What Holidays am I talking about? HALLOWEEN, THANKSGIVING, CHRISTMAS….these holidays can make you 25-50% of a businesses annual revenue! So here are some pre-holiday “rediness tips” that can add to your bottomline!

Holiday Payment Readiness for Merchants

Make sure your current Payment Systems Are Reliable and Redundant
- Test all POS systems and terminals, and have backup devices like mobile devices. NEVER TURN CUSTOMERS AWAY!
  - Make sure all your devices are updated and ready for action!
- For ecommerce merchants, speak with your IT and WEB people to make sure your site can handle traffic spikes
  - Make sure that your reciepts/invoices etc have all pertainent information so they don’t want to do a Chargeback if they recognize that transaction.
  - Add Warrantee/guarantee/Return/Refund language to your reciepts/invoices to help dispute Chargebacks.
  - Make sure your website has all the proper TERMS AND CONDITIONS required to dispute Chargebacks.
Enable Fraud Protection on all your payment connection points of sale: Check with your merchant processor for expert advise on which will protect your business for Hackers/Fraudsters and over-all bad-guys!
Prioritize Employee/Support Preparedness
- Strategize with your merchant processor ALL means of Payment Acceptance like BUY NOW PAY LATER options and more!
- Decide if you want to push the credit card fees, all or partial, on to your customers to help offset your costs.
- Provide employees with tools to deal with any customer issues. (Remember a happy customer is whole 5 more customers)

Bottom line: Proactive preparation, added security again fraud and chargebacks, and robust employee training will ensure smooth holiday sales and satisfied merchants.