When customers aren’t happy with a purchase, they have two options: they can choose to request a refund from the merchant, or they can file a chargeback with their card issuer. While customer dissatisfaction is not pleasant for any business owner, it’s inevitibility means that merchants should plan ahead to ensure that customers will ask for a refund rather than file a chargeback. Chargebacks frequently pile on extra fees, and in the case that you need to dispute one, it will be a time-consuming process and quite often will fall in the customer’s favor, even unfairly.

Merchants can prevent these disruptive chargebacks by having a customer-friendly return policy in place. Keep reading to learn how you can create a return policy that makes it easy for customers to reach out to you first when they’re dissatisfied with their purchase.

Continue reading

Having an online shop can be an important tool to grow your business. Unfortunately, though, e-commerce fraud rates are growing and many customers are aware of this. If the customer does not feel that the website is reliable, they will likely not feel comfortable entering sensitive card data. In order to maximize sales and grow your customer base, it’s increasingly important that you set up your storefront in a way that people will trust. Here are some tips to help shoppers feel at ease:

If you’re a small business, the bad news is that you may have to be extra vigilant in protecting yourself against cyber attacks. While we often think that hackers target the biggest companies, research from 2016 found that more than half of small businesses reported being a victim of data breaches in the past year. Below are some reasons why small businesses are bigger targets, and what you can do to protect yourself.

For many years, people have been predicting that cash will disappear. With the majority of U.S. and Canadian consumers reporting to use cash at least some of the time, though, it’s unlikely that cash will ever be eliminated completely, at least in the near future. However, as consumers’ interests change and technology advances, it’s becoming clear that the public is quickly preferring the ease of card or digital options when making payments, and in fact, 20% of people report that they no longer even carry cash.

Millennials have major spending power. They are spending $600 billion per year, and by 2020 they’re expected to make up 30% of all retail sales. With that in mind, it’s important to consider what millennials’ spending preferences are.

While advancements in consumer and merchant fraud protection are constantly improving, the nature of e-commerce makes it more difficult for retailers to avoid fraud. These “card not present” transactions are a bigger risk to merchants, and often times the bank will hold the e-commerce merchant liable for chargebacks. Fortunately, there are many steps you can take as an e-commerce business to prevent losses due to fraud.

Sometimes, all you need is some extra capital. Fundomate makes getting an unsecured, uncollateralized business loan simple.
Fundomate guarantees funding that is:

FAST
Complete the 2-minute application and get funding in as little as 1 business day.

EASY
The days of complicated loan applications are over. The process is simple.

AUTOMATIC
Regular fixed payments mean no worrying about large end-of-month obligations.

SAFE & SECURE
The most secure platform in the industry. Fundomate utilizes bank-level security, so your information is 100% secure.

Fidelity has partnered with Fundomate to bring the advantages of simple loans to business owners like you.

Apply Now

If you run an online business, fraudsters are no strangers to you. According to PYMNTS’ Global Fraud Index, last year alone, the dollars at risk per every $100 in online sales rose from $1.89 to $7.30, an increase of nearly 400%. Before you can even tackle the problem, identification is the first step in managing online fraud. FraudWatch, a leading online fraud-detection solution, created a handy guide that identifies 6 profiles of popular fraudsters. The guide includes The High Roller, The Skimmer, The Dealer, The Opportunist, The Prankster and The Insider.

Every now and then you come across an online tool that is so useful, you want to shout about it from a rooftop – or a blog post.

We all use PDF documents during the course of a day, but it can be frustrating to make changes to PDF documents.

PDFescape is a free online tool and is the answer to all your PDF editing needs! Some of the most popular uses are:

While many businesses and organizations accept payments online, a significant amount of sales are still done the old-fashioned way – by phone. But manually staffing phone lines means there will inevitably be lost revenue, due to high call volume and when the office is closed.

With a pay-by-phone solution, you can accept payments around the clock through an automated system. Utilizing IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technology that is fully customizable, the system will guide callers through the available options, and securely process credit card payments in live time. And that is just the start.

Fidelity offers the most cost-effective Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solution that enables automated phone payments. Our Pay-By-Phone service offers a powerful, yet easy-to-use system that is available around the clock, and has many benefits for businesses and nonprofits.  To illustrate, a charity running a raffle fundraiser can offer donors a hotline. Callers will hear a pre-recorded welcome message and be presented with the following flow:

While the world moves towards a more digitized society, research shows that brick and mortar retail is not going away either. According to the United States Census Bureau, 90 percent of retail’s transaction value is spent at physical stores. Additionally, a study conducted by Capgemini’s Digital Transformation Institute found that 70 percent of consumers want to experience touching and feeling products before purchase. While digital has transformed retailed in many ways, it seems that in-person retail is here to stay.

However, while customers prefer to make the purchase in-store, there are still many functions of brand recognition and the product decision-making process that happen online.  Research by SharkNinja describes the processes that occur online and offline. By understanding where processes usually occur, companies can anticipate consumer needs and draw them all the way through the pipeline to closing the sale and beyond.