These are unprecedented circumstances, with many physical stores seeing lower foot traffic or temporarily closed.
We understand what a challenging time this is for you and your business. We understand that many of you are adapting your business model to support your customers online and keep your business running. Authorize.net and Visa are here to help—with tools already included with your account that can be set up quickly and easily to accommodate your changing needs.
Given the evolving landscape you are facing, we want to provide some tips and reminders that may help you grow—and protect—your business during this time.
Use digital invoicing to get paid faster—with no physical contact
Your Authorize.net account includes a simple, digital invoicing option that allows you to create and send an email invoice to anyone. Customers can pay from their desktop/laptop or on a mobile device. The invoicing feature is a great option for quickly accepting payments from customers, with the average invoice paid within 48 hours. Your cash flow in these uncertain times is vital, and invoicing can help you get paid faster.
Digital invoicing also provides a great way to accept payments from customers who traditionally pay face-to-face. Given the current climate, this a good time to consider how you can use this service with your customers.
Go online and contactless
If your business is primarily a physical store, you could consider setting up a website to reach your customers. This can be done quickly with any number of website providers. Many are turnkey solutions that work with your existing Authorize.net account, which is already set up for online transactions. Check out our partner directory for a list of partners who can help.
Give your customers options to pay online and pick up later
Many retail stores are offering their customers the ability to place an order, pay online and pick up at the store or curbside. This is a great way to continue selling your current and upcoming inventory, while still minimizing physical contact. You can keep you customers informed about the status of your inventory through social media and email campaigns.
Your customers can safely and securely pay online using the digital invoicing option or by phone using the Virtual Terminal within the Merchant Interface. If you need a mobile payment option to help customers pay at curbside, check out the mobile point of sale app (mPOS) available on iOS and Android. Once downloaded, you can use the app immediately to key in payments. Invoicing, Virtual Terminal, and the mPOS app are all included at no additional cost with your Authorize.net account.
Help protect your business and customers from fraud
Sadly, fraudsters are quick to take advantage of any weakness in the ecosystem. With the increase in online orders, you could see more fraudulent order attempts. You should make sure your Advanced Fraud Detection Suite (AFDS) filters are up to date and configured to help avoid fraudulent card testing attacks. Card testing occurs when a fraudster places a high amount (hundreds or thousands) of zero-dollar or low-amount orders on a company’s site using random or stolen card numbers.
Unfortunately, the company whose site is hit sees a significant uptick in unusual traffic. To help protect against this, make sure you pay special attention to the following filters that can help prevent high velocity card testing attacks:
- Hourly Velocity Filter: Limits the total number of transactions received per hour.
- Transaction IP Velocity Filter: Identifies excessive transactions from the same IP address.
- Amount Filter: Sets an upper dollar amount threshold to restrict high-risk transactions.
- Suspicious Transaction Filter: Reviews highly suspicious transactions using proprietary criteria identified by Authorize.Net’s Fraud Management Team.
If you have not enabled AFDS or need to adjust your settings, make sure to do so now. If you have any questions around AFDS, please contact support.
Let’s do this
We are encouraged by all the good we are seeing in our communities in spite of all the challenges we’re facing. We hope you, your family, friends and loved ones stay safe. Take care of yourselves and each other. We’ll get through this.