Great news! Small business owner confidence is on the rise, and by no small margin.

According to a recent blog published by Small Business Trends, “the Small Business Optimism Index shot up by almost 6 points, to its highest level so far in 2009.”

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) has been the nation’s gauge for small business owner optimism for years and even though overall optimism is still at historic lows, a six-point jump is a considerable increase.

At the least, the increase raises some eyebrows. If the boost in confidence is for real and not just a temporary spike, then small business owner confidence has risen above December 2008 levels and close to marks recorded in October and November. Most impressively, a significant one-month increase the size of April’s spike over March has not been experienced in well over five years. Of course, disclaimers are always in order, as a jump in confidence could very well be temporary, but regaining positive ground in times of economic uncertainty is always enlightening for small businesses, especially those who have invested in technology and positioned themselves to sell online.

The big question remains — what does this increase mean for a small online business like yours? If the indicators are correct, it means it is time to increase inventory, fine tune your advertising campaigns and prepare your site for an increase in sales from the “pent up demand” consumers are feeling from buying less and hoarding trillions of dollars in personal savings accounts that are yielding dismal returns.

The tide could very well be turning. It’s never too early to fine tune your online business to ensure you are ready to capture the business generated from a significant increase in confidence.

Next week, 2Checkout’s Chief Financial Officer, Kristin Dach, will be a featured speaker at the European CNP (Customer-Not-Present) Payment Forum May 11-13 in Barcelona, Spain.

Kristin will do a merchant case study on managing global payment fraud Wednesday, May 13 between 1:15pm and 4:00pm as part of the Fraud and Risk session of the event. Her case study will provide an overview of 2Checkout and discuss 2CO’s successful fraud mitigation service as well as the partnerships developed to strengthen the fraud net and continue to reduce chargebacks.

The CNP Payment Forum is a relatively new event that has experienced success in building a name for itself in the industry. The event was developed by European-based merchants with support from the Direct Response Forum (DRF), and is also affiliated with the Merchant Risk Council (MRC), due to feedback from its members and advisory board. It offers internationally-based CNP merchants a number of networking and educational opportunities, designed to share best practices while promoting the business interests of the industry.

Fighting Online Fraud with 2Checkout’s Sebbe Jones (Part Two)

In yesterday’s blog Fighting Online Fraud with 2Checkout’s Sebbe Jones, Sebbe discussed how 2Checkout developed a sophisticated fraud scrubbing process, over a number of years, by intimately learning the mitigation process, through the manual examination of tens of thousands of orders the first few years of 2Checkout’s existence. Through hard work and innovative thought, 2CO developed a world-class fraud scrubbing process, but “the times were a changin’.” Each year, fraudsters were becoming more advanced and organized and 2Checkout’s volume of sales was increasing at an amazing rate. It was all his staff could do to keep up with the increased volume of sales and fraudsters.

Then dark times hit. When 2Checkout switched its system from Version 1 to Version 2, the sophisticated fraud queue was errantly left out of the upgrade. Years of work were wiped out in an instant. Sebbe and his staff endured a two-fold increase in manual order checks. The days were growing long, fraudulent transactions were on the rise and something had to give. — (Back to Sebbe’s story)

Taking Fraud Fighting to the Next Level

Continue reading…

Perception is Reality -

Let’s face it, the Internet makes it easy to shop. In a few minutes you can locate a number of stores that carry a product you want. You can compare products and prices easily. Gone are the days when a merchant had a captive audience of customers. Increased travel and the commercialization of the World Wide Web has seen to that.

This exposure to stores and services offered globally has both simplified and complicated something as basic as shopping and selling. There is the availability of, and constant access to, products and services consumers want. Shopping has become simple, instant, and convenient. Global competition and increased expectations of consumers has made pricing and marketing more complicated for merchants.

In a market where there are potentially limitless people selling the same product, how can an individual gain an “edge” on the competition? Continue reading…

Sometimes you luck out when a third party reminds the world of your company’s true value proposition. This time the thanks goes to Internet Retailer.

According to a recent article on the rising popularity of software-on-demand products, “despite the economic downturn, providers of on-demand e-commerce technology platforms say they’re experiencing strong demand from retailers looking for a relatively quick and economical way to launch web sites…” In other words, with the help of software-on-demand, many businesses that have excellent products, but lack the time and technical expertise to manage backend e-commerce technology, are turning to fast, automated solutions that will help them establish a web presence quickly and start selling.

In a nutshell, this is 2Checkout’s value proposition. 2CO’s e-commerce software-on-demand helps thousands of full-time and part-time business owners live their entrepreneurial dreams, by providing turnkey automation in the areas that matter most but are oftentimes the most difficult to manage.

Take PCI DSS as the perfect example. Continue reading…