Tag: BAMS

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Why You Should Consider BAMS Over Stripe

Online Payment

You have a choice when it comes to deciding upon the right payment processing solution for your business. A choice that is undoubtedly met with a wide variety number of options.

As credit card and digital wallet usage continues to accelerate, it’s important that you partner with a platform that does more than just work in the here and now. It should be able to scale with your business and counter every bump along the road. It should function as part of the bigger picture, working cohesively alongside your other adopted solutions.

For those in ecommerce, this proves even more important as you manage the infrastructure needed to secure customer data and allow your business to thrive. When making your decision, here’s why you should consider BAMS over Stripe.

Solutions Tailored to Fit Your Business

Every business is unique, functioning off its own set of standards, goals, and customer needs. At BAMS, this factors into our innovative pricing model.

Instead of boxing customers in at cookie-cutter pricing levels, we customize quotes upfront during our 5-step price comparison consultation. In doing so, we’re able to determine everything a business needs (and doesn’t) to be successful, saving you money while ensuring fast and easy setup.

Dedicated Support

With 185 Google reviews with an average of 4.9/5 stars, it’s no secret that our support team is one-of-a-kind. Since day one, we’ve been putting merchants first with customer care that is anything but generic.

There will never be roundabout ‘Help’ portals to navigate. And you won’t need to review redundant information with different reps during every phone call you make to our team. When working with BAMS, you’ll be assigned a dedicated representative that you can reach out to at any time with questions or concerns regarding your specific account.

Seamless Integrations

It’s one thing for a payment processor to work well on its own. It’s another for it to work just as well alongside your business’ other tools and services.

Unlike Stripe, BAMS supports both CNP and CP accounts. If you work in different environments, this allows you to keep operations integrated under one umbrella. With integrative capabilities across a wide variety of e-commerce platforms, BAMS’ agents will have your online store connected to our payment gateway in no time.

Secure Agreements

Stripe is what’s referred to as a ”payment facilitator”. This means that when using their services, your agreement goes directly through their company, allowing them to hold money and cancel accounts easily at their discretion.

In comparison, your relationship with BAMS is backed by a bank. You can trust that your data will remain secure and services in place, pending any outstanding circumstances.

Final Thoughts: Why You Should Consider BAMS Over Stripe

At BAMS, we believe that our customers are more than just a number. They’re businesses — just like ours — and the owners behind them have visions and hopes for the future that we love to support.

It’s our job to help you realize those end goals with quality service and support at every stage of the journey. Learn more about what makes us a leader in payment processing and request your free quote today!

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Two Credit Card Policies Your Business Needs to Set in Stone

Credit cards are a big part of every business. If your store isn’t equipped for credit card transactions, you’ve already put a huge roadblock in the way of your company’s growth. But if you don’t have clear in-store and internal policies, even the best merchant services can’t help your business navigate new regulations. Here are two policies that your business needs to create and regularly review:

What’s your return policy?

Some stores don’t have a lot of returns. But whether you sell retail goods, professional services, or food, you need to have a return policy. It can encompass everything from a poor user experience to product exchanges depending on what you want for your business, but the allowances and limitations need to be clear. It also needs to be posted in your store and easy to find online. Making your return policy clear and visible is the best way to fight invalid chargebacks.

While you’re making any edits, make sure your merchant services can easily accommodate the policy. This includes more than making sure your equipment can handle reversing the transaction. Make sure the fees are low enough that you can afford the goodwill a good return policy brings.

What’s your information storage policy?

The benefit of a merchant services provider is that your company isn’t directly handling credit card information. This is incredibly important if you’re an online vendor. If you handle or store PII or credit card information, your company has to be PCI compliant and secure that information from cyber threats. Find a merchant services provider that acts as a third-party information handler. Also, train your in-store employee on how to treat any credit card information in the store. Ideally, your employees should never write down any details or even handle the cards. Find customer-facing machines to keep the line clear.

