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Merchant Account Vs. Payment Gateway: What’s The Difference?

Tag: online business

Understanding the Risks – The explosion of cyber-fraud and why you need to protect your business

Understanding the Risks – The explosion of cyber-fraud and why you need to protect your business

As more and more businesses are going online, the incidents of cyber-fraud are also increasing manifold. As cyber attack can have catastrophic impact on a business, it is important to ensure that your online venture is adequately protected against such frauds. Such attacks can be especially devastating for small and medium sized online businesses. Online attacks can not only shake the foundations of your business but may also expose your collaborators and customers to potential abuse. In order to keep your business safe and sound, it is imperative that you fully understand the concept of cyber fraud and take appropriate measures.

What is a Cyber Fraud?

Cyber frauds are also known as cyber crimes or internet frauds. These are the frauds which are mainly perpetrated through internet and involve misrepresentation. Cyber frauds may be perpetrated in a variety of ways including attacks against computer software and hardware. Such crimes may also take the form of financial frauds and identity theft. Either way, the businesses may be hit hard with such crimes and it is important to take anticipatory actions so as to keep the business and its clients safe.

Types of Cyber Frauds

Cyber frauds may be perpetrated in a variety of ways. Some frauds involve setting up malicious codes on computers and stealing the vital details, while others may involve sending spoof and phishing mails. Some other types of internet frauds are charity fraud, tax frauds and online gift card fraud. In many cases, the website may be attacked using fake traffic, denying services to their genuine customers. Such attacks are called DDoS and may lead to theft of customers’ data.

Steps to Protect Your Business

While cyber attacks have become commonplace, it is important that businesses take steps to minimize the damage caused by them. Following are some of the main steps which may help you in protecting your business and your clients.

  • Take a Proactive Approach: Businesses should not wait for a cyber attack to happen and instead should remain prepared to counter it. It is important that you anticipate different ways your business may be vulnerable to cyber attacks. The top management should also devise the methods to counter such risks as and when they happen. For this purpose, periodic analysis of the cyber fraud landscape should be undertaken. The businesses should also identify their most critical functions and should take extra precautionary measures to protect them.
  • Take Comprehensive View: Cyber frauds may focus on damaging your online presence through software or they may focus on harming your hardware. It is imperative that businesses take comprehensive approach towards safeguarding itself against online attacks. The software side of precautions involves the installation of antivirus and other software, while the hardware side of action includes the protection of hardware through the use of locking devices and supervised access to the machines. The physical safety of the machines is also important as their loss may lead to the loss of vital information.
  • Make it a Team Work: Protecting the business against the cybercrimes is not just the responsibility of the IT department but of all the employees. Organizations should take measures to educate all its employees against cyber threats. The employees should also be updated about security measures undertaken to protect the operations against online crimes. The use of company resources by the employees should also be closely monitored. In many cases, the frauds are committed through infected software installed by the employees on company computers. Such installation may be deliberate or accidental, however, in both the cases the results may turn out to be catastrophic for the business. Therefore, the organization should check both types of actions.
  • Built-in Security Measures: in order to ensure security of the business, it is imperative that its various policies and procedures are designed in such a manner so as to minimize the possibility of such attacks happening in the first place. The company’s IT resources should be carefully checked and monitored on a periodical basis and any loophole found should be patched in a prompt manner.

With the help of the above steps, organizations can not only protect themselves and their clients against online frauds but may also enhance their efficiency and reliability.

How to Increase Alternative Checkout Options

How to Increase Alternative Checkout Options

For an e-commerce company, offering attractive checkout options to the customers is one of the most challenging tasks. Providing alternative checkout options may help a business in achieving a higher checkout process conversion rate, which is one of the most important metrics for gauging its efficiency. Another advantage associated with providing alternative checkout options is that it helps in controlling the rate of shopping cart abandonment by the customers. Further, smoother checkout process also provides an inducement to the customer to make a repeat purchase with the business.

Following are the main ways online businesses may provide a friction-less checkout experience to their clients and improve their business efficiency.

