Utilities

It’s not easy being a utility circa 2011. In addition to a host of increased regulatory, political and economic pressures, utilities are seeing an uptick in delinquent accounts and collection agency activity, affecting their ability to make long-term, much less day-to-day, business decisions.

Higher commodity costs and tighter regulatory oversight has made looking at all available billing methodologies an imperative. As an example, advanced metering (AMI) solutions have the potential to not only complicate infrastructure capital decisions but also threaten to overhaul incumbent billing structures increasingly delivered by aging and largely overrun legacy IT systems. And although utilities in general have fought the good fight when it comes to making sure customers can pay their monthly bills using everything from online debit and credit cards to online or e-checking, industry research finds that even today 93% of all payments still arrive in a typical utility’s business office via the U.S. mail.

The common denominator in maintaining a utility’s long-term sustainability remains its relationship with its customers, not the least of which is giving them every opportunity to modify their payment habits to better suit their needs, as well as yours.

Partner with a payment processor that can handle all of your payment types while ensuring you continue to realize an optimal, consistent and dependable revenue stream. Our innovative, intuitive payment processing engine enables you to manage both your billing and payment processing requirements as easily and as predictably as your future infrastructure investments.

At Litle we have been helping businesses just like yours set up and process recurring payments of all kinds. Credit card, EFT, eCheck and alternatives like Paypal are payment types we offer o help give your customers the flexibility they want matched to your administrative and order entry needs. Our Litle Vault and tokenization solutions surround your relationship with your customers in richer data security.

Optimizing your interchange qualification is essential to managing your cost of processing. Typically, interchange qualification savings can pay for all of you other processing expenses. We also have the tools to manage your relationship with your customers.  Prepaid and Affluence indicators, proven recycling schemes are some of the tools that we use to maximize the number of transactions and the life time value of your customers.

By reducing expense and helping cash flow we understand your current environment and are able to provide solutions that can dramatically help you to improve your bottom line.

Take The Next Step

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

Publishers

The publishing world is changing.  Like so many other sectors contending with the rise of social media, on-demand news and emerging platforms such as the iPAD — see Richard Branson’s iPAD Project Magazine and Rupert Murdoch’s “The Daily” Newspaper — the publishing industry finds itself at a familiar crossroads: publish or perish. According to this industry source, in 2009 more than 360 newsstand magazines ceased publication altogether. Ad revenue continues to plummet, to the tune of nearly 60,000 ad pages in 2009. Venerable titles like U.S. News & World Report have, as recently as November 2010, moved to an all-digital platform. 2011 may bring similar news.

Such developments require today’s publishers to reconcile fiscal efficiencies with vigorous outreach to subscribers using continuity and subscription-based marketing. Partner with a payment processor familiar with helping you optimize revenue while making it secure for your subscriber base to renew their subscriptions and keeping your circulation high, your inventory low and your ad rates competitively priced.

At Litle we understand that our success is directly tied to your successful navigation of these new paradigms. Change excites us because with it comes many new opportunities. Our feature-rich payment engines help you take navigate the new paradigm being created without you having to tap precious IT resources.

• We support alternative payment transactions such as eCheck and PayPal.

• We allow you to build your relationship with your consumer by providing the best in recurring payment solutions.

• We reduce your expense by integrating your website with our processing engine to reduce the risk and instances of data breaches.

• And we do it efficiently with the platform designed to maximize your optimization of interchange and network expenses as well as processing efficiencies associated with optimizing authorization percentages. 

Take The Next Step

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

Online Services

If there’s one constant in the B2B and B2C online services world it’s that its virtual borders continue to extend their influence and reach. Consider just these handfuls of examples:

Digital Goods

Global sales of e-readers such as Amazon.com's Kindle will reach 6.6 million devices by the end of 2010, and then jump 68% to 11 million devices in 2011 as it battles popular media tablets. (source: Gartner Group)

Online Games

The U.S. virtual goods market — including social games, online games, virtual worlds, consoles and mobile games is expected to hit $2.1 billion in revenues in 2011 (source: GamesBeat)

Online Data and Storage Backup

IDC estimates revenue for this emerging market to reach $715 million by 2011, representing a 33.3% compound annual growth (CAGR) between 2006 and 2011. (source: IDC)

Online photo/imaging services

Spending on photo publishing products was estimated to reach approximately $1.32 billion last year and is expected to grow slightly this year to $1.4 billion. (source: PMA Foresight)

Online Dating

The online dating industry, with a current worth of $948M is projected to grow to more than $1.2B in 2012 (source: MarketData Enterprises)

The other constant in each of these examples is each is a card-not-present (CNP) merchant.

