BAMS Blog

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 […]

In June of 2018, Adobe completed its acquisition of Magento, one of the world’s leading eCommerce platforms. With the acquisition, Magento Commerce Cloud was added to the Adobe Experience Cloud, giving Adobe full end-to-end coverage of every aspect of online store creation and management, from web design to graphic design, content creation, sales, order management, […]

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 […]

A seller receives an order and delivers on their end of the bargain flawlessly, only to later find that the money they earned has been clawed back due to a chargeback. This is an all too common scenario, especially in commerce online where purchases are made without any physical, real-world interaction between customer and merchant. […]

BAMS offers everything new and experienced merchants alike need to ensure that their customers’ sensitive payment data is always as safe as possible. We provide every one of our merchants with expert guidance through the sometimes complex process of becoming fully PCI compliant.

WooCommerce and Shopify are two of the leading e-commerce platforms in the world. Each is full-featured and designed specifically to aide online sales, but there are as many differences (if not more) than there are similarities between the two platforms. Below we’ll analyze four of the primary areas of comparison between the two platforms, and […]

Minimizing risk is a task of great importance to everyone involved in online commerce and electronic payments, from the merchants right through to the credit card issuers. High fraud rates and chargeback rates can have a significant impact on merchants, even resulting in enrollment in chargeback and fraud monitoring programs that can carry hefty fees. […]

Cyber Monday is the online sale event of the year. Since 2005, it has occurred every year on the Monday after Thanksgiving and is the opposite bookend to the more longstanding Black Friday sale. And while Black Friday might be the most important shopping day of the year when it comes to in-store brick and […]

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 […]

Part of establishing PCI compliance and maintaining it year in and year out is filling out an annual PCI self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ). These questionnaires are designed to accomplish two goals: to help businesses identify weaknesses that need to be dealt with and to help prove to institutions that a company is compliant. But not all […]

Sometimes you just don’t have the time or personal knowledge necessary to purchase someone a truly personal gift, and in those instances, nothing beats a gift card. They’re kind of like cash, but not nearly as impersonal, and the convenience they provide for the giver and recipient makes them incredibly popular. But gift cards aren’t […]