Internet Retail

The evidence is overwhelming. Internet-based retail continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Borderless, ubiquitous and convenient it is without peer among its brick-and-mortar cousins. Consider: According to Comscore, a global leader in measuring the digital world and a source of digital marketing intelligence, approximately $110 billion have changed hands between consumers and online merchants in the first 10 months of 2010.  An additional $32 billion has been predicted to be spent with online retailers in November and December 2010 – a net increase of more than 11% of holiday internet retailing revenue over 2009.

By all accounts the popularity of Internet-based retail will only increase over the next several years. In fact, in its recent five-year forecast on the annual value of online retail sales in the U.S. through 2014 Forrester Research predicted that e-commerce sales will be growing at a 10 percent compound annual rate, reaching nearly $250 billion, up from $155 billion in 2009.

Continued investment in social media – notably a combination of Facebook pages, Twitter tweets and blogs — enable a direct connection with customers, and also enables them to quickly communicate, often in real-time, their online shopping experiences to thousands of people.

It’s that emphasis on customer experience that will ultimately determine the success of an internet retail merchant. Not just in terms of product supply and demand or ease of website navigation. Rather, it’s how easy customers can pay for their products or services — via their choice of credit, debit or alternative payments — and how secure their transactions and identities remain once the sale is complete.

As an internet retailer, your phenomenal growth may be hiding some inefficiency that we are experts inidentifying, remediating and optimizing:

• Using a third party gateway for authorization and draft capture? This could be costing you an addition $.35 per transaction while adding no benefit.
• Have you thought about adding PayPal, Bill Me Later, foreign currency or installment transactions? Lack thereof could be costing you 20-40% more orders.
• Not sure what interchange rates you qualify for? Let us do an analysis and see if we can help.
• Not sure if you are complying with PCI Data Security requirements? This might cost you your business in both real and reputational ways.
• Would Affluence Indicators that help you identify high-earning customers be important in optimizing your marketing spend, messaging and influence?
• At Litle card-not-present (CNP) processing—the lifeblood of internet retail—is in our DNA. We have brought efficiencies to CNP transactions for decades — all at the most competitive rates.

Take The Next Step

For more information on payment processing solutions for Internet Retailers call 978-275-6500 or contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).