Contents tagged with B2B Payments

  • What do B2B ecommerce companies need to do to take advantage of industry's growth?

    February 24, 2015
    With the B2B ecommerce industry looking to skyrocket in value, how can merchants best ride this trend to their benefit?

    B2B ecommerce is a lucrative industry that's only growing bigger. Already valued at over $1 trillion, analysts estimate that B2B ecommerce sales will be worth over $6.7 trillion in just the next five years. On its own, this staggering rate of growth is great news for any B2B merchant. But as a new report issued by Forrester Research notes, many of these operations are still in their early days and need to continue building their B2B ecommerce platform in order to best take advantage of this rising value trend.

    The Forrester report, titled "Build A World-Class B2B eCommerce Business: The B2B eCommerce Playbook," notes that many merchants have not yet accomplished all they can in "effectively targeting B2B buyers online, developing an industrial-strength B2B e-commerce infrastructure and … more

  • Is there a benefit for B2B payers to swipe, rather than type in, credit cards?

    February 17, 2015
    Swiping credit cards may work as a money-saving method for B2C merchants, but for B2B payers, the key to savings is Level 3 data processing.

    In a piece for the personal finance website NerdWallet, Steve Nicastro writes that one key way in which small businesses and merchants can help save money is by emphasizing credit and debit card swipes, rather than typing in the card numbers. According to Nicastro, citing data from Intuit Quickbooks, entering in those card numbers by hand results in higher credit card processing fees compared to just swiping. And in the B2C market space, where most transactions are done face-to-face with the card and cardholder present, this is certainly the case. But for B2B payers, this is far from true.

    In B2B payments, swiping cards is not the key to better pricing, particularly as these transactions don't typically involve the card being present anyway. Rather, what's key to facilitating … more

  • 3 ways to modernize B2B payments

    February 09, 2015
    Here are three tips for modernizing how to conduct B2B transactions.

    As the old adage goes, if it's not broken, don't fix it — but that doesn't mean it can't be brought up to date either. In spite of the many cutting-edge and innovative ways in which B2B buyers can make safe and accountable transactions, many still opt to use older methods like paper checks. As Drew Hofler, director of Solutions Marketing for SAP Cloud & Network Solutions, notes, this can create a conundrum on both sides of the buyer-seller equation: Racking up paper costs and inefficiencies for buyers, and obscuring the details of transactions for sellers, making it difficult to decipher when they'll be paid and what exactly for.

    B2B payments can be made more securely and cost-effectively, with buyers getting the full rundown on what exactly it is they're purchasing, … more

  • Integration helps small B2B providers keep up with their enterprise counterparts

    January 22, 2015
    Integration is required to make small business accounting work with B2B eCommerce solutions.

    Competing in 2015 will be a challenge for small merchants if they're using outdated or insufficient software solutions. However, with the right systems in place, smaller merchants can compete with their larger enterprise counterparts. To do this, their systems must integrate properly, creating a seamless data management process that streamlines the customer experience.

    As a developer, targeting smaller merchants is an opportunity to expand your user base if you ensure that your systems can work together to create a sales and payment processing solution that works for organizations of any size. B2B eCommerce solutions that speak to accounting and other financial modules can ensure that eCommerce transactions are processed with the utmost efficiency, which allows companies of … more

  • Streamlining the B2B payment process

    January 21, 2015
    Red tape can slow down B2B payments, in turn eating into a merchant's revenue.

    B2B eCommerce represents a huge opportunity with an industry worth over $1 trillion. Yet, although similar in wanting a familiar user experience, it is important to recognize B2B eCommerce as being very different from B2C.

    For instance, B2B payments are frequently tied up in red tape, which can slow things to a crawl and ultimately affect a merchant's bottom line.

    "Delayed sales can lead to lost sales, which mean lost revenue," one B2B ecommerce platform CEO tells the Huffington Post. "Evaluating the entire process and identifying kinks is the first step to streamlining an ecommerce business."

