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Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
As smartphones, mobiles and tablets become more prevalent, and wi-fi hotspots mean that data transfer can cost next to zero (a cup of coffee and a bun in many places), so we are seeing an explosion in mobile marketing. Geo-location and location based marketing aim to attract and encourage customers within a locality with services such as Foursquare, location based SMS, and m-commerce to make branding and m-marketing easy for business, and purchases more simple for customers.
However, much of this type of marketing relies on a bricks and mortar presence – you are endeavouring to attract people to your store, restaurant, gym, B&B, hotel, etc so that you can make a sale in the real world rather than online through your e-commerce store and website. But, what happens if you are a market stall, a pop-up, a table top or car boot sale vendor, manning an exhibition stand, or selling hats and wellies on top of a mountain and need to process a card payment rather than dealing only with cash?
The founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, launched Square in May 2011 and whilst providing a mobile payment scheme, Square is more than a little disruptive for the payments industry and hence exciting for businesses, large and small. Sir Richard Branson invested in Square last November and although it is not yet available in the UK, Branson’s investment will undoubtedly bring it to these shores. What Square does, and what other companies are likely to try to emulate, is make any smartphone into a credit card processing terminal. We have recently seen businesses such as Barclays taking potshots at the likes of Paypal for consumer payments via mobile with the Barclays PingIt service, but for many businesses, the rapid approach of multiple payment options eg Square can only be a good thing, especially if it reduces bottom line costs and keeps products competitive.
One option is the card reader, which plugs into the headphone jack on your phone. The sheer simplicity of such a device indicates the likelihood that it will take off, even though there have to be some security concerns about how easy it *could* make kiting and card cloning once apps are undoubtedly produced to help scammers. However, today’s announcements that credit card fraud is down must offer some reassurance on that level.
When you begin to consider the uses to which business can put this form of “payment anywhere”, it makes you itch for it be released in the UK. Not only does it solve the problem of having credit card processing terminals at outdoor events, but it also will herald a new level of competition in the payment processing market which has for too long been monopolised by the banks. Credit card transaction fees can be prohibitive, especially on micro-payments and low profit margin items.
For instance, Paypal charge 5% +5p per transaction on micropayments and 3.4% + 20p for regular payments.
WorldPay charge £19.95 /month for 350 transactions (5p each) and then 10p each for further transactions.
Barclays charge 3% with a £10 management fee and a minimum bill of £10 (no micropayments option, it seems)
Square charges 2.75% per swipe and 3.5% for manually entered cards with a 15c charge (only available in the US, at present).
The ubiquity of mobile phones and their impact on pretty much everything in our daily lives, especially in the world of commerce, is likely to see many more optional extras to plug into your phones over the coming years. We are likely to see far more use made of the headphone jack, as well as mini USB connectors already in mobile phones to offer additional functionality, both for consumers and businesses. After all, it’s not that long since a phone with a camera was a novelty and the Square card reader is precisely the type of disruptive technology that will change the way we do business.
What re your thoughts? How would your company use a mobile card reader? What else would you like to be able to plug into your phone?
Tags: credit card, E-Commerce, geo targeting, geo-location, jack dorsey, location based SMS, m-commerce, m-marketing, sir richard branson, square, transaction processing, twitter, wifi
Posted in Blog, E-Commerce, Small Business Resources, Stats & Trends
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Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
In an area that has recently seen Facebook and Yelp scale back, Google is moving forward to display daily deals adverts on Google.com, according to an article published by adage.com.
Traditionally taking a minimalist approach, Google’s homepage has always been sparse. However, recently it displayed a deal for a Nexus S Smartphone – a model it developed – from Best Buy.
It now seems that Google have taken this a step further; last Wednesday (August 31) it featured an offer for $5 tickets to the American Museum of Natural History – displayed directly underneath the search bar. Using geo-targeting, the deal was displayed only to those with a New York IP address.
A Google spokeswoman, commenting in an email, said: “We occasionally include a link on the Google homepage that points users to important information, whether it be about a relevant cause, a new product or an offer.”
She added: “We believe that users can benefit from learning about great deals from local organisations.”
Impressively the deal saw the purchase of 7,700 tickets and it is thought that the move could see a new outlet for search engine marketing.
Google originally launched Offers in June as a rival to Groupon; it currently provides deals for Portland, the Bay Area and New York.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: geo targeting, Google, Search Engine Marketing
Posted in Search Engine News
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Friday, November 21st, 2008
Some will already have noticed that Google searches often seem to try to ‘pre-empt’ our intentions when searching. For instance, if you are trying to do a global search, Google often insists on giving geographic results based on your IP. This can be irritating to say the least if you a) need results from a country other than the one you are logging in from or b) when you are in a foreign country and Google insists on sending you to that country’s version of Google rather than your home nation, or the URL for a country specific Google engine that you have entered.
Additionally, Google will often try to second guess whether you are researching or planning to shop, and deliver results based on that assumption. If Google second guesses wrong, you will get results that do not necessarily apply to your search, and it can be hard to break away from that assumption to find the right results.
There is more of this to come. Google are looking to apply more intent based searching, as well as more geographic and geotargeted search, and whilst this may be a good thing in many instances, it could also lead to a growing resentment that a computer (Google owned or otherwise) thinks it knows better than we do.
However, it may mean that it slowly educates users to search more accurately, and that SEO adapts to ensure that the relevant results are delivered to those seeking answers or products and services. We will have to wait and see, but I think 2009 will see a certain disenchantment with these developments amonst users of the search engines, whilst on the other hand driving phenomenal amounts of traffic to those who capitalise early on the changes.
Tags: geo targeting, Google, intent based searching
Posted in SEM Industry, Stats & Trends
