There are a lot of online business owners who get flustered by the language associated with the merchant services business. And there are several terms that won’t make sense the first time one hears them, but by spending just a little time studying – ...

I have a business on the Internet selling running shoes. It’s just me and a few thousand other sites out there trying to do the same thing, so as you might imagine the competition is pretty steep. In some ways I like to look at businesses like mine ...

Retailing experts will tell you that changing a consumer habit can be hard. Even in the online shopping world we tend to find what works for us and stick with it. We are not resistant to change, but often we are slow to embrace it. But once that change is...

There are a lot of people who start an online business, looking at the costs of credit card services and wondering if they can afford them. And it’s a fair question. You are going to incur some monthly fees no matter which merchant services company y...

I have an online business and I am part of a group of Internet business owners who convene weekly in a private chat room to compare notes, swap ideas and help each other out as needed. And the longer I talk to these other business owners the more I think ...

I got a fortune cookie last week with the message: “Feelings are not always facts.” I guess the thought behind that message is what we feel does not have to be grounded in reality. The same can be said of perception. What we perceive does not have ...

I went to a small college in a small town, which was quite a change from the city I grew up in -- Dallas. My college town essentially had one of everything. One grocery store, one drug store, one clothing store, one shoe store – starting to get the ...

If you though the super-sonic transport jet that used to get people to Paris in the time it takes for a power lunch, then you’ll appreciate the speed at which merchant services are handled these days. Though credit card use continues to increase arou...

When I was growing up I remember watching my folks go through the catalogues looking for things we needed. They’d fill out an order form, write a check and mail it in, then wait at least three weeks for their merchandise to arrive. Back then there w...

If you are wondering if there is any part of the retail sector that might be safe to get into these days you might consider opening an online business. While fluctuating gas prices and other factors have hammered the real-world retail sector online bu...

It may be hard to fathom but there are a number of college kids and young professionals who have never balanced their checkbooks. Some might not have ever even written their first check. This isn’t because they don’t know how -- but that they track...

There are a number of online business owners who have taken a casual look at adding credit card processing services to their sites, seen that there will be monthly fees and charges and stopped looking at that point. Why give the credit card companies thei...

Every business owner keeps their eyes cast in two directions. One is keeping a watch on what is happening to their business now. The other is focused on the future – what’s coming down the road that might be good for that business. And the online b...

For the owner of an online business, every decision about that business is a major one if it affects how customers will be able to connect. There should be no decisions arrived at capriciously because every choice made is going to have a bearing on pro...

Before relations with China were normalized in the early part of the 70s there was very little business being done between our country and the Chinese. But several businesses were chomping at the bit for that country to open up. The hundreds of millions o...