For more merchant services tips, browse our blog at BAMS.

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4 Sales Tips to Influence People to Buy Your Products

Group of people success business improve successful growth strategy and sales tips increase

Want to increase sales? Use the following sales tips to sell more products, boost your revenue, and increase your ROI:

FOMO

FOMO stands for Fear Of Missing Out. This is what causes people to buy things that are on sale even if they don’t need them and to constantly check what their friends are up to on social media. A limited-time or limited-edition offer with a countdown clock is a great way to tap into the FOMO.

Get Them in the Right Mindset

Before you make your selling point or sales pitch, you need to first get your audience in the right mindset. An example of this is stressing how your product doesn’t cost X amount of money, that amount being much higher than your real price. This gets your audience in the mindset that your product is affordable and cheap because, in their minds, the bar of what is “expensive” or even the industry standard price is now much higher.

Pain and Pleasure

Human beings do things to avoid pain and gain pleasure. People will usually do more to avoid pain than gain pleasure, so don’t just stress how much pleasure your product will bring them; focus on the pain points that brought them to your sales page in the first place.

Cross-Selling and Up-Selling

If you are not upselling and cross-selling products to your customers, you will lose out on a lot of revenue. Many companies gain most of their revenue from the additional products that people purchase, as the first product sale is often needed to cover the costs of advertising. People who are buying are already in the mindset of spending money and will usually buy more than what they originally planned to.

For more sales tips and information on how to sell better online, contact us today and ask about our services.

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5 Ways to Tap Into Human Nature to Increase Sales

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Every good sales professional knows how to tap into human nature to increase sales. Understanding what influences people to make a purchasing decision will help you boost your revenue. Here are some important things that will bring you more sales.

Scarcity

Scarcity increases value. Human nature is to want that which we do not have. If something is in abundance, people will have less of a desire for it. You have to create a perception of scarcity to increase sales. One way to do this is by offering a limited-offer discount.

Reciprocity

People tend to reciprocate favors and good deeds. If you offer your customers valuable information and tips, great customer service and discount opportunities, human nature will lead them to reciprocate the favors by purchasing your products. They will also be more likely to recommend you to a friend.

Social Proof

We tend to measure something’s worth based on how other people value it. Social proof is very important when it comes to sales. Boost the social proof of a product by encouraging your customers to leave five-star reviews and testimonials. Boost the social proof of your company overall by building your social media channels and getting followers and likes.

Authority

Similar to social proof, people tend to place more value on a statement or product that comes from an authority figure. Build up your authority by becoming an information source online, both on your website, on Youtube, and on your social media channels. Start a PR campaign and book appearances on media channels.

Unity

People like to feel as if they are part of something, whether that be a family, a tradition, a belief system, or shared values. That is why your company needs to have a mission and a purpose.

For more information about our services, contact us.

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Tangible Benefits of Adding a Loyalty Card to Your Loyalty Program

Laptop with online gift card

Loyalty cards are becoming a staple of the modern shopping experience. That means companies that don’t include loyalty programs, discount cards, and other incentives for recurring shopping trips are likely to miss out on return customers. Many companies are starting to centralize their loyalty programs in an app, but that doesn’t mean they’re getting rid of their cards. Here are two reasons to make sure a physical card is part of your program:

Even in the digital age, things that can be held are valuable.

A strong tenet of selling products is letting customers hold and interact with the product. Once it’s in their hands, customers are much more willing to make the purchase. The same is just as true with loyalty program cards. While apps are convenient and can hold more interactive data, physical cards can be held. Making your cards attractive or a popular status symbol, like Starbuck’s gold card or the different tiers of platinum and gold credit cards, gives them extra value. That’s far more effective than an app that’s not on your customers’ home screen.

Familiar brands are preferred brands.

Not a single day goes by when consumers don’t open their wallets or grab their keys. If your loyalty card is tucked away or hooked onto a keychain, that means your target market of core customers, people who have already made purchases at your stores, see your brand every single day. That constant reminder on the periphery of their day makes your brand familiar and comfortable.

