Did you know that merchant account processing is one of the strongest marketing strategies for your business? Do you accept credit cards? Did you know that credit card payments make up 60 to 100 percent of all payments in most industries? Did you know that you could lose customers if you don’t offer them credit card payment options today? A merchant account is no longer an option for most business owners but a necessity. However, investigating whether your merchant processing account is worth the fees is a good business practice.

A merchant account offers you a number of benefits. In addition to customer convenience, it provides another direct sales channel, streamlines payment procedures, facilitates immediate authorization of valid payments and payment collection in real-time, and increases functionality. But these benefits come at a cost. But how much is the cost?

Merchant processing companies charge you 2 to 5 percent of every transaction. Try to stay near the 2-3 percent per transaction fee. If your monthly statement shows a transaction fee of 4 percent or more, then consider alternative options or negotiate with your provider to lower merchant processing fees. Don’t stick with the high fees unless you have a very good reason for it.

Understanding Fee Structures

The types and number of fee structures in the merchant services industry are innumerable. To avoid paying extra, analyze your monthly merchant processing statements and make sure you understand every fee in your contract. Some credit card processing companies use new and peculiar names for fees charged. Others companies charge you some kind of supplies program without delivering any additional service. Pay only when you are certain that the fee is legitimate and the service is well-received. When switching to a new company, get every fee in writing to avoid unexpected future payments.

Enlist various fees and the worth of their services to customers to assess and modify your cost to value ratio. Question reps about the necessity of different fees and confirm their answers from Customer Care centers for credit card companies. The more aware you are of fee structures and company manipulations, the better will be your chances of protecting your business from unnecessary payments and charges.

Bring in a Second Pair of Eyes

While you can eliminate huge amounts of unnecessary charges from credit card processing companies by analyzing your monthly credit card statements, getting your business associates to do the same and comparing notes can help save a lot more. By doing this, you can compare the perceived worth of services, most important fees and ones you should do away with. This also improves your chances of findin good credit card processing for small business.

In some cases, simple negotiation and withdrawal of unnecessary services will be sufficient to give you enough value for your services’ worth. In others, you may need to survey the market and find cheap credit card processing solutions. The benefits of credit card processing can only be realized only by eliminating avoidable and unnecessary charges.

While most small business merchants today have opened up to credit card payments processing, there are still some on the sidelines. It is not a lack of will, but the lack of information that holds them back. Many merchants are not aware of how much they stand to gain with credit card processing and how easy it is to get started.

As a credit card processing company, you should fill the gap and educate customers on the advantages of accepting credit card payments. Here are a few tips to get started:

Describe the Merchant Account Credit Card Processing Solution

Explain what a credit card processing company does for small business merchants. Walk the customer through the whole cycle starting from the consumer swiping their credit cards to the time the funds are deposited in the merchant account. Describe the application process in 3 easy steps. Outline all the merchant services you will be providing such as merchant account set up, credit card terminals, and customer service.

Create Merchant Account Credit Card Processing Brochure with Details

Create a brochure for the merchant to help them make an informed decision. Supporting documents substantiate your offer when the merchant is thinking it over or discussing it with her business partner.

Identify the Merchant Account Credit Card Processing Needs

Ask the merchant how orders are accepted – sales desk, phone, mail, or online? The type of credit card processing will affect the credit card processing fees charged and will give you an idea of the type of credit card processing equipment that will be needed.  What is the merchant’s average sales volume in a month? Are there seasonal variations in the credit card sales volume? The answers to these questions will not only enable you to give a reasonably accurate estimate, but also help the merchant in the decision making process.

Disclose All the Credit Card Processing Fees Upfront

Clear communication is the key to building long term relationships with merchants. Describe all the credit card processing fees included in the contract – annual fee, monthly minimum fee, processing fee, chargeback fee, monthly statement fee, and gateway fees for online credit card processing. Make sure you have no hidden merchant services fees. You don’t want the merchants to have a bad taste in their mouth when they recieve their first monthly statement as the switching costs for merchant account credit card processing solutions are very low and you may lose your recurring revenue stream at the drop of a hat.

Discuss the Potential Increase in Sales with Credit Card Processing

Ask the merchants about instances when a sale could not be made because they did not accept credit card payments. Discuss about the comfort and security consumers feel with credit card payments, especially for high ticket items. Shoppers can pay for expensive items and buy more without worrying about carrying cash in their wallets. Even after deducting all the credit card processing fees paid out to the credit card processing companies, the merchant is likely to experience an increase in revenues and profit margins.

