Category: Merchant Services

Loyalty programs have been around for a very long time, but today, they’re everywhere. Our wallets are now packed with plastic and paper designed to get us some sort of discount from the stores and brands we love, and with good reason – loyalty cards work. They’re extremely popular with customers because people love discounts, […]

As a merchant, you take pride in providing the best service possible to each and every one of your customers. That’s why it can come as such a shock – even an insult – whenever a chargeback request comes in claiming that you failed to deliver on a transaction. While chargebacks are a reality of […]

In part one of this article, we examined Toast’s discounting and billing structure and how it impacts merchants. Essentially, Toast offers significant discounts to restaurants on hardware and software but then charges significantly inflated transaction fees, which wipe out any other savings for restaurants doing any kind of significant volume. In part two, we’ll look […]

A credit card is a credit card, and a payment terminal is a payment terminal, right? 😉 Many merchants and restauranteurs would agree with that statement, but they’d also be very wrong. As a result, a huge number of restaurants don’t have the hardware they need to process EMV cards – the current standard in […]

Third-party processors, like PayPal, Square, and Stripe, are companies that provide payment processing to clients by pooling all client payments through their own master merchant accounts. For example, if you sign up with PayPal, you do not get your own merchant account. Instead, whenever you accept a credit card payment, that payment is processed through […]

Toast POS is a cloud-based restaurant POS provider and payment processor that offers restaurants a variety of POS options built on an Android framework. Toast has been growing rapidly since it launched its POS platform in 2013, and many restauranteurs are drawn to Toast both for its simplicity and the attractive pricing offers the company […]

One of the most important questions any business should ask themselves when looking for a new merchant account or merchant services provider is “how will this service impact my profitability.” It can be easy to simply write off merchant fees as a cost of doing business – and certainly, they are – but small differences […]

In 2018, almost 5,900 brick and mortar retail locations closed. 2019 has seen another 6,000 go the way of the dodo, and by 2026, as many as 75,000 stores will shut their doors permanently. The reality is, brick and mortar stores are expensive – far more expensive than their web-based eCommerce counterparts. As a result, […]

In part one of this two-part series, we looked at some of the technology-based solutions merchants have available to them to catch fraud early on and stop it before it can result in chargebacks and lost revenues. In part two, we’ll look at the other side of the coin – legitimate chargebacks filed by customers […]

There are a number of factors that go into the success of a restaurant. Enjoyable food and friendly staff are two of the most obvious ones, but for a quick service restaurant, highly efficient operations are equally important. The ability to move a high volume of customers from the front door, through ordering, to enjoying […]

Chargebacks are a reality of accepting credit card payments. While many chargebacks are requested for valid reasons, there are plenty of cases in which disputes are initiated despite the merchant holding up every aspect of their end of the bargain. Unfortunately, many merchants don’t really understand the dispute process, how to handle a chargeback, or […]

For obvious reasons, the major credit card companies take fraud and excessive chargebacks very seriously, and companies like Visa and Mastercard have put forward thorough monitoring and tracking systems to try to prevent the losses associated with them. In October 2019, both companies made changes to their chargeback and fraud defense programs, and it’s important […]

Square is one of the world’s most popular payment processors, offering simple payment solutions and equally simple hardware to businesses looking to take electronic payments both online and in-store. One of Square’s most notable features has long been its pricing structure; a straight 2.75% with no additional flat fee tacked on to each transaction. But […]

BigCommerce is one of the leading eCommerce platforms currently on the market, serving some of the biggest brands in industries ranging from automotive to apparel. One of the biggest drivers in the platform’s popularity is its ability to serve as a completely standalone solution, including a built-in site builder, and a fully stocked app store […]

From retail stores to restaurants and beyond, hardwired cash registers are giving way to flexible, mobile point of sale (POS) systems designed to make it as easy as possible for customers to pay and for employees and management to go about daily tasks like inventory management, stock ordering, reporting, and more. LightSpeed Retail, ShopKeep, TouchBistro, […]

Square is almost synonymous with phone-based mobile payment processing, but Clover – a company owned by processing giant First Data – has been carving out their own chunk of the market and making a name for themselves with availability in retail settings like Sam’s Club. Each company offers a small card reader designed to integrate […]

In 2017, a class-action lawsuit was brought against Worldpay Inc. alleging that 200,000 merchants were overcharged with unexpected markups and additional fees. Worldpay settled that lawsuit for $52 million, but it’s recently come to light that, despite the settlement, Worldpay may not have changed the practices that led to that legal trouble in the first […]

Chargebacks are a reality of accepting card payments, and no merchant doing any significant volume can avoid them altogether. Sometimes a chargeback is outright fraudulent, and many are the result of poor customer service or misunderstandings between merchants and customers. But whatever the reason may be, merchants need to be ready to fight back when […]