How To Choose The Correct Transaction Descriptor For Your Business?

It appears on the credit card statement or any other bank statement of the customer that contains details of the company and merchant involved in the particular transaction.

The purpose of the merchant descriptor is to identify whom the payment was made to. Whenever a merchant goes for the merchant account, he or she is asked to provide the merchant descriptor as well.

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF HAVING TRANSACTION DESCRIPTOR OR MERCHANT DESCRIPTOR?

Having a transaction descriptor can save the merchant from a chargeback. This is the most important benefit of having the transaction descriptor.

A descriptor gives clear information about the merchant and the purchase.

This helps a customer to quickly identify the transaction.

That also results in a low chance of the chargeback from the customer’s end.

According to the various reports from the card networks, most chargebacks are filed simply because the customer did not identify the transaction.

Now you know, as a merchant you should give attention to the merchant descriptor. If this is the case, you need to gather more information about the Transaction Descriptor or Merchant Descriptor.

There are two kinds of Transaction Descriptor:

Static Descriptor – A Static Descriptor remains the same for all the transactions made by the merchant.

Dynamic Descriptor – And in this case, it varies and includes the details of the purchased goods or service.

You must be wondering which one is better and what should you get for your business.

A Static Descriptor is often called Hard Descriptor. If you have a business that sells one kind of goods or service then you can go for this. A static descriptor generally contains the company and location in form of the zip code. Whereas, the Dynamic Descriptor may change with each transaction as it contains product specific details. If you own a store that sells a variety of products then you should choose the dynamic descriptor.

Why Use Multiple Payment Gateways for Business

GLOBAL EXPANSION OF BUSINESS

Who doesn’t want to expand their business to the global market? Now, if you are a merchant with an e-commerce website then you have great opportunities right in front of you. You can start selling your products all over the globe using your website.

However, it is not as easy as it may sound, but you can definitely start somewhere, and this can be started by adding payment gateways. Furthermore, if you are thinking to target a specific geographical location then the best way is to study the audience niche. Along with that, you can also look for the payment gateways popular in that region. After that, you can follow the same pattern and keep adding more locations preparing a multiple Payment Gateways website.

TARGET TOWARDS BETTER REVENUE

Once you have added multiple gateways to your business, you’ll see increased traffic on your website. This means you will get an increase in conversion rate, which could eventually lead to better revenue.

Furthermore, in a situation of crisis with a certain gateway, you can rely on another to keep your business going. Let’s try and understand this with the help of an example:

Suppose, you use 2 payment gateways A and B. One day, gateway A stops taking MasterCard payments and all the MasterCard credit card payments gets declined. In such a case, you can switch to gateway B and complete a successful MasterCard Credit Card Transaction. 

So, one can say, one of the advantages of multiple Payment Gateways website is never losing a sale or transaction.

BACKUP AND FAIL-SAFE PAYMENT SYSTEM

Using the gateways to make a transaction in your business can help you create an elaborate database of the customers. Using this database, you can mark faithful and regular customers, and at the same time blacklist the cardholders with a number of scams.

You can use this information for a successful business that can also help you reduce the number of chargebacks. Furthermore, you can back up this data using the gateway services.

If you have another payment gateway then you can securely copy all this data to another gateway and have all the similar advantages.

Furthermore, in the situation of overflow, having a second payment gateway can save you from losing any business. One of the advantages of multiple Payment Gateways website is always having a backup payment gateway.

ADVANCED SECURITY AND SUPPORT SERVICES

ARE THERE ANY DRAWBACKS OF HAVING MULTIPLE PAYMENT GATEWAYS?

High processing fees and costs

Management of multiple payment gateways

Do not result as profitable as it may sound

Understand Ecommerce Checkout Flow

Ecommerce Checkout Flow– Every big or small brand is now taking their business online due to the boost in the e-commerce industry. This means, along with the physical store, every merchant now wants to have an online store as well. This is a good idea for a merchant to expand and increase his revenue. However, not everyone is good at handling the e-commerce business on their own. This is because of the competition and lack of guidance.

One of the important aspects of online business is the checkout process. The checkout process is where your visitors get converted into the customers. If not done right, you can lose the e-commerce business due to excessive loss. 

Although, there are many successful e-commerce businesses that are doing really well and you can learn from them. Along with that, in order to boost your business, you can take help from experts.

What Is ECommerce CheckOut?

It is a designed interface and a customer must go through it to purchase an item. As soon as the customer clicks on the checkout button the process starts. Generally, it contains steps like entering personal details including name, address and contact information. Other than that, the customer will be asked to choose the mode of payment and enter details depending on the mode chosen.

For example: If a customer chooses to make the payment using the credit card then he will be asked to enter the credit card details depending on the company’s norms.