Merchant Account Setup Process

Help the merchant in setting up their merchant account. After the merchant account is set up, send the merchant details such as account number and passcode via a secure mail system. Send the credit card terminals via fedex or UPS with easy to follow installation guides and operating manuals so that they can start accepting credit card payments within minutes. If the merchant needs help, provide timely customer support services. Administer the online system and integrate the customer’s merchant account number with their website for e-commerce transactions. Provide clear instructions for any merchant account process that needs to be followed by the merchant.

Selling merchant account credit card processing solutions to merchants is just the first step. Following through on your commitment by providing excellent merchant account support and customer service can help you stand out from the crowd and build a sustainable competitive advantage  in the credit card processing industry.

Get started with receiving credit card processing leads from TradeSeam.

It’s obvious that the Super Bowl is good for bartenders and bookies, but a surprisingly wide range of other businesses also benefit from the annual Super Bowl event. Some of these examples might surprise you, and they should get you thinking about how your business might benefit from Super Bowl XLIV.

Even if it has nothing to do with football, just about any business can find a Super Bowl tie-in with a little creativity. It can be as simple as redecorating a store or revising your web design to play up the Super Bowl theme.  It may involve showing how your products can enhance a viewer’s enjoyment of the big game. Or, it may involve using search marketing to promote football-related items or memorabilia for either Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts who are now headed back to the NFL title game for the second time in four years and their fourth Super Bowl in franchise history or Drew Brees and the Saints who have helped revive the city of New Orleans that was devastated by hurricane Katrina four years ago.

The following are some examples of how businesses have found ways to benefit from previous Super Bowl events:

1. The Super Bowl of snacking. Super Bowl Sunday is the top day of the year for snack food consumption. One company alone ramps up production of potato and tortilla chips by 10 million pounds leading up to the game. In all, food and beverage sales jumped by $261 million leading up to the 2009 Super Bowl, compared to an average week. It doesn’t all have to be about snack foods, however. As an example of how business owners can broaden the football tie-in, caterers have also found a profitable niche serving Super Bowl events.  
2. Referees watch replays on a tiny screen, but other people prefer something bigger. While the ref is still under the hood peering at that miniature screen, viewers at home have already made their minds up about the call, because they are sitting back in comfort and watching the game on a wide-screen HDTV. In 2009, retailers sold 61 percent more HDTVs in the week before the Super Bowl than in the previous week. The business lesson goes beyond television equipment–an event like the Super Bowl can be used to create a perceived deadline that prompts buying behavior.
3. Memorabilia lets fans make the most out of their bragging rights. When either the New Orleans Saints or Indianapolis Colts wins the Super Bowl XLIV, the fans of one of the franchises will wear the victory on his or her sleeve–and coffee mug, license plate, or anything else that can be stamped with a team’s logo for 2010 and beyond. Don’t feel restricted by whether or not an item has anything to do with watching football. In fact, the more unconventional it is for an item to carry a football logo, the more in demand it might be. And this years super bowl featues two teams with potent offenses to make it a spectacle worth watching and remembering for a life time.
4. What’s an armchair quarterback without an armchair? Furniture retailers also benefit from the Super Bowl, as fans seek a larger couch to accommodate their guests, or the perfect recliner from which to watch the game. This line of thinking can be stretched to promote sales of any household item that is used when entertaining. With two hall of fame quarterbacks – Peyton Manning of the Colts and Drew Brees of the Saints managing the game, a new reclining armchair for all want to be NFL quarterbacks will most likely be the hottest selling item for Super Bowl XLIV.
5. Some women know how to take a man’s mind off of football. A racy Victoria’s Secret ad during the Super Bowl once drew 1.2 million visitors to their Web site. After all, what better way to celebrate victory or take the sting out of losing? The point is, even a product as far removed from football as lingerie can use the Super Bowl as a promotional focal point and boost sales to kick off the new year earnings.

