SXSW: How Merchants Can Accept PayPal Payments With a Smartphone

PayPal Here and Wallet appsLots of companies are working on ways to use smartphone payments to streamline the ordering process. PayPal’s entry into the market is particularly interesting, since so many people have a PayPal account already. Plus, their app isn’t tied to ordering from a specific establishment (like paying with your phone at Starbucks). Instead, PayPal’s app could let you order just about anywhere.

From the customer side, the app is called PayPal Wallet. The merchant app is PayPal Here, which lets merchants accept and send money.

So how would it work? Check out the demo video below from SXSW. You use your phone to “check-in” at a destination, which automatically lets a merchant start a tab for you. The example below is ordering drinks, but it’s easy enough to imagine lots of possibilities for the app in the future!

Samsung Galaxy Note & Intuit GoPayment Bring Mobile Payments Everywhere

Mobile payments are about to be everywhere, and small business owners should do their research now about how best to incorporate this new technology into their business practices.Galaxy Note with Intuit GoPayment

AT&T is now targeting small businesses with a combined solution in the Intuit GoPayment Card Reader plus Samsung Galaxy Note running on 4G LTE. The  GoPayment reader comes with the Samsung device to swipe cards anywhere, anytime.

Intuit, Inc. is also the parent company of QuickBooks, so it’s easy to integrate your “everywhere” sales with one merchant account and all your standard business record keeping. And you may actually pay less for the privilege of accepting credit cards than you would with a traditional merchant services provider.

With the GoPayment reader there’s no set-up fee, no monthly charge minimum, and no transaction fee.  In the pay-per-transaction model swipes cost only 2.7% and manual transactions cost 3.7%. Businesses that anticipate more than $130 of swipes per month should go with the subscription plan, which charges $12.95 a month, but charges 1% less per transaction (1.7% per swiped transaction and 2.7% for manual entries).

AT&T Premier customers can get the whole (4G LTE!) package for a discount through their website. (Full disclosure: AT&T helps sponsor SmallBizGoMobile.) Previous SmallBizGoMobile coverage of Intuit’s GoPayment and its integration with QuickBooks POS can be found here.

Intuit Adds Mobile Payments Service GoPayment to QuickBooks POS

The mobile payments battle is getting pretty serious now that Intuit’s GoPayment mobile payments service has now been integrated with QuickBooks POS (Point of Sale).

What this means is QuickBooks users who currently use GoPayment readers attached to their smartphones, can now take payments at the register. Those payments will go directly to QuickBooks which will integrate with the businesses inventory, transaction history, and analytics data. In other words, you won’t need to utilize multiple financial services/merchant accounts for mobile and traditional payments if you’re already using QuickBooks.  Read More

Comparing Mobile Payment Technologies: PayPal? Square? Verifone? A look at all three

As you may know, the market for allowing individuals and small businesses to accept credit card payment through mobile devices is really blowing up.  In fact, just this morning I saw a television commercial for Square’s mobile payment service. PayPal is even getting into the game with their ‘PayPal Here’ solution.

We’ve talked about Square a lot here, as well as Venmo and other ways for folks to pay (and get paid) on the go.  I’m excited about these technologies, because they empower individuals and small businesses through lowering their bar for credit card integration.  Now that the powerhouse of digital payments, PayPal, has entered the space, we can be pretty sure that this type of technology is here to stay. So, the only thing left to do is to compare them and see which fits best for you and your business.

So, how do these different providers stack up? Read More

Accelerate Small Business Growth: 10 Mobile Apps to Consider

Curlis Phillip is a Senior Marketing Manager at AT&T. You can find more blog content from Curlis and other experts on mobility on the AT&T Networking Exchange Blog. AT&T has sponsored the following blog post.

 

Small business (SMB) owners face several challenges including attracting new customers, improving cash flow, retaining customers, automating business processes and increasing employee productivity.  Mobile applications can help SMBs address these challenges and provide tremendous value.

According to an eVoice survey, seventy-one percent of small business owners have reported becoming more mobile over the past two years.  Mobile applications are helping small businesses to save time, improve business operations, be more responsive to customers, and increase sales and profitability.

