RETAILERS MUST SURVIVE CYBER SHOPPING TRENDS

By Art Lieberman

Now that 2016’s Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday have past, there is irrefutable proof that retail businesses, regardless of size, need to realize the need for an effective website to market their goods.

Since businesses started to promote themselves via computer websites, there has been a huge boost in Internet marketing. Perhaps it started with Amazon and eBay, but holiday shoppers have clearly demonstrated that they are moving toward doing the lion’s share of purchasing what they want on the Internet.

The statistics from this past holiday weekend are in, and they are impressive. On Thanksgiving Day, consumers spent $19.3 billion, an increase of nearly 12 percent from the previous year’s start of the shopping weekend. Although shoppers used their mobile devices more than desktop computers to locate the items they wanted, by a 57 percent to 43 percent margin, when it came to the actual purchase, more than 60 percent relied on their desktop computers to actually buy the items.

On Black Friday, consumers went digital to shop, spending more than $3.4 billion on the Internet. That also represents a huge increase over the 2015 totals, and $1.2 billion of that was on mobile phones. Once again, sales on buyers’ desktop computers did exceed sales on mobile devices.

Cyber Monday topped the figures from the previous weekend for Internet shopping, but not by much – adding up to $3.45 billion in sales. All in all, Internet shopping accounted for $12.8 billion in sales for the entire weekend, an increase of 15 percent over the 2015 totals.

My reason to cite these statistics is to speak to retailers who are currently using their Internet sites merely to describe their stores. They are missing out on what could be a huge source of new income.

To further demonstrate this, reliable statistics from national sales groups inform us that in 2015, total U.S. Internet sales reached $347 trillion dollars. So far this year, including much of this past weekend, but not including the rest of 2016, Internet sales are already approaching the $400 trillion mark, an increase of more than 20 percent.

The reasons shoppers who were surveyed gave as factors for buying online are: less taxes, 30 percent; gas, 40 percent; lower prices, 55 percent; no crowds, 58 percent; greater variety of items and more information about items, 67 percent; and, not surprisingly, less time spent, 73 percent.

Most people went online rather than making phone calls to order goods or services, and major concerns for shoppers were making sure that the items arrived before the holidays, and that shipping was free.

Another important fact is that 90 percent of people who own an Internet-enabled device, such as a cell phone, a computer, or a tablet have purchased goods or services online, and they also now include older citizens, who have always been slow to become part of the technological generation. Cell phones are greatly responsible for that change.

So what is a retailer to do? The answer seems obvious. If they do not already have a website for their store or business, they should have one built, and, if they do have one, they should make sure that it is used for direct marketing rather than being merely an informational source.

What is required to make that happen is to turn the website into a direct sales tool by actually placing items for sale on the site, along with prices for the items. It will be necessary for the retailer to have control of the website so that prices and sale items may be changed as rapidly as necessary. The site will also need a “shopping cart” into which consumers can place their goods, and a checkout page where buyers can fill in delivery information and specific consumer details. On this page the terms and conditions of the sale must be listed and a payment arrangement, usually by credit card, should be present. Almost any webmaster who has worked with retail sites will be able to create such a page.

Finally, realize that creating such a sales website will not come without some expense. It is almost as if retailers would be opening another store – another source for marketing their goods. The better and clearer the site, the better the view of each of the items for sale and the description of them, the more likely it will be that the website succeeds. I would suggest that retailers seek local website designers. Your local Chamber of Commerce might be a good source for that. Remember that, in a sense, the website engineer is becoming a guide to your customers’ shopping experiences.

(Art Lieberman is President of MCPS of Central Pennsylvania, a credit card provider for businesses in the Central Susquehanna Valley. Art also owns MCPS for Campgrounds, the RV campground industry’s largest credit card company. He has been in the industry for more than 18 years and conducts free webinars online and seminars on credit cards for local retailers. He can be contacted at 877-858-9010 or at mcpsofcentralpa@yahoo.com.)

CELL PHONE PROCESSING - HOW'S YOUR DONGLE?

By Art Lieberman

In the past few years a new method of processing credit card transactions has burst upon the scene. Because it was first with the technology, a company called “The Square” seems to have cornered the market on transactions performed through cell phones. The Square is actually a “dongle,” which the dictionary defines as “a small hardware device that, when plugged into a computer or other device, enables a specific copy-protected program to run.”

Users insert the device into the earphone jack of an Android or iPhone cell phone, then download an app into the phone, and it’s ready to go. Processing credit cards this way has several advantages. First, you now can process credit cards where there is no telephone line, Internet connection, or even electricity. That’s a huge advantage to people conducting outdoor sales, or at a flea market where no facilities are present. It is also ideal for small businesses that don’t want to buy a terminal and want a simple solution for processing low-volume or seasonal transactions.

Almost more importantly, it allows SWIPE transactions rather than key entries, and since swiping a card results in less expensive rates, this is also – supposedly – a less-expensive method of accepting credit cards. Purchasers can actually sign your cell phone to complete the transaction.

