A Mobile Future for Merchant Service Providers

This year marked the first Mobile Commerce Summit hosted by the ETA and held in Chicago. It educated attendees on the current use of mobile technology for small business merchant processing as well as its promising future in this market. It is predicted that mobile will have a strong impact on the industry. Because this is such an innovative endeavor, you may not feel quite up to par. However, there is no need to worry if you feel that your company is falling behind. This will be an ongoing learning process for everyone in the industry. Let’s take a look at the evidence that supports the future of mobile credit card processing service.

Many companies have already started to develop a more mobile approach to merchant processing. For example, Lowes is planning to implement iPhones as POS devices for customer service. Another store investing in a more mobile credit card processing service is Nordstrom. This retailer has already ordered a plethora of iPads for in-store use. Finally, Sparkbase has seen positive results and is quickly growing due to the use of the PayCloud mobile wallet.

After looking at these few success stories, it may seem like everyone is getting involved with some kind of mobile solution. However, it’s important to remember that these previously mentioned companies should be seen as early adopters. This is still a young and constantly evolving market. To help prepare your company for the future, it would be best to start educating yourself now on what is to come.

To help you begin the learning process, here are two crucial insights from panelists at the Mobile Commerce Summit.

Think Beyond Payments

As merchant service providers, you may be used to focusing all efforts on your credit card processing service, and this may have worked well previously when the job consisted of selling a credit card terminal to newly identified credit card acceptors. For existing clients, you may have helped lower their merchant processing costs. However, with the evolving market, your client relationship cannot be solely focused on the payment.

Mobile wallets, such as the Google Wallet, have more capabilities including the addition of coupons and other marketing strategies. You may also have heard of Square, which offers credit card processing along with a POS solution. The mobile future is beginning to develop beyond payments.

Focus on Merchants

Once you’ve broadened your idea of merchant processing and the future of mobile payments, you may discover even more ways to stray from offering only the typical payment solutions. To find new and innovative ways to help your merchants, try focusing on their current problems, needs and what specific ways you can help them with their business. This will position your company as a reliable merchant service provider.

About The Author:
Jeff Zimmerman serves as Clearent’s Vice President of Product Management and Marketing. Having held senior product management roles at Network Solutions and Intuit – maker of Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax, Jeff brings 15 years of product management, finance and marketing experience in the financial services and software industries. Among our solutions, we offer a mobile credit card processing service for our merchants’ convenience. Learn more about our merchant processing products and services and how they can help your business.

New Merchant Services Software Gaining Popularity

If you are not familiar with Square you should be, as it is one of the most highly acclaimed merchant services around today. Square recently developed a mobile wallet called Card Case, which is an app that allows you to purchase items directly from your mobile device. This new merchant services software has not generated the popularity that its mother company Square has, but the trend is gaining buzz in select businesses and markets across the nation.

Getting started requires that you make an initial visit to the business and register your information. Then the next time you return you will be able to “start a tab” as soon as you are in range of the store and order. For example, once you pull into the parking lot you can start a tab while sitting in your comfortable air-conditioned car with your favorite music playing. The cashier will then find your information when you pick up your order and that’s that, no need for cash or a card as the transaction has already been made and will appear in the history tab of your Card Case app.

While this is a neat app for small take-out businesses, it’s difficult imagining it moving to the mainstream of merchant services software. The setup is somewhat annoying, in that it requires you to visit the business to set up an account and then make a second visit before you can actually use it. Also it will be hard to get people to use it over cash or a typical card-based payment because Card Case isn’t really that much of a time saver. Unless of course the business is insanely crowded, then sitting in your car greatly trumps a long line.

The mobile wallet has in no way become an ordinary method of payment. However, if businesses paired its use with an incentive of some kind, a coupon or product give away, it would become more desirable to consumers. But with the rapid growth of mobile payments, it will be interesting to watch the changes unfold.