EMV: The Upside Of Smart Card Adoption, Will Small Businesses Be Ready? |  |
- EMV: The Upside Of Smart Card Adoption, Will Small Businesses Be Ready?
- John Lawson, CEO of 3rd Power Outlet: ColderICE and Social Commerce
- No One Saw It Coming: Business Prediction
- Small Businesses Are Hiring and Growing Again
| EMV: The Upside Of Smart Card Adoption, Will Small Businesses Be Ready? Posted: 06 Apr 2012 11:30 AM PDT EMV and smart card adoption are becoming more important than ever, especially for smaller companies. The term "EMV" (which stands for EuroPay, MasterCard, and Visa, the three companies that devised the standard) refers to a set of fraud reduction technology standards that ensure payment applications using chip-based cards are compatible around the world.
For almost two decades, interest in a chip-based payment standard such as EMV has barely reached a simmer in the United States. Recently however, some of the card brands have increased awareness resulting in collective interest across the United States in the smart chip standard. In addition to financial institutions, merchants of all sizes, including small business owners, should understand the current state of EMV in the U.S. and the impact of this standard. While there are many "flavors" of chip-based payment standards, to date the majority of EMV implementations globally have focused on chip + PIN enablement. Whatever the format, smart chips are the basis of the technical standard behind more than 1.24 billion payment cards and 15.4 million point-of-sale (POS) terminals, with almost all of those cards and acceptance devices residing outside the United States. Small Business Implications of Smart Card Adoption in the U.S. Payment industry experts generally agree that a chip-based standard will come to the U.S., but the predictions of when and in what form vary dramatically. While pundits say the U.S. is far from ready, there is a distinct possibility that the change may come sooner. Smaller merchants, as well as larger businesses, have many decisions to make. Once a sufficient number of financial institutions begin issuing smart cards, merchants need to decide whether to process the cards using EMV technology or to accept financial liability and responsibility for fraud losses. Either way, small business owners that choose to wait for widespread implementation will be at a disadvantage when the standard is accepted. Savvy businesses are starting their education process now and are beginning to formulate plans for adoption. Merchants that take the necessary steps to select the tools to future-proof their investment will be in a better position to evolve as their business needs and the industry changes. Smart Card Acceptance 101 Understanding the changes will require some learning. It is important to understand what the new POS devices can and can't do, and there are many device options on the market. Many manufacturers and payments players are adding new functionality to EMV-enabled equipment, making their equipment more innovation-agnostic. Merchants will need to coordinate with their acquirer or processor to accommodate the transaction messaging for EMV-based payments. Because more data is sent to the acquirer from an EMV-compliant transaction than from a magstripe-based transaction, both message types will need to be supported. Business owners and operators and their acquirers in coordination with smart card acceptance, can determine whether to require a PIN, a signature or neither for cardholder authentication in a credit or debit transaction. The Durbin Amendment gave merchants the authority to make this decision, and for the first time it is now being phased-in for magstripe transactions. Overall, as EMV is deployed, there will be procedural changes at the POS. For example, most EMV-enabled POS equipment will include contactless technology, allowing merchants to accept contactless and mobile payments, which provides a higher level of convenience for customers and speeds up check-out time. Some of the new smart chip-enabled POS devices will help drive loyalty and repeat business by pushing coupons and special offers to mobile phones, allowing consumers to redeem offers through the device. Additionally, while smart cards won't solve every security problem, they will go a long way toward boosting customer confidence at the POS. Next Steps for Small Business Implementation of EMV While no one really knows when all of this will come together in the U.S., one thing is certain – some form of chip-based payment standardization is coming. Clearly the need to reduce fraud and increase security exists, and now some of the industry's largest players are starting to put incentives in place to encourage merchant, acquirer and financial institution migration. The small business is a key player in this very serious game. Business owners and operators should conduct a full assessment to understand the impact of EMV and participate in industry discussions, not only to get educated, but to have the opportunity to influence how the payments ecosystem moves forward with smart card implementations. Third-party POS software providers understand the business strategy of becoming EMV-compliant. By engaging the POS provider experts and assessing what a smart chip enablement plan would look like to upgrade consumer-facing POS devices, small businesses can plan ahead while staying in synch with payments provider readiness for smart card processing. Finally, consider ways to reduce fraud and data theft risks as part of a comprehensive payments security plan. While there is no mandate for EMV adoption, both Visa and MasterCard have indicated that a liability shift will apply to merchants who have not upgraded their POS terminals to process EMV card transactions and fraud occurs. Thus, when evaluating their overall payments transaction security needs, savvy businesses are increasingly realizing the value of taking a multi-layered approach to data security and fraud prevention—incorporating a combination of recommended end-to-end encryption and tokenization technologies—with the ability to better manage vulnerabilities throughout the payment processing sequence. Now is the time to get educated to fully understand the issues and the choices ahead.
