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By John Stewart As the holidays approach, retailers and banks can expect to sell more electronic gift cards than ever, if research released Monday by Bankrate.com is any indication. The survey, which covers 60 general-purpose and proprietary gift cards, shows two-thirds are available as e-cards, up from 59% last year. …
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The Prepaid RushCard Declares a 4-Month Fee Holiday After Processing Glitch
UniRush LLC’s RushCard declared a four-month fee holiday over the weekend after a glitch during the prepaid card’s switch to a new processor that began Oct. 11 limited access to an undisclosed but apparently large number of customers’ accounts. Cincinnati-based UniRush did not identify the processor. The glitch apparently started …
Read More »Happy Holidays? Hiccups Trip Up Virtual Gift Cards
When Nikki Baird and Steve Rowen evaluated retailers’ digital gift cards this year, the thing that surprised them the most was how disjointed the shopper experience is. Card sales that worked just fine at a merchant’s desktop site just didn’t translate well to a mobile device, for example. That could …
Read More »As Holiday Season Nears, System Hiccups Trip Up Virtual Gift Card Offerings
By John Stewart When Nikki Baird and Steve Rowen evaluated retailers’ digital gift cards this year, the thing that surprised them the most was how disjointed the shopper experience is. Card sales that worked just fine at a merchant’s desktop site just didn’t translate well to a mobile device, for …
Read More »NACHA Stats Show Nearly 5% Growth for the ACH in 2014’s Holiday Quarter
All things considered, the holidays were kind to the ACH. Transactions on the automated clearing house network grew 4.7% in the final three months of 2014 compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, while dollar volume moved by the network climbed 4.9%, according to statistics from NACHA, the governing body …
Read More »With Holiday Gift Card Sales Wilting, Issuers Will Have to Push Harder, Add Digital
The earliest known example of a closed-loop gift card was offered during the Christmas holiday season in 1916 by Hampton’s Quality Store in Eugene, Ore. The store advertised a “Christmas Glove Gift Card” that could be given to a lady, allowing her to redeem it for the gloves she wanted. …
Read More »Mobile Commerce Soars As Consumers Begin Their Holiday Shopping
Consumers wielding smart phones and tablets put their PayPal accounts to work over the just-passed holiday-shopping weekend. PayPal, a unit of eBay Inc. until its anticipated spinoff in 2015, says its global mobile-payments volume increased 62% on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, over the same day in 2013. …
Read More »Holiday-Season Demand Taps More Cash From Fledgling PayPal Working Capital
As small online merchants prepare for holiday-season sales, they’re seeking out financing to support extra help and added order fulfillment, and that’s boosting new financing options from online processors. PayPal Inc., for example, now has 20,000 mostly e-commerce businesses using its 15-month-old PayPal Working Capital merchant cash-advance service. It has …
Read More »Gift Cards Top Holiday Wish Lists, With Total Spending Estimated at $31.74 Billion
Consumers want gift cards this holiday season, but are reluctant to ask for them, finds a survey from CashStar Inc., a Portland, Maine-based company that specializes in e-coupons and digital gift cards. Meanwhile the National Retail Federation forecasts that consumers will spend $31.74 billion on gift cards this holiday …
Read More »Mobile Makes Cyber Monday Gains Among U.S. Holiday Shoppers
Consumers used smart phones or tablets to spend $962 million on holiday purchases across three key shopping days in the past week, further cementing the importance of these devices to retailers. n Adobe says 18.3% of online sales came from mobile devices on Cyber Monday, an 80% increase from last …
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