Sharing thoughts, facts, ideas, and best practices for business owners of all kinds.
Credit Card
Partnership
Point of Sale
POS
Once you complete a sale and sign an agreement with a merchant, it’s often easy to just move onto the next one and focus on finding more of them to sign. Merchants you’ve signed tend to stay happy and complacent as long as their hardware and software are functioning properly…
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Smart Card Reader
A smart card reader is how you swipe, or rather “dip,” to purchase something with an EMV credit card (or chip card). It looks almost exactly like a traditional credit card terminal or swiper, but it’s specifically designed to read chip cards. Credit card companies have seen the light. They…
Credit Card
Smart Credit Card
It sounds very European doesn’t it? “Smart credit card” isn’t something you traditionally hear when referring to credit cards here in the United States. The reason it might sound “foreign” to you is because for the last decade or so, foreign countries have been using smart cards instead of traditional…
Credit Card
Virtual Credit Cards
Virtual credit cards allow you to purchase goods and services anonymously online. Just sign up up for an account at a provider (listed below), deposit money onto your card(s) through your bank or credit card, and then go shopping without revealing any of your actual card information anywhere! When making…
Affinity
Affinity Diagrams
What in the world are Affinity Diagrams? Essentially, their function is visual organization of data, especially during multi-person brainstorming sessions. You’ll end up asking yourself a lot of questions you never thought you would have to when you became a business owner. There are so many things to consider when…
Customer Loyalty
Loyalty Program
You’ve probably heard of loyalty programs before. If you have not, chances are you have at least heard of club cards, loyalty cards, rewards cards, or points cards. Their use is widespread and the average US household has 21 loyalty programs. Companies try to add consumers to their loyalty programs…
POS
Restaurant POS
What is a restaurant POS, what are its benefits, how does it help, and what kind do I need? The introduction of POS computers to restaurants was one of the most effective and efficient things that has happened in the restaurant industry in many years. Prior to their introduction, restaurants…
Restaurant POS Systems
Restaurant POS System
Here’s a strange way to start a conversation about restaurant POS systems, but bear with me… Restaurants have always been under public scrutiny. Since serving food to the public became a form of business, customers have always critiqued restaurants’ levels of service, in addition to obvious factors like food quality…
Marketing
Small Business Marketing
Small business marketing, done right, increases customer flow, money flow, and (you would hope) your free time! Small businesses need all the help they can get these days. We don’t have the huge budgets of major corporations. Cutting costs and stopping money leakage is essential for small businesses, and especially…
Credit Card
Chip and PIN Credit Cards
Chip and PIN credit cards provide a higher level of protection against fraud and theft than any other credit cards before them. The world would be a very different place if it weren’t for credit cards. We wouldn’t have the ability to buy anything online for one. And if we…
Credit Card
Credit Card Chip Technology
Credit card chip technology is a security measure to protect our personal financial information from theft and fraud. How? And what does this mean for your business? We’ll get into it in just a moment. Another day, another threat to our security, right? It seems like every time we turn…
Credit Card
Credit Card Readers
Everyone knows what a credit card reader is. Or at least you know where you can find one. Every store, every gas station, every establishment who accepts credit cards as a form of payment has one. Even people who don’t have or don’t use a credit card could tell you…
Credit Card
Credit Card Swiper
It reads the card’s information when you swipe the card through. A swiper is one way to enable your business to accept payments by credit or debit card. If you wish to stay competitive in the 21st century you need to have a swiper. If you aren’t familiar with credit…
The world of payments is rapidly changing in front of our eyes. Massive consolidation is happening at a record pace, and this will inevitably impact your business as a merchant services agent.