12 percent of shoppers used their mobile devices to shop online, and 6.7 percent actually made a purchase in 2011, which was double the rate from 2010. On top of that, according to some estimates, by 2016, the number of online shoppers in the United States will grow from 137 million in 2010 to a staggering 175 million. In order to keep up with that trend and gain new customers, many businesses will need to invest in new online payment systems. While some will be able to find payment processing software that can meet their requirements, others will need to use business merchant accounts to handle online transactions. Either way, being able to make online transactions safe and accurate is a must for growing businesses.
While most people will shop for simple things like clothing and music online, products from nearly every industry are sold online every day. In fact, in 2011, online flight and travel booking services accounted for a third of eCommerce transactions. This means that, no matter what a business sells, using business merchant accounts can be a good idea. It can help them manage online transactions that could prove to be vital to long term success.
While most businesses might be thinking of consumers when they are trying to figure out how to make processing credit cards and online transactions easier, they might also have to think about the business to business financial supply chain. It consists of ERP vendors, billing and collections solutions providers, business process outsourcing firms, and commercial banks. Because there are so many parties and steps involved, it is easy for data to get lost or altered. Working with business merchant account services can help any company avoid the consequences of that.
There are three distinct levels to credit card transactions. Though some people might think that the process is as easy as submitting a number and seeing the money change hands, it really is not that simple. In fact, there is lots of information that has to be exchanged as well. Level 3 will include details like item quantity, discount identifiers, item descriptions, ship from postal code data, and other facts. The massive amount of information that comes with online transactions make them difficult to process, especially for someone like a small business owner who has little training or experience with accounting. If that is the case, working with financial service providers can be highly worthwhile. More on this topic.