From Small Business Trends |
| John Lawson, CEO of 3rd Power Outlet: ColderICE and Social Commerce Posted: 06 Apr 2012 08:30 AM PDT We’re all well aware that being successful at social media can spell success for your business as well. This can be especially true if your business is in ecommerce. By marrying social media with ecommerce, you can establish what has been coined as social commerce – and it can be the best of both worlds. Listen in as John Lawson, a.k.a. ColderICE, joins Brent Leary for an in-depth discussion on the benefits of this concept. * * * * *
John Lawson: I have been doing ecommerce since 2001. I started a business, basically a coffee table business, selling stuff on the Web primarily through eBay. Today I sell on eBay, Amazon and on my own web site, 3rd Power Outlet. In the last few years, I started blogging on the industry of ecommerce specifically. Traveling around the country just talking with people about this. Small Business Trends: What is your definition of social commerce? John Lawson: My definition of social commerce is actually marrying social media and the tools that are available to you with commerce. Specifically, how you can actually support your buyer, find your buyer and get them to actually buy more. Small Business Trends: Is social commerce just a natural extension of ecommerce with social integrated into it? John Lawson: That is the way I look at it. Small Business Trends: You created the ColderICE persona online. How has all of that played into your ecommerce business? John Lawson: I think it has been the other way around. I think it was my business, the education that I had and the experience that allowed the brand of ColderICE to expand. I really started with a knowledge base. I knew ecommerce and I started sharing that in social media with people. Then suddenly, they started finding me. They found me based on my experience and expertise. It has been the other way around once I got all of these followers. Now it is starting to pay off on the business side where people are like, “Okay, we are interested in what you have to say and what you have to sell.” Small Business Trends: Were there any surprises as you were going through the process of creating the social brand and marrying it to your ecommerce business? John Lawson: I actually started playing around with social media a whole lot. Talking about the experience; talking about what I liked and know about ecommerce. Then one day, I decided to create a video that was relative to our brand and what we do. We created the video simply showing our customers how to use the product. One of the products we sold was the bandannas. I decided to just create a video showing how to fold a bandanna. That video alone has generated over 220,000 views now. We are still constantly getting orders based on how to fold the bandannas. All from a video that I created a few years ago. Small Business Trends: Now let's talk a little bit about social commerce platforms. What are the big platforms? Traditional players like eBay and Amazon? Or Facebook, Apple. . .or it is all of the above? John Lawson: Mark Zuckerberg made a very big statement last year where he said, "Fcommerce was the biggest thing that Facebook was going for." Unfortunately the F ended up standing for something other than Facebook, we won't go into that. Let me make it very clear. Social media as a platform for commerce is not mature enough. People do not necessary trust social platforms enough to pull out their wallet and buy a diamond ring. We are waiting for that to mature. That is why you have these other platforms like eBay, Amazon and third party platforms. Because they are trusted. A lot of times you need to drive your traffic to a trusted site before a person will actually purchase. I think the term “social commerce,” the place where you buy at a social space, is still too new. Small Business Trends: Talk a little bit about mobile commerce and its impact on social commerce. Does it have an impact on it? John Lawson: We are looking at people right now like American Express who are doing something very unique with hashtags. They are allowing their users that have their card to marry that card to their tweets. If you tweet out a hashtag they will give you a discount on your card. That discount will be from one of the manufactures of a major brand. This is some pretty fascinating stuff and we will see how this is going to work. Now you are actually in a place where you are doing the “I am going to tweet and I am at this restaurant.” Using the hashtag you will actually get a discount. Not from the restaurant. You will get a discount on the American Express card. That is the future. Small Business Trends: Peer out to the future, maybe a year maybe two years from now. Where will we be with social commerce? John Lawson: I think the last missing link is that it should be integrated into our phone technology. I should not have to download anything or start anything. I should be able to take a picture and go right to the site where it is advertised. Can you imagine that on the side of a bus or on the back of a service vehicle? So that people can contact that service from every billboard? I think that you’re going to see this kind of messaging that is going to be easy to translate to every cell phone everywhere. Small Business Trends: Where can people find out more about social commerce and about more of ColderICE? John Lawson: Just search me. ”ColderICE,” one word. That is the easiest way, they will find me. This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.