  • Make Sign Up Optional: It may seem tempting to make sign up necessary for checking out since it can provide you with valuable data but this requirement may put a serious dent in the conversion rate. Instead of making sign up mandatory, make it optional but with some incentive attached to it. For example, you can convey to the customers that the sign up may make the process faster. Another option is to let the customers sign in with alternative accounts such as Facebook or Twitter. This type of checkout can be customized so that the business may harvest the data from the customers’ social media accounts after receiving due permissions.

 

  • Simplify the Process: If you are not convinced about the idea of checkout process sans sign up then you may focus on simplifying the whole procedure. There are several tricks to make it easier and faster for your clients to complete their sign-up process so that they can check out in a smoother manner. You can use simple tools such as making use of Google Autofill which can complete various data fields in a jiffy. You should also ensure that the checkout procedure is simple and is not unduly complicated with a number of steps involved. With each additional step, the likelihood of the client abandoning their shopping cart increases exponentially.

 

  • Use Perpetual Shopping Cart System: There are several ways you can motivate the customers to complete their checkout process. Allow them the freedom to check out for each item separately or to club them together in a cart and then to check out for the entire order. Different eCommerce businesses may adopt different strategies in this regard, mainly depending upon their business and organizational structure. Perpetual shopping cart system is one such technique where checkout page is preserved perpetually if the process is not completed. So, when the customer visits your website next time, they may be tempted to eventually complete their shopping experience.

 

  • Work with Your Payment Processing Partner: If you run your online payment in collaboration with processing partners then it makes sense to receive expert advice from them. PayTabs can help you in simplifying your payment process and introducing alternative payment options for your clients. As an eCommerce operator, you should ensure that you collaborate with those payment processors who are at the helm of technological innovation. PayTabs is such a payment processor as it deploys latest technologies for making the entire process smoother and hassle free. Thus, eCommerce business owners can bring about exponential improvement in their performance and efficiency by collaborating with

 

  • Optimize the Checkout Process: There is no one single way to provide the best services to all your clients. Further, the checkout process also depends on the way your eCommerce business and website are designed. Based on these factors, you may decide to let your customers enjoy a faster checkout with express purchase of individual products, instead of making them collect these items in a shopping cart. At the checkout stage, you may further entice the clients by offering them freebies in the form of discounts, cheaper shipping rates or even free shipping. Discounts may be designed in such a way so that you can tempt the customers to make more purchases to earn higher discounts.

 

With the above methods to improve your checkout page experience, you can bring substantial improvement in your conversion rate and overall efficiency. While most of the measures are internal to any business, external factors such as tying up with the right kind of payment processor may also have magnifying impact on your bottom line.

Marketing on a Shoestring Budget: Top Tips for SMBs

Marketing on a Shoestring Budget: Top Tips for SMBs

Marketing is vital for any business but is expensive at the same time. The costs associated with marketing campaigns can be especially prohibitive for small and medium scale businesses. However, with some innovation and creativity, you can market your business with minimal resources. Here are some of the top tips to help you make your business grow without breaking the bank.

Go Social: Social media changed the landscape of online marketing and any SMB would do itself a favor by incorporating it into its marketing plan. While generic social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram may be useful in reaching broader clientele, you may also use specialized social and networking sites relevant to your target market segments. However, the use of social media for marketing is a double-edged sword and thus, needs to be handled in a professional manner. As an SMB, you should ensure that you are getting the right message across without overexposing yourself.

Harness the Power of Referrals: Grow your business with some help from your existing client base. Leverage your customer base by asking them for referrals. However, you will need to take the initiative and may also have to offer some sops to entice your customers to provide good referrals. Such word of mouth marketing generally entails low cost and high conversion rate, making it a highly efficient marketing tool. You can offer free trial to your clients in lieu of referrals or you may give them discounts on their purchase; just make sure that the incentive system offered by you meets the requirements of your target market. Keep your clients updated about your referral programs so that your referral program does not get stuck in a rut.