It also encourages new leads to find your store. If a customer is visibly carrying your loyalty program card on their keychain, then their family, friends, and acquaintances will see it. Even if it never comes up, that implicit stamp of approval from a trusted source will go a long way in their eyes.

Keep your loyalty cards visible with durable, vibrant cards. Go to BAMS to get started.

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Get Better Insight into Your Core Target Markets by Offering Online Gift Cards

Online gift cards concept. Blue gift card vector

Every marketing strategy your business employs requires insight and data analysis. It’s hard to understand what drives consumer behavior without knowing the consumers. If you can’t track spending and customer behavior, then you have to wait and hope for sales instead of driving sales. But if your company offers consumable products and services that are popular for gifts, you have another layer of consumer obscurity to penetrate because you’re dealing with two very different customer personas.

What are your two customer types?

Customer personas are an important organization concept in marketing. A customer persona is the ‘type’ of person who buys your products and services, or even a specific product or service, and that persona is based on the average demographic and behavior data you collect. If gift cards are part of your product offering, then you have two different types:

  1. direct customers who like your products and services, and
  2. gift-givers, who have one of your direct customers in their life.

These two buyer types, even though they’re too generic to be specific customer personas, have very different motivations. That means they need very different marketing tracks and incentives.

How do online gift cards help?

Gift cards provide a whole new set of data to help you make your marketing campaigns effective, and online gift cards are even more efficient. Each gift card has a unique code that lets you track everything from the number of gift cards purchased in given time frames to the amount on the average gift card each month. Even more importantly, the codes let you track the duration of time between the gift card purchase and the direct customer’s use of the gift card, as well as what purchases people are more likely to make with a gift card over cash.

From that last data set, you can start to find valuable trends. Direct customers who receive cards may be more likely to make larger, premium purchases because of the implicit difference between cards and cash. Gift cards purchased for a birthday might be spent faster than those purchased for Christmas. No matter what trends are unique to your company, you can plan your product offerings and sales accordingly to get quick turnaround on card usage.

If you want a trusted gift card provider who can help you get your new campaign and gift card offerings off to a good start, go to BAMS.

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3 Great Reasons to Buy Online Gift Cards

Laptop with online gift card

Gift cards have only been around about 20 years. Before that, is was paper gift certificates and not many of them, as the giver preferred a more “personal touch,” meaning that actually going to the store and purchasing the gift was not only more labor intensive but more “thoughtful.” As more establishments began offering gift cards, the variety was embraced by the general public and they took off fast and hard. At this time every store, restaurant and sub shop we enter has their own gift cards to purchase, and many sell a multitude of others. We, the public, have determined that gift cards are good, but of course the less scrupulous among us have found ways to defraud consumers and those same stores, restaurants, etcetera.  BAMS can help you get setup to begin selling gift cards immediately.

The latest gift card trend is purchasing them online. You buy it, get sent a secure 16 digit number and a pin code that you pass along to whomever you choose. Many businesses can send the virtual gift card to the email you provided. Once it has been purchased, the buyer is completely out of the loop. The gift is given, the buyer is happy as is the gift card recipient.

Reasons why purchasing gift cards online is smarter:

  1. Security – The transaction takes place in private, no plastic cards hanging on a rack that may have been compromised.
  2. Spending – People spend more when using gift cards online. Overspending is normal since people can look at more than just discounted and clearance items, after all, it’s not their own hard earned money that’s being used. These wish list items can be bought and adding an extra $20.00 or $50.00 is okay since the recipient getting something they normally would not want to entirely pay for themselves.
  3. Convenience – The birthday, holiday, or other has a deadline of tomorrow. Buying a gift and sending it is out of the question, it will not get there in time. An online gift card will, and it be very well received.

Online gift cards are a great idea, the color is always right, it’s just the size of the amount that needs consideration. Contact us so that BAMS can explain more about online gift cards.