industry.

How popular is the Square Card Reader?  Right now Square has a special message on their website when merchant’s sign-up for a new account indicating that it could take weeks to get their reader in the mail because they currently have such a large backlog!

How do you see mobile payment systems changing the way business is done in your store?

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Posts Tagged ‘mobile credit card processing’

Please pass the salt and pepper…oh, and don't forget my personal credit card processing machine!

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

A few weeks ago I was eating at a local sushi restaurant here in Denver (Banzai Sushi – highly recommend it) when something happened that has never happened to me in a restaurant before.  After my wife and I finished eating our delicious dinner we asked our waiter for the check and instead of bringing us a money holder with the bill in it, he reached into his back pocket and placed a miniature credit card processing machine on our table with a paper copy of the bill and left.

After my wife and I stared at it and then each other for a second we read the very basic steps on the machine and in seconds swiped our own credit card, printed the bill, signed the check, and left.  What a great idea!  I am not sure why or how this idea was formulated at this specific restaurant but I imagine that it started with some fraud complaints of some type from customers.  I thought that this solution was a great opportunity for the restaurant to not only resolve the possible fraud issues around customers giving a perfect stranger their credit card but it also saved time.  Other than the obvious additional expense of the credit card readers that would be needed I am not sure why more restaurants have not started implementing this new process.

I did a little research online and also found out that a new device called the SmartSwipe is becoming more popular recently as well.  This at-home credit card swiping machine that connects to your home computer through the USB port takes another part out of the fraud equation when shopping online, a virus on your computer, by immediately encrypting your credit card information and sending it to the merchant securely.  This device makes it impossible for trojan horse-type viruses that may unknowingly reside on your home computer to secretly grab your credit card information while you type it into your browser.  I think this is another great invention that speeds up credit card transactions and makes them less liable to fraud.

Have you noticed any great new inventions out there that have reduced fraud while shopping online or in stores?  (besides KikScore of course)

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