Once the checkout is completed successfully, the customer will be notified regarding the recent purchase using the contact information provided by him.

How Does ECommerce CheckOut Work?

From the customer’s point of view, the checkout process is as easy as entering the details and getting the products. However, for a merchant, the checkout process is a whole different story.

An ECommerce checkout process is the flow of valuable data that needs to be processed carefully at every step. Generally, a customer goes through following steps during an ECommerce Checkout Flow:

After liking a product or service, the customer clicks on the “Add to Cart” button.

Then the customer is directed to the cart where the confirmation is asked whether the customer wants to “proceed to checkout” or go back to “continue shopping”.

Once clicked on “proceed to checkout”, the user will be asked whether the customer wants to check out “as a guest” or “sign in”.

After choosing the desired method, the customer will be asked to enter the details.

Finally, “place your order” will pop up on the screen.

After clicking on this button, a customer needs to make the payment by choosing the desired mode.

Once the customer successfully completes the payment, he will receive confirmation of the purchase.

ISO PARTNERSHIP STRATEGIC & MERCHANT SERVICE PROVIDERS

Independent Sale organizations and merchant service providers are the companies that processes, store and transmit data on behalf of their merchants. Our Strategic Partnership program offers companies or individuals to sell Merchant stronghold’s services with the ability to market them under their company’s name.

Feature

Priority for the verification of merchant account applications.

Name of the company during the merchant account agreement.

Ability to show that services are being served under a white label.

Transfer of responsibility to a top priority for the merchant support.

Detailed reports of every Merchant’s transaction history.

Benefits

Ability to market and sell the merchant service under the brand name of your company.

Earning an attractive amount of revenue as a commission and ability offer a wide range of merchant services to your customers.

Merchant Stronghold offers a partner manager, that will support you to solve the queries related to offering the merchant services sells.

The partnership enhances your ability to add/board merchants of any size and of an industry we serve to be it high risk or low risk.

Ability to directly submit online merchant application under your company name in collaboration with for business worldwide.

Online Fraud Prevention And Analysis

As an e-commerce merchant, there should be some preparation done for things like funding, stocks, products, etc. But at the same time, precaution for the expenses like lost products, shipping charges, chargeback fees, and the probable loss of the merchant account.

Case investigations, customer phone support, and damage to a merchant’s reputation also contribute to the cost of fraud. The latter could possibly be more damaging.

Possible points where fraud could be prevented:

Predictive Analysis: There is a vast use of data nowadays, which can be used to detect fraud patterns to determine future probabilities and trends. Although predictive analytics won’t reveal what type of fraud is about to take place it will certainly point the possibility of fraud.

Experienced Fraud Analysts: The customer care and a team of fraud analysts can be a ticket to reduction and prevention of fraud. Fraud analysts play a critical role in a fraud detection solution, seeing behind the scenes.

Customer Care and support: Customer care and support play an important role as they are in direct contact with the customer and can detect the possible reasons of fraud.

Monitor Transactions and Reconcile Bank Accounts Daily: You must know about your biggest spenders and their buying patterns. Monitor your accounts and transactions for red flags like inconsistent billing and shipping information, as well as the physical location of your customers. Use tools to track customer IP addresses and alert you to any addresses from countries known as a base for fraudsters.

By putting the right tools and processes in place, you can reduce the chances of fraud.

BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS:

With businesses looking to reduce fraud and keeping up with emerging trends in fraud methods, new ways of detecting and preventing fraud are being developed. One of these is the Behavioral Analysis.

Behavioral Analysis relies on something, which is inherent in a user: how they behave. What a user does may be a better indicator than who say they are, this question is mostly challenged by authentication.

This is analyzed by shopping habits; our shopping habits reveal our unique behavior. For example; how you shop, what is the monthly spending budget of your spending, etc.

SIMPLE STEPS OF BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS TO DETECT FRAUD:

Gather lots of information to form a template of the user’s behavior and get prepared for the customer’s responsibility. Also, make sure to train the team against such frauds.

Set a rate or a threshold according to your customer’s response translating from normal to fraudulent. This is generally in percentages that a transaction is fraudulent (for example, 90%)

When a user is encountered, a probability of the transaction being fraudulent is calculated based on the behavior. If the percentage is above the threshold (90% in the example), the user is blocked from the transaction.

Address - 10300 49th Street N Suite 427 - Clearwater, Florida 33762 

Contact - +1 (888) 622-6875.

Why Cannabis Oil Is Big Business | Solutions for Merchant Account for CBD

Merchant Accounts for CBD

CBD merchant accounts are our most in-demand product, for which we have proven domestic and offshore banking solutions for CBD merchants.

Merchant Stronghold provides the best merchant services for your CBD Businesses.