Network & Collaborate: As an SMB, you should focus on networking, both online and offline for promoting your business. But like any other marketing tool, you should ensure that you are not overdoing it. While you should be consistent in harnessing the power of your network, you should also be aware that you can drive people away by being too forceful. For this purpose, you may attend industry conferences and other such events to acquaint yourself with people in your segment. Networking is a long-term marketing tool and requires considerable time investment to yield proper results. Apart from networking, you may also decide to collaborate with other businesses engaged in your vertical. You can go for joint marketing of your products and services or may choose to engage in some industry specific contests.

Organize Giveaways and Contests: Conducting events and promotional schemes such as early bird discounts can help you in gaining initial customer base. Some of the tools you may use in this regard are organizing quizzes or other contests and then offering them goodies in the form of discounts or free merchandise. Such promotional measures will not only help you strengthen your hold over your existing client base but will also bring in new customers. While using promotional events as a marketing tool, you should ensure that the incentives you offer to your customers contribute towards the demand factor. If your products or services ARE new in the market, then you may offer time-based trial versions as giveaways. This will allow the customers to try out the products before they fully commit to them.

Create a Niche: In today’s highly competitive world, it is absolutely vital for your business to create a niche for itself in the market. While you promote your products and services, make sure that you tell your story in such a way as to establish a unique brand proposition. Creating a strong brand ensures that you enjoy higher recall value and customer stickiness. A powerful brand also helps you in incurring lower costs for acquiring and maintaining customer base. One other strategy which may help you in creating a unique selling proposition or USP is to create targeted videos and other such content.

For an SMB, it is important to execute an efficient marketing plan.

Let PayPage Simplify your Business

Let PayPage Simplify your Business

Let PayPage Simplify your Business

Invoicing is an important yet often neglected function of any business. It may not be as glamorous as marketing, but efficient invoicing not only helps in retaining your clients but may also provide valuable data for analytical purposes. A clear yet concise invoice provides transparency and aids in creating better rapport between the merchant and the client. So, revamp your invoicing style and increase the efficiency of your business with PayPage.

PayPage brings you a host of features which not only optimize your business operations but provide superior services to your clients as well. We can help you overhaul your invoicing operations, saving you time and money, while our detailed reports will offer food for thought when you prepare your future plans. Here are some of the top reasons why you should shake hands with PayPage and take your business to a whole new level.

 

  • Integration: Instead of having an invoice system which is all over the place, PayPage lets you consolidate all your invoicing operations. It offers you a single dashboard which provides you a place to have a bird’s eye view. You can manage all your customers from this dashboard, saving you time, energy and money. The single dashboard also makes it easier for you to track all your invoice related activities and follow them up accordingly.

 

  • Increase in Efficiency: PayPage allows you to simplify your invoicing processes. Whether it is the matter of sending recurring invoices to your customers or sending multiple invoices of the same kind to different clients, PayPage can help you in carrying out these tasks in a much more efficient manner. With us, you can track your payments to exercise better control over your receivables management system. Further, you can also set up recurring invoice process so that you do not have to undergo the hassle of sending repeated invoices.

 

  • Faster Turnaround Time: Receivable management is an important function in an organization as it ensures that you are getting dues paid in a prompt and scheduled manner and that your resources are not unnecessarily tied up. PayPage helps you in receiving your payments faster as now you don’t have to waste your time doing everything manually. It lets you use online payment options which further reduce the float time, helping you realize your payments faster.

 

  • Safer and Secure: In today’s world of spamming and phishing, it is not enough to have a fast payment system; you need to ensure that the system is secure too. It is vital that proper steps are taken so that the sensitive data belonging to your business and your clients is kept away from the prying eyes of hackers. PayPage uses advanced technologies to provide you with a payment system that you can rely upon.

To know more about our services, just get in touch with our representatives who will be happy to design a payment system to best meet your invoicing requirements. Together with PayPage, you can make your business more efficient and your clients more satisfied.