Payment Processing
Dynamic Currency Conversion is Dead
Have you ever traveled abroad only to find unusual small charges on your card from your bank or third party company you’ve never heard of? This year that will be a thing of the past. More so, you may even be getting a refund!
Card issuing banks have settled a class action lawsuit whereby card members […]
Understanding Friendly Fraud
The “It Wasn’t Me” chargeback and what it means to eCommerce. If you are selling goods and services online for any length of time, you have probably felt the pain of the “It Wasn’t Me” chargeback. You know the product or service was provided or shipped but then, several weeks later, you receive a chargeback […]
5Jan2008 | Riley Poole | 7 comments | Continued
Paypal Raises Fees & Alienates Merchants
Several years ago, many service providers such as Yahoo and Hotmail learned the hard way that when a user comes into a free service, getting them to move to a paid service is much harder than expected. While Yahoo had initially expected a conversion rate as high as 5%, less than 0.05% of users eventually […]
3Jan2008 | Riley Poole | 10 comments | Continued
The Truth Behind Wal-Mart’s Video Download Unit
Wow, no company is immune to covering up the truth. For more than a week now, Wall Street has speculated about Wal-Mart discontinuing their Video download service and while many have accepted Wal-Mart’s public statement that the reason is Hewlett Packard’s lack of supporting the software anymore, we have to ask, who is kidding who?
Wal-Mart’s […]
Why Online Merchants WILL NOT accept American Express
I love American Express, I know a lot of people out there don’t, but I think it’s a great company. They do a lot of good stuff for small businesses and they are very good at what they do overall. However, sometimes even the best of them screw up and hopefully by me pointing this […]
2Jan2008 | Riley Poole | 2 comments | Continued
The End of Discount Based Merchant Residuals
And so it begins. Merchant Warehouse today began offering free processing for the month of January. In part, as a means of recovering some lost business to Paypal and Google Checkout, but in part to test the waters of what the EU ruling really will mean to the merchant service provider industry.
If you have deep […]
Downtime at First Data on the Way?
It’s common for the new owners in a takeover to reduce costs. The reality is that is one of the major reasons a takeover happens–the new management feels they can reduce existing costs and find profitability in areas where there aren’t any. What does this mean to company survival?
First Data currently processes more than 75% […]
10 Things your Merchant Service Provider Will Not Tell You
1) Discount rates are ultimately set by Visa/MasterCard. Anything in excess of these rates are profit for the ISO, Merchant Service provider, and end-reseller. In the case of high risk merchants, these can be upwards of several percentage points per transaction.
2) Being on the TMF list doesn’t automatically exclude a merchant from being accepted for […]
Why CyberSource sucks for Small Business
Just like so many others in the space do, CyberSource (NASDAQ CYBS) closed down BidPay abruptly and without notice. The question of course everyone is asking is: Why? About two years ago, CyberSource realized that it was faltering. There are so many Fortune 500’s out there (500 to be exact), but of those, there aren’t […]
31Dec2007 | Riley Poole | 1 comment | Continued
Why Mobile Commerce May never be a Viable Business
New technologies will come and go, and while the first to market may not always succeed, those who follow will often learn from the original founders of such an industry and pick up those pieces and thrive. Take the case of Webvan, over a billion dollars spent and lost and yet today FreshDirect flourishes. It’s […]
31Dec2007 | Riley Poole | 7 comments | Continued-
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As long as Merchant Services do not get hurt by the actions of criminals and only pass the buck on ...
First of all, this is a great forum...so thanks.
I would have been betting on someone from the financial services industry ...
Only time will tell. but for my take, I found it fascinating how merchant account providers are continuing to find ...
Good post. You make some great points that most people do not fully understand.
"Ultimately, with the banks fitting the bill ...
Merchant Warehouse is an ISO (Independent Sales Office). Paypal is not even in the same realm. Paypal is like western ...
You have to make at list $2 mil a year!!! that's what they told me so this thing you wrote ...
Google is trying to be a jack of all trades, their only success is their search and their advertising program. ...