Legalization brings a lot of opportunities, including many that are unexpected. One of the biggest areas for expansion is cannabis oil. Cannabis oil can mean a lot of different things but most importantly, it’s giving consumers and entrepreneurs a new way to explore and benefit from the marijuana industry. Here’s why cannabis oil is big business, and how any entrepreneur can tap into this nascent market.

The cannabis oil market is huge

There are many different kinds of cannabis oil on the market. All of them are growing in popularity. The CBD market alone is predicted to reach $22 billion in 2022, according to Brightfield Group.

The CBD market is blossoming

CBD, short for cannabidiol, is the main non-psychoactive compound found in marijuana and hemp. It does not interact with the body the same way as THC and cannot get you high. At the same time, CBD has many of the plant’s most significant medical and medicinal benefits. CBD can reduce seizures in epilepsy patients and a growing body of research finds it useful for reducing pain, acne, anxiety, inflammation and more.

Making cannabis oil is a relatively new and expensive process

Despite the rising popularity of cannabis oil, it’s still a relatively undeveloped market because of how it’s produced. Technically, cannabis oil is what you get when you extract a concentrated oil from the marijuana or hemp plant. THC and CBD oil are technically in the same category because they’re produced with the same type of equipment.

Creating cannabis oil takes some expertise and a fair amount of equipment. Generally, there are two ways of doing it:

CO2 (carbon dioxide) extraction 

Solvent extraction

Reliable Payment Gateway For Online Business

When you are looking for different options and want to choose a payment service provider for your business, look for the following conditions:

Find the one whose services fits your needs. Spend some time to find the right provider instead of making rash decisions based on their discounts or advertised fees.

When you own a company, in addition to a merchant account and payment gateway, you will also have to make recurring billing, remote credit card storage, PCI compliance. You will also need to have anti-fraud tools, firewall security, etc. Many providers provide some or all of these services.

From a list of prospective vendors, talk straight about the fees and services. Ask them about the rates for rewards, business, and international cards, minimum maintenance fees, chargebacks, PCI compliance, API, and its technical specification and securities, etc.

You should choose a payment service provider that has a better user experience.

Choose a vendor who is easy to contact through email, phone number or any other methods, and provides substantial support to help you through all the complexities of the business and finance.

The right payment service provider will give you options to exit anytime and they won’t charge you for that. On the contrary, you might have to pay for exiting in case of the cheapest payment gateway.

Read contracts; the terms and conditions, and policies carefully. Some “cheapest” payment service providers ask for bond or agreement for 2-4 years and charge hundreds of dollars for a cancellation fee. This is just too much to accept.

Finally, I would suggest that you invest some time in deciding to choose the right payment gateway, which will be suitable for your company and have better services. They might be little costly for you but they provide long-term safety to you. Choose value over the price for better user experience and long-term benefits.

Important Document for Merchant Account Application

Here are the generally detailed documentation(irrespective of any country) that are required for the merchant account is:

To prove that the applicant is the legal resident of the country he/she should have these documents to initiate the application process:

Legal presence in the country: The merchant should have a registered legal name and address and a Doing Business As the name.
Physical presence: The merchant should have a physical presence of the business place. This physical presence can be the applicant’s home or an office from where the business is being incorporated.
An existing personal or business bank account in the country where the applicant is applying for the merchant account.

The documentation that will be required while filing the application form and get the approval as soon as possible:

Applicant’s form: This is typically provided by the bank or processor to get filled by the applicant that acts as the resume of the applicant which will contain almost all the details about the applicant. The basic details that should be specified in this document are business’ fundamentals, Tax ID, address of the applicant, e-mail address, web portal details of the business(if available), sales and processing volume details.
Business license: This document help business owner to prove that the business is registered with the local government body and the merchant have the legal authority to sell the products.
Article of Incorporation: This document is required whenever the merchant or business claims to be owned by multiple people or claims to be in process on the world level.
Voided check: A voided check must be deposited by the merchant; this should be a permanent check that is the name should be pre-printed on the check.
Guarantee: This is one of the things that will be required if the business belongs to the high-risk industry or the transaction volume of the business is high. For this, the merchant needs a third party that can give assurance about the business’ profitability and existence.

If the business is a high risk that is if the volume of transaction is high or the product belongs to the industry that is categorized in the high-risk business industry the merchant needs to provide these details:

Financial transaction details of the personal account, of the last two financial years.
Financial transaction details of the business account, of the last two years.
If the business has used the virtual terminal they should provide the transaction processing details of at least last 3-6 months.

5 WAYS TO MAKE SURE YOU GET APPROVED FOR A MERCHANT ACCOUNT

Personal Credit History – Your personal credit history plays a large part in your application. If you have a good history, it will lead you to get a merchant account easily.

Tax Issues – Make sure that you have resolved all your tax issues, submitted your annual declarations, and that there are no tax liens on your account or property.