SMBs are jumping on the mobile apps bandwagon, however; finding the right apps can become a daunting task with more than a million apps available across Android, BlackBerry and iPhone.  Here are 10 mobile applications you should check out that can help enhance your worker productivity, improve the way you do business and drive revenue growth.  Read More

Venmo To Vegas: A Simple, Free Way to Pay Your Friends and Associates

I’m at that age where everyone I know is getting married, and that means one thing: parties.  Specifically, for me as a guy this means bachelor parties, w00t!  So this week, according to Bing,  was the best time to book a July flight to Las Vegas because the prices would only go up.  No one likes to travel alone, so since my buddy Paul will be heading out to the same party we decided to fly together.

I hopped onto one of the “flight deal” sites and bought two round-trip tickets to Vegas with my credit card.  I told Paul over Gchat that I had booked our tickets, and asked him how he wanted to pay for his half.

“Do you use Venmo?”, he asked.

Well guess what? I do now!  Venmo is a simple, fun, and free way to pay your friends.  It took me less than 5 minutes to sign up with facebook, verify my bank account, and bill my friend for his part of our flight.   Read More

Eventbrite Adds “At The Door” Credit Card Ticket Sales Devices

Eventbrite transaction screen on iPad

Obviously, mobile credit card processing is where it’s at. Case in point, the online event promotions and ticket sales giant (for the rest of us) Eventbrite has announced their mobile “At The Door” devices that let users buy tickets to events, well, at the door.

Eventbrite is a quick, easy, and less expensive way than its more popular competitors *Cough Ticketmaster Cough* to promote and sell tickets to your event online. You can set up an event in minutes, promote your event across social media networks, and track sales numbers and other analytics. At any event, there are people who will ignore all your attempts to get them buy tickets in advance, and will walk up to the door the day of the event and ask “can I still buy tickets?”.  Read More

PayPal Here Credit Card Reader Ready to Compete With Square?

PayPal Here Card ReaderLove it or loathe it, a large number of small businesses already depend on PayPal’s merchant services. It makes sense that the eBay-owned company (that also has its hands in a ton of online merchant’s pockets) would release a mobile credit card reader, called PayPal Here for small businesses looking to step away from the cash register.

PayPal Here is similar to, and in direct competition of, services like Verifone’s PAYware, Intuit’s GoPayment, and of course, Square’s popular dongle. One of the main differences between PayPal Here and the others is immediate access to funds versus waiting for several days to access funds with the rest. That is one of the things in my mind that keeps PayPal on top of eCommerce pyramid, despite it’s issues. Read More

Square Register is the best Point of Sale for iPad

Point of sale software on the iPad is nothing new, but it’s definitely worth a second look now that Square has released Square Register, their app for accepting both card and cash payments via your iPad.

The new Square Register should be ideal for a small business owner. Once you sign up for Square, you get a Square “Card Reader”, a little dongle that allows you to swipe credit cards. As long as you have a place to stash your cash, you can also take cash payments with just a tap of your touch screen. Read More

NFC Action is Heating Up—Who Wins? Consumers!

David Egger is Lead Marketing Manager for AT&T’s IRU (Individual Responsibility User) Mobility Programs. You can find more blog content from David and other experts on emerging technologies and mobile application on the AT&T Networking Exchange Blog. AT&T has sponsored the following blog post.

When I last wrote about NFC (Near Field Communication) the technology was in its absolute infancy and was little more than a dream for a boy holding his wallet and phone, wishing they could merge.  Fast forward less than a year and we have two functioning NFC systems live in the United States, and devices arriving with the capability to take full advantage.

Google Wallet was the first out of the gate with a limited solution.  Google Wallet works with Citi Mastercard PayPass only at this time.  It is also only available on the Nexus S device.  It integrates with the Google Offers deals platform.

Right now the other big player is ISIS, a platform collaborated on between AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile to bring NFC to the mainstream.  This Summer we can expect to see a wide range of devices supporting ISIS, and the pilot that is currently ongoing in Austin and Salt Lake City already has support for multiple credit cards.  ISIS also integrates a wide range of loyalty programs, enabling you to combine the functionality of a mobile wallet app and an app like CardStar. Read More