We specialize in CNP, the most demanding of all payment processing environments. Meeting the payment processing needs of online goods and services providers is part of our DNA. In fact, Litle & Co. built its first payment processing engine to meet the needs of catalogers and other direct response marketers ― the first card-not-present merchants who were overlooked, overcharged, undervalued and undeserved by conventional payment processing methodologies and the predecessors of today’s digital-direct commerce.

We understand the efficiencies of integrated reporting, timely and consistent settlement and having outstanding turnaround time on your authorizations. We also understand that in the CNP environment that these transactions need some extra tender loving care so we specialize in:

Recurring Billing Excellence.   Online services businesses need smooth, seamless recurring billing. Litle & Co.’s payment management engines include some of the most advanced recurring billing logic available today.  We’ll give you the best tools available including Account Updater and Recycling Logic that helps you minimize billing interruptions which create additional customer service demands.

Interchange Management. We do not use interchange as a profit center. Some processors do. There is no incentive for us to qualify your transactions at anything other than the best rates and we always pass through the exact interchange rate for which the transaction qualified.

Dynamic Reporting.  Reconcile quickly. Investigate deeply.  All the intelligence you need—in a format that makes life easy for you.  Benchmarking and analysis that helps you understand how your processing performs.  Rich analytics that can tell you which forms of payment are working best for you.

Affluence Indicators. Analyze the buying habits of affluent cardholders within your base.  They are more likely to have the buying power and the willingness to spend.

Prepaid Indicators. For consumers signing up for recurring or installment billing, incents customers to use their available funds all at once, spending more of their prepaid funds with you.

Value-Adding Solutions and Services.  You are focused on converting traffic into paying subscribers.  We are focused on supporting your conversion rates with tools such as real-time transaction processing and the right selection of alternative payments. Our Merchant Services Group lives your business and proactively recommends real-time process improvements based on analysis of your payment processing performance.  They’ll suggest changes to your website that might facilitate more conversions.  They’ll even help you determine which payment options are best for you and your customers.

By managing the entire recurring billing transaction for CNP merchants and providing deep dive visibility into an increasingly fickle customer base we help you to not only grow revenues, but also the means to ensure the quality of your customers’ online experience remains high, memorable and of course, repeatable.

Take The Next Step

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

Non Profits

In 2011, the success of your association and its ability to evangelize—and yes, even monetize, your mission is first and foremost about the relationship you have with your donors. The higher the trust factor, the broader the appeal and the easier it is for them to contribute to you the very first time will quickly differentiate your non-profit’s mission from everyone else’s. 

By partnering with a payment processor whose history of advocacy in card-not-present transactions has become increasingly important to non-profit organizations, we can help you to effectively respond to each of these challenges, beginning with those donor relationships. Our innovation, insights and experience not only can result in a deeper pool of recurring donors, but also the opportunity and ability to facilitate, manage and grow your donor base. As a result your donor acquisition costs are kept in check as sustainer revenue grows quarter to quarter and year-over-year.

We understand the efficiencies of integrated reporting, timely and consistent settlement and having outstanding turnaround time on your authorizations. We allow you to offer the widest variety of payment types and options to pay AND we give you the flexibility to foster relationships that fit the needs of both your association as well as your donors. This includes accepting Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, JCB (Japanese Credit Bureau), Diners Club as well as alternative payments such as eCheck and PayPal.

We also understand that in the nonprofit-CNP environment that these transactions need some extra tender loving care so we specialize in:

Recurring Billing Excellence. Non-profits that solicit online need smooth, seamless recurring billing. Litle & Co.’s payment management engines include some of the most advanced recurring billing logic available today.  We’ll give you the best tools available that help you minimize billing interruptions which create additional donor demands such as additional and largely unnecessary donor outreach.

Interchange Management. A single Interchange rate does not exist for non-profit organizations.  A single discount rate never benefits you because the process cannot anticipate what your mix of debit, standard credit and rewards cards will be. So they have to guess.  If they error at all they are going to error on their side. As a non-profit you deserve the best rates in the industry and with Litle that’s exactly what you’ll have.In fact,we always pass through the exact interchange rate for which the transaction qualified. No hassle. No games. No negotiation. And no surprises.

Dynamic Reporting.  All the intelligence you need — in a format that makes life easy for you. Benchmarking and analysis that helps you understand how your processing performs. Rich analytics that can tell you which forms of payment are working best for you — as well as your donors.

