The realization that summer is nearing its end has hit you. You no longer cringe when you hear the back to school commercials. You have accepted that stores are now featuring fall boots and sweaters. You feel a twinge of excitement when you hear the rumblings of pre-season football talk. And surprisingly, you have even started to think about your plans for Thanksgiving.
But then, as you scroll through your Facebook newsfeed, seeing endless photos of happy beach scenes, a new realization hits you: before the summer ends, you need a vacation! And fast!
With everyone in back to school mode, the timing for this realization is in your favor. Rates for destination hotels and beach house rentals become more affordable at the end of the season. Merchants need your business during this transition, and if they are smart, they are utilizing online purchasing to attract you.
How important is the online payment option to consumers? VERY. Travel consumers are savvy, comparison shoppers who are more than comfortable spending their money online. A VFM Leonardo whitepaper reveals that online shoppers spent $226 billion online in 2012 in the U.S. alone, and that number will climb to $327 billion in 2016, according to estimates by Forrester Research. Forrester says this continued growth is spurred by consumers’ greater comfort level with purchasing online, as well as broader web shopping capabilities with mobile and tablet devices.
PayConex, Bluefin’s proprietary payment platform, supports all online processing through mobile or tablet payments, point of sale (POS) payments, payments made through the PayConex virtual terminal, or E-Commerce payments. PayConex gives merchants a fully-loaded, PCI-DSS compliant platform with debit/credit card, ACH and electronic check processing, recurring and subscription billing and security features such as Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE), tokenization and transparent redirection.
So travel shoppers – get online and plan your getaway soon!