How Your Business Can Benefit from Super Bowl XLIV

Here are some quick tips on using the Super Bowl XLIV to benefit your business:

1. Highlight items for use while watching the game. Get creative about this–it doesn’t have to be an obvious fit like televisions and snack food. It can be as simple as Peyton Manning and Drew Brees quarterback dolls that can be used by the opposing fans to get into the game at this years Super Bowl parties.
2. Revamp your website design to feature a Super Bowl theme. Incorporate some football-related content for either the Indianapolis Colts or the New Orleans Saints teams to play on interest generated by this years game.
3. Predict the Super Bowl XLIV winner between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints and plan on putting  the winner’s logo on your products on the night of the game. It’s actually been done with coffins, so there really are no limits!
4. Create Super Bowl promotions. Look at your products and services from a football perspective, so you can do things such as tweaking your pay per click campaigns to tie into Super Bowl-related terms, or using football trivia and fun facts to draw people to your Web site - do you know how many super bowls the Saints have won in their franchise history? Has a rookie coach ever taken an NFL team to the Super Bowl? If you don’t have an ecommerce website, get an online merchant account today and provide online credit card processing capabilities on your website.
5. Use promotions tied to the final score to get customers to return after the game. This can stretch the benefit of the Super Bowl out by a few extra days and weeks, and prolong your sales as we try and recover from the deepest recession since the 1930s Great Depression.
6. Use temp staffing and call center outsourcing to ramp up capacity. Don’t let capacity constrain you from taking maximum advantage of the promotional potential of Super Bowl  XLIV.  Temporary staffing, telemarketing and call center companies can provide you the flexible capacity to handle the surge in volume during the next two weeks.

People continue to flash credit cards for big ticket items. In fact, wallets and purses nearly always hold more than one type of credit card. Small businesses and merchants accept credit card payment processing to give  customers multiple payment options. And credit card payments are preferred by customers because they can purchase today and pay tomorrow.  Credit cards are also safer to carry around than cash for big ticket purchases.

An important factor that has brought about this momentous spike for small business to accept credit card payments is cheap credit card processing and the burgening demand  for credit card processing internet merchant accounts. Faster and cheaper communications, networking, verification and online credit card processing have significantly reduced the cost of merchant services credit card processing.

Value Added Services

Though cheap credit card processing rates are a very important factor in selecting credit card processing companies, there are other equally important factors to consider. What about the additional merchant services offered? Many credit card processing companies take care of setting up a merchant account for the business, installing POS terminals, payment gateways, and provide customer service.

Making Sense of  Cheap Credit Card Processing Fees

The best credit card processing companies advertise their cost advantage and economical rates to snare customers. However, there is more here than meets the eye. Credit card processing companies also charge other fees you need to know about. There is a discount rate that is a percentage of each transaction amount, a transaction fee, an annual or monthly fee, a minimal merchant account fee, and others. Additionally, the discount fee varies with the type of transaction. Higher the risk, higher the fee. Online cedit card processing is charged more than card swipes. Business, corporate, international, government and reward cards are charged more than personal credit cards.

No small business or merchant, online or offline, can go far without incorporating credit card payment processing into its sales functions in todays economic environment. Cheap credit card processing for small business makes it easy for owners to adopt this burgeoning trend. The fees paid out to the merchant services credit card processing companies is worth the increase in revenue potential generated from credit cards, that are still the #1 payment option because of the convenience they offer consumers and small business.

The climate change conference in Copenhagen will go down in history as one that generated so much hope from all over the globe but was unable to deliver on any of the key issues facing our planet.  Nicknamed “a city that engenders hope and goodwill”, Copenhagen’s green credentials as an environment-friendly city were a big plus which gave everyone attending the gathering something to take home.

Before the summit, the burning issue was how to get every country to come to an agreement that would extract a commitment from developed countries to help reduce the ravaging impact of a distorted environment resulting from industrial activities.

No country, no business and no individual is without responsibility. We need to take measures within our work places and homes to conserve energy, implement  practices towards “greening” our  business environments. The internet can help businesses increase customer outreach while reducing waste and conserving natural resources. 

A little caution in office day-to-day practices, internet marketing strategies, effective web design, and credit card processing services not only enable businesses to project the image of a responsible and forward thinking company but also improve its bottom line.

Conserve energy with small changes in the work place

Businesses are supporting the green cause by implementing simple changes within their offices such as using recycled paper, turning off lights and equipment when not in use, scanning and emailing documents instead of paper faxes, installing energy-saving office equipment, email instead of snail mail, and so on.

Use Internet marketing  instead of traditional advertising

An increasing number of small businesses are using internet advertising to promote their business. Online advertising is more targeted and measurable than traditional advertising and also conserves resources by doing away with print advertising.

Effective web design

Small businesses can build websites to reach customers online so that customers can review  their product brochures, collateral online and  even purchase their products with a few clicks reducing the carbon footprint required for businesses to sell products and or services today.

