Is Surcharging Right For Your Business? By: Kasey Woo What Is Surcharging? Credit cards may be convenient for a customer to pay for online purchases, as well as services, such as haircutting, restaurant service, or doctor’s appointments, but it is not so easy from a business owner's perspective. When a business accepts credit cards as part of their business operations and transactions, they incur additional fees and costs to process these credit card transactions.  Interchange fees are percentage based charges that individual merchants must pay in credit-card or debit-card based transactions. In the United States alone, the average interchange fees for online merchants is approximately 2.13%, whilst gas stations face an average interchange fee of 1.92% and brick-and-mortar retailers face an average interchange fee of 1.56%. Add on top of this processor and gateway fees and the total cost can be closer to 4%. So, is there an option out there that would allow for businesses to minimi...

  What’s Going On?      As more and more companies and store owners switch from paper to online payments, fraudulent activities become more and more complex and harder to track. What is Card Testing and How Does it Work? Known through multiple terms like “carding”, “account testing”, and “card checking”, card testing is becoming one of the main avenues for hackers to steal from both the consumer and the merchant. Card testing is when someone tries to use stolen card information or attempts to guess card information in order to make fraudulent purchases from another card. Hackers use computer programs to streamline this process so it becomes easier to “guess” card information. One of the more common ways to card test is to check the authorization, which is much less likely to appear on statements. Another possible way is through small payments that go easily unnoticed by both consumers and merchants.  How Prevalent is this Issue? Online shopping is booming. Indu...

                      Multiple Merchant Accounts? Here are 5 Ways Your Business Can Benefit. Do you really need multiple merchant accounts? This may not be the first thought on the mind of many entrepreneurs, but the meteoric rise of e-commerce makes it clear that times are changing, and so are the needs of online business owners. Many high-risk merchants, especially those in the early stages of their business, face payment processing limits that stifle potential growth. When those limits are reached, sales grind down to a halt and cash flow is significantly reduced.  Securing additional merchant accounts is a tactical decision. It helps your business secure more monthly processing volume and can prevent potential operational bottlenecks. Additionally, new businesses can add more orders and scale-up, monthly sales caps become less troublesome, and risk is spread out across your accounts.  While it may seem like ...

  The Rise of E-Commerce is Revolutionizing B2B Sales Channels The COVID-19 pandemic has seen businesses and consumers alike make moves to cut down their expenses. Aiming to reduce the inefficiencies in manual or outdated business-to-business (B2B) sales channels, many businesses have turned to online marketplaces, many of which are looking to break into the B2B e-commerce space. An increasing number of businesses are citing payment processing speeds as a crucial need, with a recent report finding that 48% of B2B companies indicate this as a concern. Another study found that only 20% of businesses had a desire to move away from digital sales , an indication that virtual B2B payments are filtering into the mainstream. Shifting B2B payments and interactions to the digital space comes with many benefits. One study found that businesses can boost their revenue by adopting digital sales channels , with digital sales fueling the revenue growth of 62% of B2B businesses in 2020. The s...

“Research has found that subscription models are 217% more profitable for businesses than a one-time payment model. With subscriptions, you can provide greater efficiency, get your customer to associate with your product better, and receive a higher payoff. 70% of businesses feel that acquiring new customers is more expensive than retaining existing clients, therefore with a subscription model, you continue to make money from users after you acquire them.” - Source: Intuit, Inc. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this already prominent trend in the business world: the shift towards “everything as a service”. Tech giant Hewlett Packard, which already sells around 50% of its products through e-commerce, has committed to making its entire portfolio available on that basis by 2022. With many vendors pushing the model and an increasing number of platforms supporting subscription payments, the feeling is that demand from customers who value flexibility will continue through the year. T...

The Fastest Available... Whether you have a high-volume business or need to run bulk monthly billing the faster you complete your transactions the better the experience for you and you clients. By exploiting all processing options and the unique load balancing features that OpenPath offers you can handle peak volumes without any slowdown in processing speed. Learn More Deeper Data Means Better Business If you ever looked at a deposit into your merchant account and wondered what orders it relates to, you aren't looking  deep  enough. The OpenPath advanced tools and reports are designed to let you get the most out of your data and your time. Our new settlement report allows you to drill into deposit totals and see the underlying transactions. Learn more » Transact 17 We hope everyone had a successful conference in Las Vegas at this years signature event from the Electr...