ETD: 743 Cutting Collection Costs by 90%; How to stumble on
to a new business; PosSoftwareGuide.com
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post@gapent.com
Thu, 04 Dec 2003 06:35:57 -0500
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0743 December 4, 2003
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem@gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] Cutting Collection Costs by 90%
[3] How to stumble on to a new business
[4] PosSoftwareGuide.com
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
I know at least one member who had a great Black Friday. Coastal Tool, a
little tool store in Hartford, CT had one of the biggest days ever online
last Friday. And this store has been a pioneer online and written up in a
best selling book a couple of years ago. Way to go Todd! How about a
special report of keeping the flame alive?
According to reports, Thanksgiving weekend was a success. That weekend
only accounts for 10% of sales, but it is a barometer in the minds of many.
How did you do?
Today we have an excellent report on cutting costs by Jules Kaplan. A must
read.
Party guru Patty Sachs reports on how to stumble on to a new business (my
words, not hers). Food for thought for those of us seeking other alternatives.
And list member Jeff Haefner tells us about his business
PosSoftwareGuide.com. Looks like a great resource for those seeking POS
for your store.
Let's hear about your business, which will remain for posterity at
our "Members: Who Are You?" site.
http://etailersdigest.com/resources/members/index.htm And we have a form
there for you to tell us about you. As I said when I first proposed this
idea, we have "known" each other for a long time, yet we often don't know
anything about each other. So, tell us who you are and what you do.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, Ltd.
mailto:georgem@gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] Cutting Collection Costs by 90%
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Overview: www.onlineChek.com (“OLC”) has developed a solution that
enables small to medium-sized enterprises to reduce collection costs by
90%. Our solution allows enterprises (“payees”) and consumers (“payers”)
to collect and make payments using electronic checks (EFT) or credit cards
(merchant payments). Unlike competing services, our patent-pending
business model focuses on the needs of the payees and manages the entire
process, while making the process seamless and easy for the payers. With
over 40 years of entrepreneurial success, our management team has the
talent and experience needed for your company.
Traditional paper-based collection processes are expensive and time
consuming. The Gartner Group estimates that it costs $10 to process a
manual check. OLC can reduce that cost by over 90%.
Most small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) those producing between a
hundred and several thousand transactions each month can not afford to
develop an in-house electronic collection process, nor can they afford the
expensive capital equipment necessary to automate the collection processes.
An alternative to manual collections is to use an electronic payment
service owned and operated by a bank. However, banks leave much to be
desired in terms of providing electronic payment solutions to their SMB
customers:
a. Lack of focus: Banks generate only a small fraction of their revenues
by providing electronic payment services. They therefore have little
incentive to maintain high levels of customer service and competition.
b. Poor customer service: Banks have little incentive to service their
electronic payments customers, and often fail to even return customers
calls. Problem resolution times of 3-4 days are the norm.
c. Vendor lock-in: Bank-based electronic payment solutions require the use
of the bank’s proprietary software, making it difficult and expensive for
the SMB to switch banks.
Not payee-centric: Most banks designed their electronic payment software
to address their own needs first, with little consideration for the needs
of the SMB. From the SMB’s point of view, much of the software is
inefficient at best, and sometimes simply useless.
d. Hidden charges: Although the per-transaction fees can be low, the total
cost quickly rises after adding batch fees, batch cancellation fees, high
NSF fees, monthly analysis charges, and much more. A customer recently
switched from a bank to EZP after his bank informed him it could cost over
$3,000 a month for NSF returns. EZP would have charged $750 at
most. After speaking with us, he negotiated the bank fee down to $1500
(for 10 minutes of work) and then moved his account to EZP. .
e. Constant system changes: Frequent consolidations and mergers among
banks means that if an SMB has an account with a bank that is acquired,
they must switch to the new parent’s systems, procedures, and fees.
OLC is approached at least once a week by an SMB who is completely
frustrated with their bank and would like us to take over.
With approximately 42.5 billion paper check transactions in the U.S. in
2001, there is potential for significant savings of time and money. With
banks representing a poor choice, there is a significant opportunity for
electronic payments companies targeting the needs of SMB payees.