High-Risk Business Types – Most acquiring banks maintain a list of industries that they generally will not service due to their traditionally high-risk nature in order to protect their interests. Merchant Stronghold always plays a very important role and partnered only with the top tier banks that accept applications easily.

Processing Volumes Should Remain Within the ‘Norm’ – Your expected volumes are based on past processing and expected growth in the near future. To improve the odds for getting approved, show processing amounts within the “norm” for your industry.

Avoid being on the TMF (Terminated Merchant File) List – Always Avoid to come under TMF because it may lead to the downfall of your business.

A perfect payment processing method

Merchant Stronghold provides quick accounts to low and high-risk businesses. We have a wide list of partners that trust us, and we have a high approval rate. No matter which business you are running, we will find a solution for it. Whether it is a clothing business, pharmaceutical, or any other business with high risk, you can contact us and will inform you about document required and all the fees associated with a merchant account.

Address - 10300 49th Street N Suite 427 Clearwater, Florida 33762

Email ID - info@merchantstronghold.com

Contact Us - +1 (888) 622-6875.

Easy Way To Accept Payments for Home, Auto or Device Warranties

Credit Card Acceptance that is flexible for your home, Auto, or Device Warranties business. Merchant Stronghold offers the best range of solutions that can fulfill your business needs. Credit Card Acceptance is essential for your Home, Auto or Device Warranty business.

THE RANGE OF CREDIT CARD SOLUTIONS

Credit Card Acceptance services are crucial for Home, Auto or Device Warranties business. Your business can accept credit card anywhere in the world. Here are some of the services that we offer:

● Website Credit Card Processing – API Technology

● Retail Credit Card Processing – POS Terminals

● Virtual Terminal Setup – Key in Transactions

● Payment Gateway Set Up – Authorize.net or NMI.com

There is a range of services that can help your business. We can quickly set up a merchant account at affordable rates. We offer credit card processing for various businesses including restaurants, gas stations, Home, Auto, Device Warranties, and more.

Accept  Type of Card Brands

● MasterCard ● Discover ● Visa ● Diners Club ● American Express ● JCB

Our interchange and dues rates are low as compare to most merchant account companies, and we keep our Businesses our first priority. There aren’t many account providers that can match us in technology. Using Merchant Stronghold services, you will be able to run business flexibility, knowing that your money is protected.

No heavy charges on you at any stage, the rates are low and credit card accepting services won’t take much of your total profit. Our certified team is capable of protecting sensitive data including card numbers and anything can expose customer’s identity.

Our customer support team is always ready to answer any question about credit card payments and merchant accounts. Best Merchant Solution for Home, Auto or Device Warranties business

Get High Risk Payment Gateway Services For Your Online Businesses

Each customer that moves to the check-out area of a merchant’s site must experience a seamless, error-free experience. If a problem occurs during a check-out, a merchant can likely kiss that transaction goodbye. Too many experiences like this add up to a lot of lost sales. A high-risk payment gateway, like the ones offered by Merchant Stronghold, helps ensure check-out processes are flawless.

Businesses that already have merchant accounts can apply to Merchant Stronghold for a high-risk payment gateway. Those that wish to apply for a merchant account and a high-risk payment gateway can begin the process today by filling out Merchant Stronghold’s quick and easy online application. There are no guarantees, but Merchant Stronghold promises an open and honest application process. Merchants can be approved in as little as 24 hours. Fraud protection tools and all day, everyday customer support also is provided. Most importantly, payment gateways are PCI compliant.

Merchants Have Three Basic Needs For an Online Payment Gateway

The first is security and anti-fraud protection. Protecting your business and protecting your customers is a cornerstone of a successful business. Once incident can wreck your potential and reputation.

The second need is for the payment gateway to be user-friendly. Not only does it need to seamlessly integrate into your website and merchant account but it needs to be customer-friendly so that your customers do not become frustrated and give up on buying your products.

Lastly, you have to find the best rates. Business-friendly rates regarding transaction volume and transaction fees can make or break your margins. Finding the right balance of security and financial acuity is critical for any payment gateway.

Documents needed when applying for a high-risk payment gateway

A valid, government-issued ID, such as a driver’s license or passport

A merchant account

A secure, working website with terms and conditions

Three months of the most recent bank statements

Three months of the most recent processing statements, if applicable

SSN (Social Security Number) or EIN (Employer Identification Number)

Get high-risk online payment gateway services from Merchant Stronghold for businesses that sell the following products and services:

Adult entertainment and novelties

Auto accessories and parts

Tech support

Luxury goods and services, such as private planes and travel

Adult entertainment and novelties

Auto accessories and parts

MLM and direct sales

Collectibles and antiques

Designer Fashions

E-cigarettes