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Posts Tagged ‘payment-service’

When the mobile payment service Square launched in December, VeriFone rushed to get its own version on the market. A couple weeks ago, they accomplished that with the launch of PayWARE Mobile. Now they’re looking to take out their competitor the good old fashioned way: out-spending them.

VeriFone is already heavily advertising its PayWARE Mobile product with huge ads in New York City taxis. As you can see in the picture, VeriFone is paying for big screen real estate on the screens that are in the backseats of all cabs in the city now. The ad shows a large picture of the device (a piece of hardware that you attach to your iPhone) and promises users that not only will they be able to accept payments with the iPhone with it, but that they will “never miss a sale.”

Obviously, this is the same thing Square does, but Square is a startup (co-founded by Twitter creator Jack Dorsey), whereas VeriFone is a large global company already making a ton of money in electronic payments. That said, Square has some money too, thanks to its $10 million round of funding, and $40 million valuation before it even launched. But it seems highly unlikely that Square would use any of its funding to counter these ads.

Instead, Square is going to have to keep touting the fact that their system is built for anyone to use, whereas VeriFone’s requires that you have a merchant account.

[thanks Brian]

We all know that Ashton Kutcher is a fan of Twitter. Last year, Kutcher raced CNN to a million Twitter followers (Kutcher won). Kutcher hosted Saturday Night Live yesterday night, and as a web exclusive, SNL released this bit Kutcher did about Tooter, which Twitter-like network that broadcasts Kutcher’s flatulence emissions, or “gissions.” It’s up to you to decide how funny the sketch is, but it’s certainly an entertaining poke at the celeb’s love for the microblogging network and social media.

Billing Revolution, a startup that offers a single-click billing and payment service for commerce transactions on mobile phones, is partnering with MoVoxx, a mobile advertising network that leverages SMS messaging, to place commerce ads on mobile phones.

MoVoxx advertisers can implement Billing Revolution’s one-click billing and payment service in SMS advertisements so that consumers can purchase products directly from the ads received on their phones. MoVoxx serves short, interactive ads under opt-in SMS messages for retailers such as Kraft, Sears and 1-800-Flowers.

Founded in 2008, Billing Revolution is trying to streamline mobile purchases by offering an easy- one click solution (similar to Amazon’s feature). Once consumers are ready to buy something from the Web from a vendor that employs Billing Revolution’s service for payment, they are taken to Billing Revolution’s purchase page where they input credit card information from their phone. Once complete, Billing Revolution automatically sends an SMS receipt to their phone, which contains a link. After clicking that link, authentication is complete and with all future purchases, consumers will need only to click ‘buy’ for a transaction to be completed.

It sounds pretty simple and easy but there are some drawbacks to Billing Revolution’s service. Billing Revolution charges a 3.5% transaction fee plus 50 cents per transaction. With those fees it’s tough to take a cut from micropayments, which are already small to begin with. This is a particular problem with mobile applications, a business that Billing Revolution hoped to capitalize on, because an app developer wouldn’t want to take a 50% cut on a song or app that was sold for $1 or $2 on the iTunes app store.

But for larger purchases, Billing Revolution’s service could turn out to be profitable for e-commerce businesses who have mobile transactions. Mobile carriers generally take a revenue share in e-commerce transactions taking place on mobile devices. In some cases this can be as high as 60%. With commerce powered by Billing Revolution, retailers can bypass large carrier fees (but still have to pay the 3.5% percent and 50 cents transaction fee).

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