Bill Payment & Cellular Services - The Wave Of The Future For Merchant Retailers!

 Instant ways in which wireless mobile shops, supermarkets/gas stations, pawn shops, convenience stores, mail/packing shops, payday loans, check cashing locations, supermarkets and retailers can compete with multi-channel giants that can increase profits and improve customer satisfaction...

Electronic distribution

How electronic distribution works

The problems of distributing prepaid services with hard cards (scratch cards)

Introduction

One of the major developments in the prepaid telecommunications industry in recent years has been the emergence of electronic distribution technologies such as Prepaid Wireless Direct Point-of-Sale (POSA) activation that will completely change the way they sell prepaid services. †

How electronic distribution works

Prepaid Wireless Direct electronic distribution systems allow any prepaid service to send its services electronically to virtually any retail location. Prepaid Wireless Direct provides an integrated POSA solution consisting of flexible and compact point-of-sale terminal equipment, proprietary software, transaction communications, protocols and professional services to assist retailers with implementation.

Once in the retail environment, consumers simply select a product from point-of-sale signage or displays and pay the appropriate payment to the clerk, who then inserts a wallet-sized thermal card into the POSA terminal. After pressing a few keys corresponding to the desired product, the terminal prints a prepaid PIN code along with the instructions for use on the card. Prepaid Wireless Direct also supports PINless delivery where the terminal establishes a real-time connection with the service provider. A credit is immediately credited to the customer's account. At the time of purchase, customers can use the services.

The types of retail environments that are starting to switch to electronic delivery include wireless stores, supermarkets, convenience stores, cash registers, food markets, college stores, electronics stores, hotels, and many more.

The problems of distributing prepaid services with hard cards (scratch cards)

Prepaid Wireless Direct has developed electronic distribution services to address the many problems of distributing prepaid mobile and other prepaid services via physical cards. Hard cards are also known as scratch cards because the customer scrapes off a panel on the back of the card to reveal a PIN or other secret code.

The current and traditional distribution methodology of most prepaid services involves the provider printing, storing and fulfilling orders to distributors in prepaid services. Distributors buy large quantities for suppliers, stock them, and fulfill store orders. And retailers buy the cards from distributors, manage the inventory and sell the cards to consumers.

Every participant in the distribution chain has problems with scratch cards.

Problems with retailers. In today's traditional hard card distribution format, most retailers are struggling to offer prepaid products on several fronts.

Retailers find it difficult to bear the inventory costs of prepaid services. The recent growth and popularity of prepaid wireless technology exacerbates the problem. With mobile prepaid, calling credits are much more expensive than the calling cards most retailers are familiar with. It is common for a prepaid wireless carrier to offer 5 or more different airtime denominations that range in price from $20 to $150 each. To make matters worse, prepaid wireless airtime is carrier-specific, meaning Verizon prepaid wireless customers can't top up (recharge or recharge) their accounts with AT&T, Cingular, or any other airtime provider, and vice versa. This makes it critical for retailers to have airtime for all the popular national and regional carriers or prepaid wireless carriers in their area, something retailers don't have to worry about with calling cards.

Today, there are an average of six major carriers or carriers offering prepaid wireless services in each of the top 20 US markets. Trying to inventory products for all six can mean