ETA Releases Payments Trends and Merchant Resources for the Holiday Shopping Season

November 20, 2014 – One occasion of note is on the payments horizon: the holiday shopping season. To meet it head-on, ETA is offering projections on holiday spending trends and has released important educational resources for merchants to navigate the evolving payments landscape.

Payments consultancy firm The Strawhecker Group estimates that 2014 fourth quarter electronic spending will increase 4.0% over 2013 to $887 billion. Additionally, ETA Member Merchant Warehouse projects that retail sales are expected to reach $616.9 billion in November and December. Merchant Warehouse also projects more than $700 million in mobile sales during the weekend following Thanksgiving.

“Anticipating an increase in electronic spending, the payments industry is working overtime to ensure our networks remain safe, reliable, and secure this holiday season,” said Jason Oxman, CEO of ETA.  “New technologies like tokenization and other forms of encryption, as well as mobile payment platforms such as Apple Pay, SoftCard and Google Wallet will provide enhanced security”.

This season, while merchants welcome increased revenue through electronic payments, they will also be greeted with increasing diversity in payments technology. Through the release of two valuable educational resources for small merchants, ETA is providing the tools needed now to take advantage of new and more secure breach-protection technologies, including mobile technologies like Apple Pay and Softcard.

ETA’s new White Paper, Making Mobile Payments Make Dollars and SENSE for Small-to-Medium Businesses, addresses Mobile Point of Sale best practices, including:

  • Information on the merchant benefit of mobile
  • Advantages, risks and best practices associated with mobile
  • Mobile security
  • Evaluation criteria for mobile acceptance payment hardware and apps along with 10 easy steps to guide merchants to make informed decisions to implement mobile POS.

Additionally, ETA’s Data Breach Response Guide for Small Merchants provides tools to communicate effectively in the event of a data breach. Guidelines cover 9 simple best-practice steps for merchants on how to think about, prepare for, and respond to a data breach.

Projecting and preparing are two of the best steps ETA members and merchants alike can take toward making the 2015 holiday season memorable for all the RIGHT reasons.

ETA MEMBERS, log in for access to projections and resources: etamembers.org.