The Myth That’s Keeping Your Gift Cards Off the Market Somewhere along the way, small business owners got sold a lie: that launching a branded gift card program requires building an online store first. That you need a full eCommerce stack, a digital storefront and weeks of setup before a single card changes hands. Meanwhile, […]
Category: E-Commerce
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Hybrid Integration: Why Gift Cards Don’t Need an Online Store
QuickBooks is the best-known name in small business accounting. Still, it isn’t the right fit for everyone. For example, some owners want lower costs, while others need more users or simpler invoicing. If that sounds like you, these QuickBooks alternatives are worth a look. Below, we compare three popular options side by side: Xero, FreshBooks […]
Simple Pricing Can Be Useful, but Simpler Does Not Always Mean Cheaper What makes a reasonable transaction fee? A surprising number of merchants never really answer that question. They know the rate printed on the processor’s website but not necessarily what accepting payments costs their business over an entire month. That is one reason flat […]
Refunds are a normal part of selling online. Still, with PayPal, every refund costs you more than the sale price. Under the PayPal refund policy, the fees you paid to receive a payment stay with PayPal, even when you send the full amount back to the buyer. Below, we explain what the policy says today, how […]
QuickBooks Desktop 2016 Still Opens for Some Users, but Support Is Long Gone QuickBooks Desktop 2016 discontinued support years ago, which creates an important distinction for merchants still running the software. A program may continue to open on a computer even after Intuit stops supporting the version. That does not mean the software still has […]
Shopify Is Still Strong, but It Is Not the Only Choice The best Shopify alternatives in 2026 give merchants different levels of control over their website, payment processing, hosting and technology stack. Shopify remains one of the strongest all-in-one eCommerce platforms available but some businesses eventually want more control over how their store operates or […]
BAMS has been offering electronic payment processing solutions to thousands of merchants all across the globe for well over a decade. Our experience and commitment to customer satisfaction and savings mean that there are a number of significant benefits to choosing BAMS as a payment processor – benefits that our competitors simply can’t match. From […]
Choosing a merchant services provider is a serious task and picking the wrong merchant account can result in headaches with integration, unnecessarily high fees, and delays in deposits reaching a merchant’s bank account. Merchants choosing between BAMS, Braintree, and QuickBooks Merchant Services – three of the most popular merchant services providers on the market – […]
The payments industry keeps getting bigger at the top. Over the past decade, payment processor mergers have combined some of the largest names in merchant services into even larger companies. So does size matter for your business? And when your processor merges, what actually changes for you? Below, we look at the biggest deals, what […]
Not all merchant accounts are created equal. From fees to support to hardware, countless factors determine which one is best for your business. One of the most important is fund availability: how quickly your payment processor deposits the money from your sales into your bank account. Funding speed varies from provider to provider. If your […]
Ever since the introduction of the original Square Reader – the small, white plastic magstripe reader that plugs right into the headphone jack of a smartphone – Square has been a widely recognized brand name among small businesses and entrepreneurs. There is no question the Square Reader was revolutionary for pop-up shops, mobile businesses, and […]
Since its initial launch in 2011, San Francisco-based Stripe has become one of the most recognizable brand names in online payment processing. Used by online businesses in over 200 countries, Stripe has recently expanded its electronic payments offerings with the introduction of its in-store card reader, the Stripe Terminal. Stripe has a number of third-party […]
Cash flow is everything, and one of the biggest keys to success in business is keeping accounts receivable to a minimum. The faster your invoices get paid, the healthier your company’s finances will be, and the better you’ll sleep at night. That means using any tool that can help you collect payment faster is a […]
Merchants are all painfully aware of the fact they’re charged fees on the card transaction they put through, but many don’t understand what those fees are made up of. While those fees contain a number of different components, the largest portion is made up of the interchange fee. Interchange fees are charged on every single […]
Providing shoppers with a smooth POS, easy checkout experience is key to generating return business and a loyal customer base. There are few things that can frustrate a customer more than waiting in a long line once they’ve made their buying decision or running into trouble with systems at the cash. That’s why it’s so […]
Authorize.Net – the most popular payment gateway service provider in the world – is in the process of making a big change to how it verifies transactions, and that change impacts the business of every single one of their Direct Post users. The company is phasing out MD5-based hashing and switching to SHA-512 signature key […]
BAMS is the industry leader in payment processing, trusted by thousands of merchants across the globe. That success is due to our full suite of features designed to help businesses like yours accept electronic payments with less fuss, and lower fees. BAMS has been designed from the ground up to provide all of the functionality […]
Connecting Payment Processing With the eCommerce Tools You Already Use We now live in a digital world, and online shopping has become a standard part of how people buy. A 2018 study cited by SmallBusiness.com found that 75% of Americans had purchased something online. That figure now serves more as historical context than a picture […]
Chargebacks are an unfortunate reality of accepting credit card payments, but they aren’t something businesses have to lie down and accept without a fight. Some chargebacks are completely legitimate, like cases where a purchase was made fraudulently by a third party. But many chargebacks are fraudulent, frivolous, or abuses of the system. In those cases, […]
