merchant – ADOTAT

2017-03-26

10% of Credit Card Accepting Digital Retailers Have No Security

A recently released survey by 123 Reg, which is the largest website provider in the UK, has found that 10% of websites that accept credit cards as payments haven’t taken any security precautions to keep their customer’s data safe. In the poll, the company asked 13,000 small business owners a series of questions related to their data security.

20% of the respondents reported that they do not know who handles their website security. This is a big concern because it likely means that nobody handles the security other than whatever service they are using to run the transactions themselves. Any data they keep on their customers is then likely just kept on their company webserver or other location.

Another 50% reported that they know that they are not ready for any type of digital attack, and if one took place, they have no recovery plan.

Nearly 10% said that they don’t know whether their data has been hacked in the past, an obvious indication of ignorance regarding their electronic data assets.

The digital director at 123 Reg, Nick Leech, said, “Having an online presence is vital for small businesses, in 2015 e-commerce sales in the UK reached £533 billion, but keeping customers safe requires a team effort. Businesses can easily implement simple, yet crucial, security measures, which can help keep them safe against online attacks. By continuously updating online programmes, regularly changing passwords and installing the latest security products, Britain’s small business owners can stay secure and continue to thrive.”

2016-12-01

It’s Official – Cyber Monday Breaks eCommerce Sales Records Again

While most people expected this to happen, it is good to see confirmation. Cyber Monday 2016 is officially the largest day in US e-Commerce history (likely until Cyber Monday 2017). Adobe released their data that shows that about $3.4 billion was spent online. This only narrowly beats out Black Friday online shopping this year, which brought in 3.34 billion.

Interestingly, people spent more on their mobile devices on Friday than they did Monday. Black Friday generated $1.2 billion from mobile devices, compared to $1.19 billion on Cyber Monday. According to the reports, 44% of all of the retail traffic came from smartphones, 9% came from tablets, and the rest from PCs. If you do the simple math, this means mobile devices made up over hall of the total traffic on these two critical eCommerce shopping days. Clearly the days of eCommerce being primarily a PC game are long gone.

Other sources of data are still being prepared from other companies, but Adobe claims that theirs is the most detailed and most accurate. According to the company press release, they say that they collect, “anonymous data from 23 billion visits to retail websites.” And they track about 80% of all the transactions that go through the 100 top US retailers. This is, of course, very significant.

Going through the data from Adobe you’ll see all the most common online retailers generating the most buzz, including eBay, Amazon, Macys, Walmart, and more.

To go through the full report from Adobe, click HERE.

2016-02-152016-02-22

Jeremy Johnson Fraud Trial Begins

Jeremy Johnson, the owner of iWorks, a Utah-based marketing company, went on trial this past week in Federal Court – with Johnson strangely representing himself, and unable to give any reason for this weird behavior because of a gag-order by the judge.

Why the secrecy? Because while Johnson is charged with extensive bank fraud via a system of shell companies to hide chargebacks, he is also part of a corruption case against for attempting to bribe public officials.

Prosecutors claim that Johnson and partners created new fake companies when they were added to blacklists because of extensive chargeback issues. Records show that they formed over 37 shell companies in the name of employees and friends, in order to get new processor accounts to charge customers – even though they were banned from the processing industry from getting new accounts.

Johnson’s defense is presenting a simple defense, along with other attorneys for his co-conspirators: that the banks knew about his fraudulent activities, and even helped him to create the new accounts. He had to put down $5.5 million ahead of time for potential fines when making these accounts, and everyone involved from the banks, brokers and the credit card companies were well aware he was behind the accounts.

Of course, the Banks and Credit Card Issuers deny that they knew about Johnson’s schemes, as they lost millions from fraudulent transactions.

2011-12-21

Google Does a High-Fiver with Product Ads

Recently Google included a spot in Product Ads for five single products to show. Users now have more pricing details and information about the products. This new addition allows advertisers to highlight more than one item of their inventory at a time.

In a Product Listing Ad, it is now possible to show the merchant name, image, and price without the bother of extra keywords.

When a user does a search online that is associated to an item in one of the Google Merchant Center accounts, Google will display images of the product in the same ad space, with all relevant information.

The change is taking place in every country that has Product Ads. The United Kingdom, France, and Germany were added to the list this month. Google’s program was launched in U.S. beta and the studies are showing that users were much more likely to move their mouse to ‘click’ Product Ads than plain text ads.

The leads were also higher quality, making a higher ROI. There has been an increase to the tune of 600% for retail sites using Product listing Ads, compared to last year. The mega search engine is expecting even more productivity this holiday season.

What Product Ads Actually Do
Data is drawn from Google Merchant Center accounts by the Product Ads. These recent changes are becoming extremely beneficial to retailers and any that have not hooked into Google’s Product Ads just may find that they are missing out.

The recent changes are:

Retailers can now use their entire inventory simply by selecting the “All products” option when you set up the product target. This will ensure that your entire inventory can be shown.

Check your quality control with the data Quality tab at the Merchant Center. This allows for reviewing to see that the right amount of data for lining up the products for Google to display when someone does a search.

Any copy can be improved to be more appealing and draw users to your products. Bid opportunities can be maximized. This is a competitive time, especially during the holiday season. You can place your bids with more budget firepower to compete.

It is now so much easier for the retailer to display the entire inventory they have. Product advertising is much more engaging and attractive. Users are becoming more educated and this new and improved way to advertise at Google puts retailers in a better position to market successfully.

Cost per Action or CPA is how advertisers pay for the listings. This makes for low risk in finding a large audience. The risk is low because the advertiser only pays for that ad when someone clicks on the ad and then buys something from the site. The fact that someone gets to see the image and price of the product before they actually go to the site, is making them more likely to be in a buying mode when they arrive at the merchant retailer’s site.

High five for Google`s ingenious add on!