More Junk Fees

They just keep coming.  A new junk fee I recently came across.  I am often asked what is your rate? It’s not about one rate, one needs to look at the sum of the total. Here is another example about another “junk fee”. Monthly Funding Advantage is a made up fee. Also I am seeing a new junk fee called “EMV non-enabled Fee” at a rate of 3 basis points. This fee will hit restaurants that does not have a POS to accept Chip Cards.

Give us a call to find out how we can help you eliminate junk fees. 727-916-7294

Omnichannel retail - What is it and Why?

Customers want more than most retailers are able to offer. Modern consumers want to buy online, but pick up or return at the store. They want to browse product information on their laptop or smartphone, get coupons or discount codes, even make a purchase on their mobile phone while in a store. New consumers are naturally combining channels as they browse, research and buy.

With 90% of consumers researching products online before they buy and 25% of shoppers buying online after they’ve experienced and touched the items in-store, the path to purchase is no longer a straight line. Today’s tech savvy consumer demands flexibility from retailers as they drift from in-store to mobile to online and back again. The age of the brick-and-click is here and retailers need to catch this wave or get washed away as more and more of their competitors adopt the agile omnichannel model of retail.

In an omnichannel world, retailers can combine data from every transaction and interaction, from any channel, into a unique individual file for each customer. Customer records can include previous in-store and online purchases, deliveries made, coupons used, gift cards purchased, comments on social media, phone interactions – anything and everything that can be used to gain deeper insight into customer behavior patterns.

With a better understanding of their customers, retailers will benefit from higher customer satisfaction, which will ultimately result in more sales and brand loyalty. Being open for business 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, frees customers once bound by the dated constraints of store hours. This gives them added opportunities to interact with your brand on their own time and allows you to literally ring up sales while you sleep.

We have an affordable solution for retailers which give the best of both worlds. An integrated system means that retailers will be able to streamline their operations, saving time and effort with joint reporting, a unified inventory, and centralized sales information.

Give us a call to find out how we can help you.  727-916-7294

What Makes A Business / Merchant “HIGH RISK”?

High risk has to do more with the charge back exposure, since the acquiring / sponsoring bank is responsible for all charge backs if a business were to cease business and close for any reason.  A better way to characterize a business as high risk is harder to place

Why then is a business “harder to place” for taking credit cards?  This is because an acquiring / sponsoring bank will not even consider or approve a business based on various details that are not in line with their underwriting guidelines.  Most of the time it about the financial expose and loss. As an underwriter they look at worst case scenarios in regards to financial expose and loss.  For example, if a business had their processing account stop abruptly, this will have a serious consequence to their cash flow, which might affect delivery of product or service on payments taken previously.  This in turn causes customers to dispute credit card transactions when the product or service is delayed and everything for the business spiral out of control. 

Let’s examine travel agents.  There are several factors that make this type of business “high risk or hard to place”.  The vast majority of travel agents are good people who run legitimate sales through their business, but the problem lies with what is outside of their control.  They can do an excellence job booking a vacation well below market price, but a last minute deals from hotel or an airlines that significantly drop their rates the week before the vacation starts due to a surplus of rooms / seats.  In this example the customer books this last minute deal and goes to the issuing bank and disputes the original credit card charge and will likely win the dispute.  Also consider the travel agent has no control over how their vendor operates and if the customer has a bad experience for any number of reasons they are likely to get buyer’s remorse and dispute the charges. 

Another example is electronic cigarette most acquiring / sponsoring bank will reject this type of business type on principle alone citing it is too easy for a minor to purchase the product online.  It’s the potential of taking part in facilitating the sale of nicotine products to minors that the acquiring / sponsoring bank is avoiding due to nothing in regards to financial expose and loss.

Banks having been doing this a lot longer than you have been in business and have enough experience and history to know that even a good business can go bad.  They look at the long term, “how much do we stand to lose if this company closes its doors tomorrow?” Acquiring / sponsoring bank are typically on the hook for charge backs for six months after the delivery of a product or service. We hope this might help to give you a better understanding into this subject.

If your business is "high risk" or not, we can help.  Contact us at 888-506-9225 or info@tampabaymerchantservices.com