The 2019 holiday shopping season has officially begun! Learn how your business can benefit from what business insiders are predicting for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales trends.

It’s that crazy time of year when stores have Christmas decorations on display right next to the Halloween candy. It’s only October, but holiday shoppers are already on the move! 

There are lots of opportunities for merchants to capitalize on the upcoming holiday season: Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Chanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Day are all coming within the next three months, and holiday shoppers are ready to shop. Here are some promotional ideas to help retailers get ready to take advantage of the season filled with family gatherings, festive celebrations, and gift-giving.

PhonePay is our hosted, fully automated voice solution enabling you to accept phone payments from your customers quickly and securely, day or night. When you sign up for PhonePay, you’ll receive a dedicated dial-in number for customers to make payments or donations. You can choose pre-recorded scripts or create custom scripts to guide your customers through the IVR prompts so they can enter their payment information quickly and easily.

Here Are the Latest Features (as of May 2019)

• Your customers now have the option to save their card information on file so they can make future payments or donations without needing to re-enter their information.
• Your customers will now receive a text confirmation when they make a payment or donation.
• You can customize donation or product and service categories to help keep track of different payment/donation types.
• You can customize preset amounts, enabling your customers to select a payment or donation amount with the click of a button (i.e., they’ll be prompted to press “1” to pay/donate $18, press “2” for $36, etc.).

With the help of this automated system, you can reduce overhead costs, eliminate manual labor and save time, reduce data entry errors, and improve customer satisfaction by offering additional payment methods. Plus, PhonePay is highly secured and keeps payment data out of scope for PCI compliance.

The global shift to EMV chip cards has done wonders in terms of reducing counterfeit fraud. However, this added layer of security against card-present fraud means that many fraudsters have ramped up their efforts to steal data online—in fact, over the past year alone, the average price that fraudsters can fetch for card-not-present data has doubled-which means greater incentive to hack online retailers!

Fortunately, the payments industry has been focusing its efforts on optimizing online payment security for quite awhile now, and the good news is, a few big changes are just around the corner. If you’re an e-commerce retailer, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the following security advances:

As the cold days of winter come to an end and summer looms on the horizon, now’s the perfect time to take stock of your business and make fresh changes to propel your business to new heights. Tap into this atmosphere of new beginnings and set the reset button on the past several months of hibernation with these 6 easy ways to spring clean your business.

As a business owner, we hope that you’ve implemented tactics and technology to keep your digital assets secure against attacks (if not, Fidelity is here to help!). But, don’t forget to stay vigilant against threats to your personal accounts, too. Here are 5 ways you can bolster security for your bank account:

Protect Your Business From the Costs of a Potential Data Breach

Data breaches, which entail the unauthorized release of private personal data, are a growing concern for businesses across the country. And if you’re a small business, a data breach can bring particularly serious consequences: a recent survey revealed that an astounding 60% of small businesses will shutter their doors in the aftermath of a data breach.

Fidelity is proud to offer merchants the Data Protection Service Program, which provides coverage for liabilities incurred from the fallout of an actual or suspected data breach. While we truly hope that you won’t ever need to utilize the benefits of this program, should a data breach you can rest assured that your business will avoid tremendous losses.

While cash discount programs have been legal in all 50 states for several years, it has not been easy for Merchants to implement such programs since the lines between cash discounting and credit card surcharging are very blurry—and, while cash discounting is legal, credit card surcharging is illegal in many states.

This has been the case in New York for some time now, but a January 2019 ruling in the New York State Court of Appeals will grant Merchants slightly more leeway with surcharging, and accordingly, cash discount programs (many restrictions do still apply, though). In this blog post, we’ll review the facts on cash discount programs and surcharges, as well as what New York-based Merchants need to know to abide with state and card-brand regulations.

In April of 2018, Visa introduced the Visa Claims Resolution (VCR) in order to streamline the chargeback dispute process and reduce errors. While the new process is beneficial for businesses overall, it’s important that Merchants familiarize themselves with the changes to avoid any fees or issues. In this blog post, we’ll review several ways in which Visa has changed their chargeback dispute process and how you can prepare accordingly.

Over the past year, Fidelity experienced unprecedented growth and advancement in terms of its overall infrastructure, proprietary technology, customer service, and lineup of products and services. We’ve enjoyed witnessing the high levels of satisfaction among our merchants, developers, employees, and stakeholders— in part due to these many changes.

Here’s a list of some of the biggest improvements, product launches, and more from the past year.

Interested in trying out Clover’s lineup of 2-in-1 payment terminals and POS systems? Now’s the time! While supplies last, Fidelity merchants who purchase a new Clover Station, Mini, or Flex terminal will be able to benefit from a complimentary three-year warranty on the device ($100-$150 value).

Clover’s sleek and compact devices will be sure to upgrade your storefront and improve the customer experience. They are fully customizable with a wide range of POS apps, and are P2PE-certified to simplify the PCI compliance process.

To take advantage of this offer, please contact our Customer Service Department.

For more information on Clover, click here.