Friday, January 22nd, Leon Thomas was part of a panel of ecommerce experts at First National Merchant Services Merchant Days.  Other members of the panel were Matt Price from Visa, Tyler O’Brien from PayPal, Tim Spear from Tangible and Carla McAnulty from Authorize.net.  

The first question to the panel addressed common issues that merchants face when starting an ecommerce site.  The first answer was “knowing their customer”.  When starting a small brick and mortar store, merchants can see their customers and do some screening by sight.  With an ecommerce business all transactions are done without ever meeting your customer.  Some things that merchants can do is monitor for suspiciously large orders, special payment terms, and many new accounts being opened in a short period of time.  The next answer was “education”.  Opening an online business requires knowledge of ecommerce practices, PCI compliance,  payment options, and more, which merchants often overlook.  The last three answers agreed largely with the first two, with the additional advice to do more outsourcing when accepting payments, allowing vendors to assume the risk of payment acceptance.  

Other points of note from the panel were:
•    The industry is working towards eliminating all card data after the initial authorization, rendering stored data useless
•    Hosted payment forms are a good alternative for PCI compliance
•    Merchants need to consider purchasing pre-packaged solutions and integrating with best of breed applications
•    Merchants often don’t understand what a payment gateway is, it is important to get educated and use one for all transactions
•    Online credit card fraud has declined by 18%, but has increased that much and more in areas such as electronics

Ways to drive online sales that were mentioned were:
•    Online advertising
•    Product feeds
•    Cross polication with other sites
•    Don’t limit how people give you money (studies show that adding alternative payments can increase conversion by up to 14%)
o    PayPal
o    Bill me Later
o    Direct credit card
•    Usability studies
•    Make ordering simple and fast
•    Subscribing to third party security services that give you seals to place on your site can encourage customers to buy
•    Extended Validation SSL’s are a good way to show you are securing your customer’s data

There were many good questions asked from the audience as well as from the moderator.  I felt like the panel was full of knowledgeable people with a lot of experience in the industry.  I could have asked questions about the future all day!  I’m interested to see what is in store for online payments in 5 and 10 years.  Today I still see the main challenge as education.  Most of our clients do not understand PCI compliance, nor are they concerned about it – but they should be.  They often do the minimum possible to stay in business online.  That is scary if you are a frequent online shopper.

We had our holiday/year-end party this year in the Scott Aquarium at The Henry Doorly Zoo.  We enjoyed a catered dinner in the Shark Tunnel; various fish, sharks and turtles swam over and around us.  It was a fantastic location for our annual event.  

After dinner, the 2009 Jelee Awards were announced.    This year there were two awards given:  one selected from the past years’ quarterly winners (AKA the Super Jelee); the other was based on over-all continuing excellence, and was nominated by peers

Super Jelee Award Recipient
The super Jelee,award was given to Mark Mori.   Mark has been a great addition and made a tremendous impact to the Jelecos team since he came on board almost 18 months ago. He brings in a top-notch attitude everyday and his work consistently leaves lasting impressions on both client and internal projects.  Mark has also been a great resource during client meetings, so much in fact a few clients have requested that he’s in the meeting to discuss items that are completely unrelated to the creative portion of the project.

Continued Excellence Award
The Continued Excellence award was awarded to Terry Davis!  Terry is integral part of the Jelecos and Managed Services team.  Whether it is supporting DataVault, assisting on a sales call, or troubleshooting an issue, Terry is always willing to lend his assistance.  Terry’s drive has helped Jelecos deploy new technology including Log Management for our PCI Security project.

This year both award winners won a trip to Las Vegas (airfare and lodging) along with a day off to enjoy during that trip!  

Read our post about last year's winners!

Be sure to visit California Pizza Kitchen at One Pacific Place in Omaha on the following Tuesdays:

• January 19
• February 16
• March 16
• April 20.

They will be giving 20 percent of your check to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation! You MUST print and bring the flyer at the link that follows for the CFF to receive 20 percent.  Philanthropizza.pdf (19.63 kb)

Enjoy pizza for a good cause!

At Jelecos, we believe strongly in giving back to the community.  In a previous post we discussed our involvement in the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.  This is a charity that is close to our hearts, and our own Leon Thomas is on the board of the local chapter.

Leon is also co-chair of the upcoming Boomer Esiason Nebraska Golf Classic.  This is a very popular annual event that draws hundreds to the golf tournament, banquet and silent auction.  This year the keynote speaker will be Barry Switzer!  Omaha Magazine recently had an interesting article about Coach Switzer.

 Every year, many of us from Jelecos volunteer at the auction, so please join us and contribute to a worthy cause.  

We had our quarterly Jelee awards at our April company meeting. 

The winners are:  

Customer Service: Trent Williams
Teamwork:  Laura Samson
Efficiency and Innovation:  Jules Clement

Congratulations to the winners, they definitely are deserving!  

The recipients of the awards received a ½ day off, a $50 gift certificate to GiftCertificates.com and a surprise gift.  The surprise gifts were definitely the hit of the meeting, as everyone was excited to see what they were!  The most exciting for the crowd was Trent’s gift: Shock Tanks.  These are fighting tanks that shock the operator of the remote control when their tank gets hit!