A recent Javelin study reports that fraud and chargeback management consumes between 13 and 20 percent of a business’ operational budget.  Since EMV was implemented at retail locations, online merchants have been hit with increasing fraud attempts. Fraud is a huge expense that consumes inventory, increases overhead costs and accrues hefty bank fees.  However, there are a few key areas that merchants can focus on to protect their business from chargebacks. Most online retailers make at least one of these seven mistakes that are costing them chargebacks:

In 1949, credit cards began in the form of a “Diners Club Card” which allowed consumers to buy now and pay later on travel and entertainment. From paper to plastic, to chips and now even near-field-communication waves, credit cards have come a long way to reach the point they have come to in today’s day and age.

Technology has redefined and revolutionized payments today and created a more seamless customer experience as well as heightened efficiency for merchants.

Recent surveys conducted by Atradius and CFO.com revealed some shocking statistics about accounts receivable:

• 39 percent of invoices in the US are paid late.
• 48 percent of customers will try to delay payments.
• 11 percent of customers never receive their invoices.
• Invalid or incorrect purchase order information leads to 49 percent of disputes.

Cash is not going away in the foreseeable future, but people are carrying a lot less of it around.  The Nilson Report estimates that cash payments will be 24 percent less by 2018, and that card payments will rise over 50 percent. If you own a business and are not set up to accept credit cards yet, it is time to get started.  

The International Restaurant and Foodservice Show, which took place on March 5-7, 2017 at the Javits Center in New York was where the newest and most dynamic innovations in the culinary world were debuted. Fidelity Payment Services presented payment solutions uniquely crafted for the foodservice industry at Booth 1956.

Fidelity’s 21 years of industry experience have given them a deep understanding of the restaurant and foodservice business. When it comes to payments, merchants are looking for lower rates, fast funding, quick and simple transactions, and top-notch customer support.

Many software systems and e-commerce shopping carts provide their users the option of storing their customers’ credit card numbers for future use. This ability enables businesses to process their existing customers’ cards without the hassle of requesting credit card information for every purchase that customer wishes to make. Storing credit card data on a merchant’s system, however, introduces tremendous risks – a data breach to a merchant’s system can expose credit card data, and the merchant may be liable for damages that ensue. Additionally, storing credit card information requires a very stringent level of PCI compliance which can be quite a hassle, as well as costly, to the merchant. Tokenization solves all of these problems.

2016 was a banner year for data breaches, with the highest levels to date and a 40 percent increase from the previous year. Yahoo was the victim of one billion account breaches, not to mention Oracle and Verizon as well. Fraudsters, once armed with consumer’ and business’ private information can either post, sell or use this data online which in turn escalates card-not-present fraud further.  Where passwords have been enough to protect consumers and merchants in the past, they are not strong enough to prevent the fraud of today’s day and age.

As e-commerce sites such as Amazon and Wal-Mart grow in popularity, brick and mortar businesses are simply not keeping up. The main cause of this shift is the convenience and simplicity of shopping online versus in-store. If brick and mortar could somehow emulate the high level of customer service that online offers, they might be able to bridge the gap between e-commerce and in-store sales.

According to the “State of Retail 2017” report, brick and mortar stores lost $150 billion to online sales last year alone.  The survey participants confirmed that they would shop 4.7% more in-store if the customer service were better. They seek the speed and level of personalization that the virtual marketplace offers, and hope that retail stores can learn to adapt and offer those benefits as well.

Please note that our Customer Service department will be closed on President’s Day, this Monday, February 20th. 

Our 24*7 emergency hotline will be available for merchants to contact us and receive support on critical issues at (718) 782-2823 ext. 311. The Customer Service department will re-open Tuesday, February 21st at 9:00 am.

Please note that our Canada and UK offices will be open.

Thank you.

Collecting and processing payments is a basic yet essential function of any business.  Payments are the center of business growth and development, and it is essential for business owners to understand the options available to them.

Merchant services is a broad term that refers to the various payment processing options. While most people associate merchant accounts with credit card processing, the term encompasses other payment options as well.

We talked about the availability of a QuickBooks integration with Fidelity’s payment processing.  Here is a bit more about how a QuickBooks plugin can benefit your business, specifically in terms of lower rates, customization options, and convenience.