Account Updater. For your most valued donors (those who are sustainers or on a recurring billing or installment cycle basis), Account Updater enables you to receive updated credit card information without having to contact each donor individually.

Affluence Indicators. Affluence indicators analyze the buying habits of affluent cardholders within your donor base. By collecting and analyzing this data you can more efficiently target those donors who are more likely to have both the buying power, or disposable income, and the willingness to donate.

Ease of Transition. Our systems are designed to be easy to use. We support most other payment processors’ specifications and have connectivity to most third party telemarketing, fulfillment and list vendors. So whether you are just starting up or have a current processor in place, we are prepared to handle your every requirement.

As a non-profit you already qualify for the lowest possible interchange rate. Let Litle analyze your rates to make sure you’re getting every dollar you’re entitled to in order to help you maximize donations while minimizing overhead.

Take The Next Step

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

Multi Channel Merchants

Most payment processors “specialize” in point-of-sale retail and dabble with an internet gateway for card-not-present (CNP) transactions. Some others may say they can do it all until you find out that you’re on three different platforms with three different settlement and reporting systems. At Litle & Co. we know that processing matters. We specialize in CNP, the most demanding of payment processing environments. Meeting the payment processing needs of multichannel retailers is part of our DNA. In fact, Litle built its first payment processing engine to meet the needs of catalogers and other direct response marketers ― the first card-not-present merchants who were overlooked, overcharged, undervalued and undeserved by conventional payment processing methodologies.

As these communities have matured, often diversifying into virtual as well as brick-and-mortar spaces, they increasingly required a holistic approach to payment processing, one that supported multiple delivery channels while fostering transactional continuity and operational consistency. In other words, no matter what the “face” of the merchant was to consumers ― in malls, online, direct mail or using social networking ― its back-office payments architecture enabled a positive customer experience augmented by an easy-to-use web-based payments interface.

As the multichannel world continues to evolve, Litle’s alignment of services has kept pace. As suggested by this recent eCommerce News blog posting “10 Ecommerce Trends for 2011 All Merchants Must Know”  mobile and social commerce, as well as “group buying” will run further fault lines along the multichannel retailer channel.

Prominent among these is the integration between online and offline commerce where consumers will ping an ecommerce site for research, narrowing down their choices of products, and then drive to the store to touch the product for themselves before buying it. This blurring of lines has the potential to further complicate not only how multichannel retailers go to market, but also how resilient their payments platforms must be to support the business and delivery needs of both channels.

So whether your sales are over the web, the phone, traditional mail or in-store, ultimately, processing does matter.

We understand the efficiencies of integrated reporting, timely and consistent settlement and having outstanding turnaround time on your authorizations. We also understand that in the CNP environment that these transactions need some extra tender loving care so we specialize in:

Recurring Billing Excellence.   Online services businesses need smooth, seamless recurring billing. Litle & Co.’s payment management engines include some of the most advanced recurring billing logic available today.  We’ll give you the best tools available including Account Updater and Recycling Logic that helps you minimize billing interruptions which create additional customer service demands.

Interchange Management. We do not use interchange as a profit center. Some processors do. There is no incentive for us to qualify your transactions at anything other than the best rates and we always pass through the exact interchange rate for which the transaction qualified.

Dynamic Reporting.  Reconcile quickly. Investigate deeply.  All the intelligence you need—in a format that makes life easy for you.  Benchmarking and analysis that helps you understand how your processing performs.  Rich analytics that can tell you which forms of payment are working best for you.

Affluence Indicators. An ability to analyze the buying habits of affluent cardholders within your base, consumers who are more likely to have the buying power and the willingness to spend.

Prepaid Indicators. For consumers signing up for recurring or installment billing, incents customers to use their available funds all at once, spending more of their prepaid funds with you.

Value-Adding Solutions and Services.  You are focused on converting traffic into paying subscribers.  We are focused on supporting your conversion rates with tools such as real-time transaction processing and the right selection of alternative payments. Our Merchant Services Group lives your business and proactively recommends real-time process improvements based on analysis of your payment processing performance.  They’ll suggest changes to your website that might facilitate more conversions. They’ll even help you determine which payment options are best for you and your customers.

We do all of this with competitive fees and a reputation for “truth in pricing”. We understand that within the unique environment of CNP transactions we can not only mitigate risk, but also provide you with integrated payment solutions that support both your onsite as well as virtual presence.

Take The Next Step

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

Membership Associations

Maximize memberships. Minimize attrition.