    As the news source adds, B2B transactions often require several hands to sign-off on a deal, which results in delays for payment. The reason may not even be because of overly bureaucratic& … more

  • Survey: Half of B2B buyers prefer payments made with debit, credit cards

    January 21, 2015
    Half of B2B payers polled in a recent survey said they prefer transactions made with debit or credit cards over other forms of payment.

    According to a new survey, approximately half of all B2B buyers prefer debit and credit card transactions for payment, outpacing online payment services or traditional purchase orders and invoices.

    The poll, conducted by Forrester Consulting, consulting firm Accenture and e-commerce software firm hybris software, found that 50 percent of the 930 surveyed B2B buyers would rather have transactions carried out by debit and credit cards. Compare this to just 28 percent who said they prefer purchase orders and invoices or the 19 percent of buyers who reported using online portals like PayPal for their purchases. 

    Naturally, it's important that merchants strive to offer the best purchasing experience, which in this case means accommodating credit and debit cards for … more

  • VantageB2B vs the Industry

    December 21, 2014
    The cost of processing card payments is higher for B2B merchants than it is more companies in most other industries.

    A merchant's effective "Real Rate" is calculated by dividing the total merchant charges and fees over a given amount of time by the total bank card sales volume over that same amount of time. Usually this is done monthly with the merchant statement billing cycle.

    According to MyRealRate.com, B2B merchants averaged an effective real rate costs of 2.45 percent in October 2014. VantageB2B merchants averaged 2.05 percent for that same October time period. That is a 40 basis points difference or approximately a 20 percent savings. The merchants surveyed processed nearly $1.4 Billion dollars of sales. VantageB2B Level 3 processing would have resulting in these merchants saving $5.6 million in merchant fees in October.

    Vantage B2B helps merchants reduce their real rate by providing the tools … more

  • Use Level 3 data to lower rates

    December 12, 2014
    It's important for B2B merchants to reduce their Interchange costs and track their effective Real Rates to accept card payments.

    It's important for B2B merchants to reduce their Interchange costs and track their effective Real Rates to accept card payments. As pointed out by a recent chart on MyRealRate.com, the average B2B merchant paid 2.45 percent, which was the third-highest rate among eight separate industries in October of this year.  What this indicates is that even as we head into 2015, most B2B merchants surveyed are still not properly qualifying for Visa Level 3 and MasterCard Data Rate 3 Interchange rate incentives.

    We strongly recommend that merchants understand how to calculate and then carefully track their effective "real" rate they are paying for card processing service each month. By taking into account all the additional charges and fees that are determined by your location, specific … more

  • Always pay attention to merchant statement details

    December 12, 2014
    B2B merchants must be able to determine Interchange qualifications by examining their merchant statement.

    It's always important to read the fine print. Whether you are closing a business deal or buying an expensive new product, you can't sign your name on the dotted line until you understand all the hidden fees and other stipulations that you will be responsible for. The problem is that those who are new to the business may not realize the methods that many service providers use to conceal these charges and fees from their statements. As pointed out by a recent article on the Examiner, a push for greater transparency among the major finance industry players has not prevented some from redesigning their paperwork so that fee details are difficult to find. "One of the first things a competitor will look at on the statement is the rates and fees," one account executive told the news source. " … more

  • Nature of B2B sales process can increase risk for merchants

    December 08, 2014
    Business purchases are typically a team effort, which may impact the payment process.

    While this certainly varies depending on the nature of the transaction, B2B sales in general are a lot more complex than their B2C counterparts. It's rare that a procurement specialist is given the freedom to buy what they want without consulting with other parts of the organization, namely individuals at the executive level. 

    This is important for B2B merchants to think about as they initiate transactions with their customers. It was brought up in a recent Huffington Post article that listed tips to help streamline B2B sales. Ilana Greene, the article's author, stressed the fact that multiple decision makers can result in serious delays. 

    "A payment or purchase often requires approval from two or more departments in a business. Whether a VP, a department chair, the … more