Payment Options

Retail sales rose broadly in August, which should ease some concerns about consumer spending and support expectations for sturdy growth in the third quarter. The Commerce Department said Friday retail sales increased 0.6 percent last month as Americans bought automobiles and a range of other goods after an upwardly revised 0.3 percent gain in July. "It still paints the consumers muddling along," said Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James in St. Petersburg, Fla. "The general message on the economy is that it's improving but we still have a lot of slack to take up." 

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know by now that Apple launched a bevy of new products and services yesterday in a star-studded (can you say Bono?) event in Cupertino, Calif. Of all the the major announcements — the launch of the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6 Plus, the Apple Watch and Apple Pay — the latter is arguably the most important news for retailers.

Just when you thought it was safe to start accepting credit cards again…
Home Depot confirmed yesterday that it’s investigating some “unusual activity” with regards to its customer data.

While Bitcoin has been having somewhat of a renaissance as of late — more mainstream brands are allowing consumers to use the virtual currency as payment for purchases — the news this week wasn't all good.

The National Retail Federation, Retail Industry Leaders Association, Food Marketing Institute, Merchant Advisory Group, National Association of Convenience Stores, National Grocers Association and National Restaurant Association are jointly calling for an open and universal tokenization standard in the U.S. payments system. The groups released a statement saying payment card data is currently vulnerable to theft where card information is swiped or entered, where card information is stored, and where it's transmitted. The group is calling for payment industry stakeholders to adopt tokenization — i.e., replacing sensitive account data and identity information with a unique token or symbol.

PayPal launched a pilot program this month to offer next-day settlement for eligible businesses in the U.S. The company explained, "With next-day settlement, eligible businesses transferring money from their PayPal account to their bank account now have the ability to receive their money within 24 business hours instead of the three to four business days it used to take." PayPal said it's notified businesses which are eligible for the next-day settlement. Merchants must opt in to the program. As long as they make their transfer by 5 p.m. local U.S. time, they'll receive their funds the next day.

Bitcoin users can now buy merchandise from Lord & Taylor department stores using a mobile software application, the latest step by startups to make the virtual currency useful in the physical world. The mobile app, Pounce, lets shoppers make purchases by using their phones to scan images in print advertisements. The software, made by an Israeli startup, now works with Coinbase Inc.'s digital Bitcoin wallet, the companies said yesterday. Pounce has had a partnership for print-ad shopping with Hudson's Bay, Lord & Taylor's parent company, since January.

Mt. Gox may have gone bankrupt and roiled the digital currency market last week, but Overstock.com says Bitcoin has triggered a boost in new customers. The e-commerce giant announced Tuesday that it's sold more than $1 million in product to Bitcoin users since the site started accepting the virtually untraceable cryptocurrency on Jan. 9. What's more, it estimates that some 60 percent of the 4,300 Bitcoin transactions over the last two months have been from new customers, helping to drive sales and traffic.

Choosing the right payment processor is one of the most critical steps in making your e-commerce site as accessible and useful to your customers as possible. Depending on what you sell and where you're selling from, there are a host of factors to take into consideration that affect not only how much you'll be spending on your online experience, but how much your customers will be charged and how convenient it is for them to finally click the buy button. To help guide new merchants looking to establish their first business or veteran sellers looking for a better rate, here are five essential issues to evaluate when choosing your next payment processor: 

Listen in to this lively webinar where we outline steps retailers need to take to make sure data breach doesn’t happen to them.