Overview of Services
OLC has developed a family of online services that enable SMBs to reduce
collection costs by 90%. Our end-to-end solution allows SMB payees to
collect payments online using electronic checks (EFT) or credit cards
(merchant payments). Unlike banks and other online payment services, we
focus on serving the needs of the payees, while keeping the process simple
for the payers. With over 6,000 man-hours of development effort invested
in the system, our systems are now live and in use by a number of customers.
www.OnlineChek.com
OnlineChek.com is a comprehensive, payee-centric online collection
system. The system allows payees to automate their entire collection
process, leading to significant time and cost savings.
Capabilities & Benefits For both payees and payers, OnlineChek.com is
designed with efficiency, ease of use, reliability, and security as our top
goals.
For payees:
1. Save 90% on billing and collection costs $0.34 each vs. about $10
per traditional manual process of collection:
2. Eliminate the time consuming and costly process of depositing your
daily bank receipts by going to the bank. Automatically record and deposit
funds.
3. Easy set-up:
4. Simple online application to get started.
5. No special software or hardware to install.
6. Easy collections:
7. Have funds directly deposited in the payee’s bank, reducing the time
required to collect funds by 5 to 10 days or more.
8. Eliminate the need to process and deposit paper checks at the bank.
9. Comprehensive reports:
10. Have a single source of information for returned checks and corrections.
11. Complete history of all payments, returned checks, and corrections.
12. Security & Reliability:
13. 128-bit SSL encryption.
14. Daily data backups.
15. Physically secure systems.
16. Availability:
17. Access services from any browser connection anywhere in the world.
18. 24/7 customer service by telephone and e-mail.
For payers:
19. Receive Notification of Payment by e-mail.
20. Pay bills by electronic check or credit card.
To Demo the onlinechek.com process, just to
go: https://www.ezpaymentsolutions.com/onlinechek/check.php?id=110
Just contact info@OnlineChek.com for any additional information or call
800-220-0468.
Yours truly
Jules Kaplan
Ez Payment Solutions LLC - E-commerce Payment Solution Provider
Find Out How to Reduce Billing and Collection Cost by 90%+ Available now
at: www.OnlineChek.com
E-Commerce Solution that you have to SEE to BELIEVE www.EzPaymentservices.com
480-991-7025 OR 800-220-0468 - FAX 310-362-8746
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[3] How to stumble on to a new business
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Greetings George and ETD Readers: My business, as has been promoted and
mentioned in this Digest several times, is essentially writing and sharing
ideas about celebrations and special events for both personal and business
occasions. But just recently it has taken a turn, you might say a "swerve"
into another area. For years I have been selling people on the idea of
using instant photos as party favors and other party-related fun. One of
the things I suggested was decorating cardstock folders designed to hold
that popular size photo. But I never told the reader where to buy them.
After dozens of requests for the source of the folders I tracked them down
and began selling them in small quantities for parties. This holiday season
I put up a web site offering first the Halloween design...and now have
added Santa and Snowman and a few other themes.
I am getting all these "phone and e-mail hugs" from people who have been
searching high and low for weeks and are so grateful to me for "selling"
frames to them.
The moral of the story: If you are getting requests for something, time and
again, give strong consideration to adding it to your line of goods. Then
promote like crazy and it will be not only a profitable move...but you will
be getting all this great and grateful feedback. It makes my
day. Unfortunately, the phone ringing off the hook during the day has
forced me into doing my "regular" work (like planning Buyer's Education for
trade shows) in the evening. I suspect it will die down after the holidays,
but then there is Valentine's Day and Easter.
That's my NEW extra business, George. Even got a domain for it.
www.instantphotoframes.com
Here's looking at you! Happy Holidays everyone!
Patty Sachs
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[4] PosSoftwareGuide.com
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I sell a buyers guide that helps retailers quickly find and choose the best
point of sale software for their business. The POS Software Buyers Guide
has helped hundreds of retailers find reliable software that maximizes
efficiency and profitability.
I decided to write the guide because I saw a big demand for good
information about choosing POS software. I've talked to hundreds of
retailers that buy software and wish they would have bought something else
a few months later. Plus there are so many choices that choosing POS
software can be very time consuming and confusing.
Most retailers find my guide from search engines or links on retail
oriented websites.
The complete POS Software Buyers Guide costs $29.00. Visit my website at
http://www.possoftwareguide.com
Jeff Haefner
Retail POS Software Consultant
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Links to follow
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Prior to 29 Dec
1999 http://etailersdigest.com/archives/index.htm
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