For the more than 25,000 business, trade and professional associations industry, these guiding principles enable membership associations to share a common outlook and goal.

Across hundreds and possibly thousands of categories and interests, membership associations are highly prolific and, for the most part, incredibly profitable. According to industry research the combined annual revenue for all associations hovers around $40 billion, with the top 50 associations generating about one-quarter of industry revenue.

Key to this continued profitability is a dues-based ecosystem often dependent on manual intervention: writing annual (often more frequently) letters of appeal and reminders, setting up a back office operations to collect dues and assembling accounting procedures consistent with association requirements or, more likely, limitations.

In parallel there’s new member prospecting that, even if all goes exactly to plan, turns dues collections for both constituencies into a treadmill-like cycle of name-by-name outreach informed by a steady diet of snail, direct and email and tedious back office processing.

Partner with a payment processor whose services are precisely aligned to the needs of membership associations including recurring billing, alternative payments and the automatic updating of member accounts. Association leadership and their staffs can then use the resulting savings in both time and labor to add even more value to their dues-paying members.

So, how does a payment processor help to maximize members and minimize attrition?

Simply by making it as easy as possible for your members to pay their dues ― no matter how they choose to pay them. We allow you to offer the widest variety of payment types and options to pay AND we give you the flexibility to foster relationships that fit the needs of both your association as well as your members. This includes accepting Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, JCB (Japanese Credit Bureau), Diners Club as well as international transactions and alternative payments such as eCheck and PayPal.

We also provide the tools to manage recurring and installment billing, virtual terminals and online reporting tools that provide both wide as well as narrow drill-down views into daily and historical payment data.

We take the complexity out of payments by managing your recurring transactions, maximizing your deposits with tools such as Account Updater, Affluence Indicator and re-authorization protocols and all within a secure environment that mitigates your PCI investment. And we do all of it transparently, behind-the-scenes, enabling you to maximize dues and to minimize the amount of time you spend chasing them.

Take The Next Step

For more information on payment processing solutions for industry, trade and professional membership associations call 978-275-6500 or contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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).

Direct Response

The spontaneous, pitch perfect requirements of direct response marketing demands a payment processing partner equal to the challenge of efficiently capturing transactions and closing sales on-demand.

The ability to keep the sales moving and to close the sale before your call center staff hangs up the phone is becoming especially critical for direct response professionals. Short, as well as long-form DRTV media billings are experiencing fluctuations in the number of timeslots purchased, declining ad rates, and the overall increase in the average cost of mounting half-hour and hour-long television campaigns (Kantar Media, November 2010).

In 2011 it’s not only about personality and product; it’s also about making sure you have the right processing engine supporting you when that ebb and flow in either viewership, demand or both occur. Closing the deal and getting the order has never been more important.

For more than 10 years Litle & Co. has been serving the direct response industry with innovative services that support the processing needs of this dynamic industry.

From online authorization to continuity and installment billing to chargeback monitoring and chargeback reduction programs Litle knows what you need for payment processing and we deliver. Our time-tested programs and products are designed for flexibility and more than capable of handing your creative and dynamic environment.

Our payment engines are built with the systems you need to maximize your sales at the time of order including:

• Real-time authorizations to prompt the consumer for another credit card if the first one is declined.

• Quick scaling ability to ensure that your consumer never waits for an authorization.

• Automatic Backorder Processing that requires no consumer contact.

• Detailed “declined authorizations” reports to give you the information you need to help close the sale.

Our online reports are clear, concise, and customizable so that they provide timely, accurate and detailed views into your financial operations:

• Customizable date ranges and data that can be easily exported to MS Excel (or other analysis/accounting software) for further analysis.

• Unlimited reporting groups and reporting hierarchies: whether you need to report results by product, division, partnership, organization or logistics partner.

• Unique user groups for unique needs: CFOs, Controllers, Fraud Analysts, Chargeback Managers and more.

In sum, everything you need to keep viewership high, the phones ringing and your close rates high.

Take The Next Step

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

Markets We Serve

The Litle & Co. payments platform is engineered specifically to meet the needs of companies and organizations in Direct Response (DRTV, radio, print), Internet and Multichannel Retail (including catalogs), Membership-based Businesses, Non-Profits, Online Services and Publishing. Any organization with card-not-present or recurring billing needs would benefit from working with us. Please select the segment that best suits your requirements and learn how Litle & Co.’s innovative payment processing solutions align to its on-going needs, market influences as well as its short and long-term challenges.