Hopefully there were some “takeaways” at your Thanksgiving — along the lines of turkey, pie, stuffing, and more, making for some nice leftovers for the long holiday weekend. But if those “takeaways” have been eaten up, we have a few more now that some of the returns are in on shopping and consumer trends with this season’s official Black Friday/Cyber Monday kickoff:
Category: AVP Solutions Merchant Info
The Wallets, They Are A-Changin’
The Wallets, They Are A-Changin’ It’s That Time of Year It’s the time of year where customers are encouraged to…
Holiday Shopping Kicks Off to Record Sales — In China!
Black Friday may not quite be here yet, but in Canada, Thanksgiving has already come and gone, and in China — well, there they’re setting records already for online holiday shopping. We refer to the just-concluded “Singles Day,” in China, which comes on 11/11 — the idea being that all those “ones” emphasize “single-ness.” As Bloomberg News describes it “Singles’ Day, a Chinese twist on Valentine’s Day, was invented by students in the 1990s… When written numerically, the date is reminiscent of bare branches, the Chinese expression for bachelors and spinsters.”
Halloween Spending, Holiday Trends — and Goodbye, Cash?
The Boston Globe says it succinctly: “Consumers may still be holding tight to their wallets after the recession, but there’s at least one occasion that doesn’t appear to have them spooked: Halloween.”
President Signs “BuySecure” Initiative For Consumer Card Fraud Protection
With data breaches become weekly occurances (if not more — the latest chain to be hit since our last post is Staples), the White House has attempted to step into the “breach” itself, with the signing of a new executive order that is part of a larger “BuySecure” initiative.
MasterCard Tips, the Final Chapter (Pt. III)
“First there was Heartbleed, then Shellshock, and now Poodle, yet another serious security vulnerability in yet another widely used piece of software that went unnoticed for years.”
MasterCard’s Tips On Protecting Yourself During “Bug” Season — Pt. I
If you’re talking about the internet, online transactions, and electronic payments, unfortunately, you don’t have to wait for winter for it to be “bug” season – there are always plenty of “viruses” and contagions to command your interest!
Card News Roundup: Home Depot and Other Breaches; Millennial Trends
Fall usually brings its own busy-ness after the general sweet slowness of summer, and our current September is no exception. There are changes afoot in the payments business, notably the coming of EMV Cards here in America, their arrival hastened by the constant headlines about all-too-noteworthy security breaches in the news.
Small Business Loans Still Hard to Come By — Have You Considered a Merchant Cash Advance?
“Small Business Lending is Slow to Recover,” read a recent Wall Street Journal article. The write-up was focused on how small businesses have fared in the long road out of “The Great Recession,” which some recent figures have suggested may have been worse than the “Great Depression” itself (at least according to recent comments by former Fed chief Ben Bernanke…)