Online Credit card processing saves wastage

Online Credit card processing is not just a convenience. It cuts down on paper and ink usage. Invoices can be sent to customers via emails instead of printing paper and mailing it in envelopes.

It is every business’ responsibility to do its share in conserving the environment. These simple cost-effective measures help small businesses make good on their implicit promise to serve the local community. The environment is the newest subject on everybody’s mind and businesses can make the simple changes to win the favor of their customers.

The recession has brought many small and medium sized business merchants on the brink of a breakdown. With the constant anxiety of losing collaterals and regional banks closing their doors, it is no wonder that business owners are worried sick. However, small business owners need not give up hope yet. Business cash advance can help you pull your business out of the doldrums.

A win-win bargain

Merchant cash advance (MCA) is simple and fast to obtain and does not need the security of good credit scores or collaterals. The winning card for MCA approval is good credit card sales volume. MCA providers pay for a share of the business’ future credit card sales with the advanced amount. They recover it with interest by receiving a cut of the credit card sales every month. This is an ideal partnership as the MCA provider shares in the highs and lows of the business. No fixed installments. No collaterals. What could be better?

 Business Cash Advance gaining momentum

Business cash advance is gaining popularity in the recessional environment as an unconventional but ideal finance source, and has already crossed the $10 billion mark in funding. Organizations such as NAMAA (North American Merchant Advance Association) are trying to standardize industry practices across merchant cash advance companies to ensure MCA remains a preferred choice for businesses even after the market picks up.

Interest rates comparable to current small business loan rates

The only fly in the soup for businesses opting for business cash advance is the high interest rates. However, banks have hiked up their commercial loan rates dramatically in the recent times, inadvertently pushing more business towards merchant cash advance providers. If you have to pay the same anyway, why not go for the option that promises quick financing, flexibility, no securities, no explanations and places faith in your future prosperity.

The economic slump has hit small businesses. True. But being hit does not compel you to stay down. Avail business cash advance to infuse life back into your business and realize your ambitions.

Do you dream of retiring early and enjoying life in the way you want? Take that long-awaited vacation to a far-off destination? Break out of the mundane routine of a nine hour job and a long commute? I guess we all do. But how many of us follow a plan to make that dream come true?

Relax. Realizing this dream does not involve even more slogging and stinting. It needs a little extra effort, commitment and motivation. Instead of wasting your spare time on time killing television and video games you can take up some extra work to add to your monthly income. Invest the extra income in a retirement plan or some other investment plan to enjoy the benefits in later years.

Smart and far thinking people look out for work that brings in dollars with a few hours of work every day or over weekends. There are many options in the professional arena such as internet marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), website design, answering services, telemarketing, affiliate marketing and content writing for websites and blogs. As enterprising people come up with novel and sometimes wacky ideas to generate dollars, more avenues open up for people keen on converting spare hours into money.

Small businesses also benefit by hiring part-time or home-based professionals as they can save on overhead and infrastructure costs.

Every day we read media reports of corporate insolvencies, bankruptcy and spiraling costs. Small businesses are feeling the pinch as the recession has slashed customer spending drastically. Whether a small business has B2B or B2C dealings, it should be watchful of signs that imply customers are facing financial deficit. The rising unemployment is making a bad situation worse for small businesses as customers are left with no disposable income.

Most small businesses have incorporated credit card processing into their workplaces. Customers can easily use credit cards to purchase items they may never be able to pay for. If customers insist on using credit cards, it may be because they are hard on cash. If they call up credit card agencies to dispute genuine purchases, it’s time to stop doing business with them.

Small B2B businesses need to be especially alert for signs of client companies nearing bankruptcy. Problems in large companies usually get media attention and are publicized. Falling stock prices are another bad omen. If the clients are smaller companies, the business should be wary of customers requesting extension of credit repeatedly and delaying payments. Talking to sales people, industry peers, and collection agents also gives an idea of the company’s financial status. The business should keep a tight control of the receivables and recover payments within 30-45 days to avoid getting pennies for a dollar in bankruptcy settlements.

Small businesses can have a tough job collecting bills. Customers may try to delay payments to maintain cash flow for their own business. Some may even disclaim payments. Small businesses do not have the margin to survive delayed payments for long. Incoming payments are the lifeblood of small businesses, used to pay suppliers and run daily operations. Collection agencies can be a great help here as they are effective in collecting a good percentage of debts on time, without hurting the customer relationship.

Small businesses should keep a tab on customer’s financial standing so that they can take immediate steps to minimize losses. Failed payments can drain the cash flow and derail the business entirely.