The Square offers a flat rate of 2.75 percent on transactions – without any other charges – which seems to be a huge advantage over other methods of processing that carry with them additional fees such as transaction fees, statement or maintenance fees, and PCI compliance fees. So the Square seems a simple solution to so many processing problems: no equipment to buy, no contract term, no additional fees, and, so long as you have a good cell phone signal, no problems with person-to-person transactions. It might even be a good solution indoors where there IS electricity and a phone. Plus, you don’t need a sales representative or a credit card processor to help you get started.

Wow, I guess that takes care of my business! Time to retire . . . but WAIT. . . .

There are several MAJOR problems. If you conduct your business as swipe transactions, 2.75 percent as a rate is really horrible. There are debit card transactions that can process at less than half that rate and most credit card swipe transactions are lower than 2.75 percent. Most are under 2 percent. If you process more than $4,000 a month, the Square is actually more expensive – and very few campgrounds do less than that.

As an example if you process $4,000 using the Square, at 2.75 percent it will cost you $110. Doing those same swipe transactions for debit and credit cards, at an average of 1.75 percent and adding on a 10-cent transaction fee and, in our case, $18.95 a month for PCI compliance and maintenance fees and a website to do your PCI Compliance on (with a $100,000 indemnification in the event of a data breach), and even adding on $2 in transaction fees (for 20 transactions), it would have cost you $90.95. At only $4,000 in processing you would have saved $20; PLUS you’d be PCI Compliant with indemnification. For each $4,000 more in transactions the savings would increase by nearly $40, since the $18.95 would be already included.

Secondly, the Square claims to be PCI-compliant – and we have no information to the contrary – but YOU probably aren’t compliant, using the Square. PCI regulations require EVERY merchant who processes credit cards to complete a PCI Questionnaire and Attestation of Compliance once a year. Somehow, you’d have to do that on your own.

In truth, however, most campgrounds rely somewhat on NON-SWIPE transactions like reservations taken from their website, over the phone, or through a reservation company. This is not what the Square was designed for. With the Square there is no paper trail that would be necessary to insure security.

Oh, and by the way, the rest of us also have dongles that act like the Square and we charge rates that, as you can see, tend to be less expensive for businesses like campgrounds.

I guess it’s not time for me to retire. I’ll just keep working.

Art Lieberman is President of MCPS for Campground. He has been in the industry for more than 18 years and has been conducting free webinars online and seminars on credit cards for many State and Regional Association Conventions. He can be contacted at 877-858-9010 or at rvcreditcards@yahoo.com.)

TRUMP'S A COMPUTER DUMMY

By Art Lieberman

It has become obvious to most of us with half a brain that Donald Trump does NOT know anything about a computer. Like parenting and caring about anyone’s circumstances other than his own, the nature of a computer is a detail he doesn’t want to get involved with. I’m sure he leaves it to a lackey.

Why, you ask, is it obvious that he isn’t computer literate? There are two reasons. One reason has been prevalent during his entire campaign. Trump cares nothing about facts, There is an infinite amount of factual information available on computers. I understand that in Trumpland, one man’s facts are another’s opinions, which you don’t have to believe. Even if there is empirical evidence that something is real, you can still contest it – like climate change. But there is video of Trump actually saying something LIVE, that no thinking person can ignore. Many times during these past agonizing months of listening to Trump’s lies, he has denied that he has said something that was video-recorded; or he claims Hillary said something that she did not – and both can be verified by looking at a computer.

And now, Trump has claimed something about computers that is so wrong it further demonstrates his ignorance. Sunday, FBI Director James Comey told lawmakers that the agency, after a review of new emails, hasn't changed its opinion that Hillary Clinton shouldn’t face criminal charges. Comey explained that the FBI had reviewed 600,000 e-mails from the computer of Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Hillary aide Huma Abedin. So computer expert Trump told people at a rally, "You can't review 650,000 new emails in eight days. You can't do it, folks."

Well of course you CAN, and anyone with an e-mail account knows you can. Every e-mail account has a search mode. Here’s how you do it, Donald. You start by searching the e-mails for ones from Hillary. Finding those (let’s suppose there are 33,000 – Trump’s favorite number), you then search those e-mails that have a security rating from Confidential to Top Secret. Let’s assume there are 50, so you see which ones are not already in the hands of the FBI, because those have already exonerated Hillary from any charges.

So how many – if any – are left? And what do they reveal? Apparently, according to Director Comey, nothing that will make him change his initial opinion back in August that Hillary had not violated any laws. Too bad. Trump had only last week, praised Comey for continuing to find new “evidence” to convict “crooked Hillary.” But don’t worry, Trump will deny saying it even though YOU and I can hear him say it on our computers.

However, there is something that is not kosher in this whole affair. Why did Comey make the announcement of the discovery of those e-mails in the first place and make them sound so ominous? Perhaps even more interesting is that it appears that the information was leaked by members of the FBI to the Trump campaign even before Comey’s announcement. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had made the announcement prior to Comey’s on Sean Hannity’s show on FOX-TV, and the smirk on his face was nauseating.

But think about it: After November 8 there is a distinct possibility that Trump’s face will disappear into the sunset and put an end to the careers of many of the supporters of this angry miserable old man, until his own trials begin for his Trump University and perhaps for the many instances of his sexual misconduct.