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| No One Saw It Coming: Business Prediction Posted: 06 Apr 2012 05:30 AM PDT
I’m terrible at predicting. It seems like I don’t see stuff coming until it’s just about over with. Take Crocs for example. When those were really getting to be a big deal years ago I noticed them, but in the sort of way that you notice any other everyday item. I notice my mailbox, but I don’t take notice of it, you know? But when I finally really saw them and thought, “You know, that might make a good cartoon,” they’d already come in and out of fashion a few times. (Are they in now?) So although this cartoon really speaks to me, I could never have predicted it. From Small Business Trends |
| Small Businesses Are Hiring and Growing Again Posted: 06 Apr 2012 02:30 AM PDT We start this roundup with some more good news. Small business enthusiasm is high and hiring has begun. We hope you’ll enjoy the rest of the inspiring articles and important tips below and share how your small business is doing in the comment section. Human ResourcesSmall businesses are hiring. A survey indicates small business optimism is up and that small businesses are in hiring mode. How about your company? Are you ready to add employees to your staff? Who are you looking for? CNBC Small Business Are you crushing your employees’ spirits? If so, be aware you might be killing your business right along with it. Innovation especially may be one of the first casualties of such an approach. Open Forum Taxes & LegalUnderstanding your deductions. The tax season is upon us, and small business owners are all looking for their share of tax deductions. But wait! Business structure determines the kind of allowable deductions. Small Business Trends Advice for entrepreneurs in love. Love ain’t easy. Neither is entrepreneurship. Put them both together and you may have either a marriage made in heaven or a headache with more down to earth origins. Let an expert sort out the difficulties. SBA.gov Trends & TipsSmall businesses get bigger? The SBA is changing its definition of what constitutes a small business, and the new expanded designation has some small business owners upset. How big do you think a small business should be? WSJ Mostly it’s just hard work. Starting and operating a small business successfully takes time and effort. There are a wide variety of steps both personal and professional that you should consider to be up to the challenge. BusinessTips.ph The Social Media FrontWhy your business really needs a blog writer. It’s not a job people might have been hired for even a few years ago, but the importance of blogging today is well known. It’s a skill that will likely be a full-time career someday. FixCourse Making your store a social connection center. If you want to get new customers to like your store, there’s no reason for you to wait until they whip out a smartphone or walk out the door. Here’s another idea. OnSpot Startup & OperationsSmall business survival skills. Whether we’re still in a recession or in a mild and slow recovery, operating your small business intelligently will never go out of fashion. What are your survival tips? SalesChase Starting a business by filling a need. No matter how large or small your scope, meeting needs is still the best way to find a business idea that works. It’s even better if you can fill that need with a little bit of style. The Seed & Startup Capital Blog From Small Business Trends |
Small Business Trends: Can you tell us a little bit about your background before we jump into this whole area of social commerce?
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