Internet Gateways: Your Best Bet for Shortening Long Lines this Holiday Season

The 2007 holiday shopping season is officially here, and it has started with a bang. According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), Black Friday was bigger than originally projected. Traffic increased 4.8% from 2006, with 147M consumers getting an early jump on the holiday shopping season. Shoppertrack RCT Corp, which extrapolates data from sales at more than 50,000 retailers, reports an 8.3% increase in sales over 2006, with consumers spending $10.3B.

So now the question is: Are you ready and able to handle the increased traffic in your retail store? The NRF is projecting that consumers will spend roughly $474.5B during the 2007 holiday season, a 4.0% increase in sales over last year. You may have your shelves stocked and your store staffed, but if your lines are too long and too slow, frustrated shoppers will walk out, taking their business to another retailer.

Processing Credit Cards through an Internet Gateway

To shorten long checkout lines, consider processing your card transactions—both debit and credit—over an Internet gateway. An Internet gateway acts as a bridge between your retail software and the card/check payment processing network. Because the bridge stays open, transactions are processed faster then with a dial-up phone connection. The speed and reliability of the Internet is superior to that of a standard phone line, and your transactions are returned in less than two seconds on average. And, unlike a dial-up connection which typically requires a separate phone line for each point of sale workstation, you need just one Internet connection to connect all of your workstations, including any you have in the back office.

Transactions are processed quickly because the Internet gateway stays continually connected with your processors throughout the day. If there's an Internet failure at your store, typically your retail point of sale system will automatically fall back to your dial-up connection, so you can continue to operate until the connection is reestablished.

Besides speed and convenience, an Internet gateway connection is remarkably simple to set up and provides an additional level of security. Compromised card information can be a costly mistake for retailers with fines reaching $50,000 or more.

When selecting a new credit card processing solution, be sure you select an Internet gateway connection that's compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). The PCI Security Standards Council is an organization dedicated to the development and implementation of security standards for protecting credit card data. PCI DSS ensures that the cardholder information is secure and protected against identity theft. And, with a PCI DSS compliant gateway, you will always remain up to date with the credit card industry's ever-changing standards.

So when you want to shorten your long checkout lines full of holiday shoppers, Internet gateway processing is a proven way to improve your customers' shopping experiences and keep them coming back for more.