Google Wallet
Understanding Google Wallet For Merchants
The way consumers pay for the things they buy changed forever with the introduction of the Google Wallet. The proliferation of smartphones already had transformed the way people communicate and access the Internet. With the powerful computing capabilities of the smartphone, it was just a matter of time until that technology became leveraged to make payments fast, convenient and secure.Based on an application that runs on the Google Android operating system, Google Wallet accesses special electronics that are already built into many smartphones and soon will be universally available. The application provides an interface between user accounts and the wireless payment terminal, putting users in control over the ability to choose what account to use to pay for each transaction.Now, rather than browsing through a collection of cards to pay at a conventional swipe point of sale terminal, customers now just tap a button on their touch screen to send a payment wirelessly from their smartphone to the merchant payment processing system.
Google Wallet is more than just a payment system. It is an interactive shopping platform that allows merchants to push special offers to smartphone users when they enter a store or a specific section of their store. This helps stores analyze customer behavior while giving customers ways to save money on products that they can use.
Customer loyalty programs can also use Google Wallet. By converting programs from physical cards to a virtual card on the smartphone, merchants make sure that customers always have their cards with them. Also, because everything is electronic, loyalty databases that track purchases and compute reward amounts are updated in real time with every purchase, making sure that customers have reasons to come back for more.
Now that Google Wallet is available, merchants should get their compatible payment terminals now. Google and First Data have partnered to make these terminals available to merchants so they can start accepting Google Wallet payments right away. Right now special offers that give merchants a certain amount of free transaction processing and free extra hardware make it easy to get started with Google Wallet.
