Online Business Tip: Merchants Hand Down New Regulations

01/27/2010 | 4 Comments

Is this a good thing?

Recently, Mastercard and Visa, as well as other merchant processors have conveyed some new regulations with regard to program execution such as one-time offers, forced continuities, and shipping and handling only, to name a few.

These new rules/regulations are due to longtime complaints from customers that are being billed for products they didn’t want or felt they were being misled into buying.  All the processors have basically decided to shun any company that employs tactics like deceptive forced continuity type programs.

So the big question remains…is this a good thing or not?

Well, I guess the answer depends on you, your business philosophy, and the quality of products or services you provide for your customers.

I believe that there are many pros and cons to this new set of guidelines.

I’m very excited about these guidelines and plan to use them to our company’s advantage in order to lead our company to higher levels.  We will simply do what we always preach and that’s to do the right thing.

Now, if you are one of those companies that is focused on taking every last dollar from your customers or trying to misguide or force people into a continuity program unwillingly  in order to squeeze a month or two of program fees out of them… than you’re probably concerned about the new regulations.  As you should be!

If you get caught violating these regulations, not only will you lose your merchant processor and merchant account, but most likely you won’t be able to get another account from other processors in the future.

Here at Strategic Profits, from time to time, we have tried optional continuity type programs.  It is a possibility that we may offer  some type of optional continuity program in the future, however, these new guidelines are making us step up our game, convey all of our offers with even greater clarity, and become superior in the way we handle our prospects and customers.

These new guidelines will force us to revisit the marketing basics that we know have worked for decades and decades (because consumer buying habits never change).

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