Merchant Peak Season: Holidays in March for Bikes, Boards and Eelsnot

Chris Morse, Head of Merchant Communications, PayPal

The end of the cold and snowy winter has everyone dreaming about their favorite spring time activities - from riding bikes outside in the sun to paddling their surfboards in the warm waters. For most seasonal merchants, the spring kicks off their “Holiday season”- their busiest time of the year. And with spring officially here, below are tips for online merchants to spring forward sales:

 

Make a Sale Anywhere: Use mobile payments to help grow your business.

Eelsnot, a Virginia-based business that offers protective coatings for surfboards and boats has never missed a sales opportunity since taking payments mobile with PayPal Here, a card reader that attaches to mobile devices. Toby West, business owner and skimboarder, takes his business out of the water and onto the road using PayPal Here and is often hailed at traffic lights by water sport enthusiasts to make a sale right out of his truck. With PayPal Here, Toby has raked in thousands of dollars across the country at the beach, trade shows, boat shows, marinas, and special events.

 

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Paddle the Credit Wave: Give customers access to flexible payment options with a fast-one time application and approval decision made quickly and helps to drive spending on merchant websites.

Tower Paddle Boards, an online paddle board business, has seen sales jump 30 percent since adding PayPal Credit* as an option at checkout – giving consumers the flexibility to make a purchase now but pay over time. PayPal Credit is popular with owner Stephan Aarstol’s customers because the average price of a Tower Paddle Board is $795 plus shipping costs, a big investment for many consumers. Stephan believes PayPal Credit is a deciding factor in many Tower Paddle Board purchases.

 

*PayPal Credit is subject to credit approval and is offered by the lender, Comenity Capital Bank.

 

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Ride to Safety: Help protect your business from fraudulent transactions.

Since they started using PayPal for online checkout, Jack & Adam’s Bicycles, a popular bike shop in Austin, Texas doesn’t have to worry as much about credit card fraud or turning away customer sales. They turned to PayPal’s fraud prevention tools to better protect themselves from fraudsters – a problem that was costing the small business thousands of dollars. Owner, Jack Murray says he loves to use PayPal because “it doesn’t require us to have so much interaction with the financial information of the customers we’re doing the transactions for.”

 

With consumers heading outdoors for spring, be sure your business is ready to provide the products they need with a variety of convenient, flexible and secure payment options.

Original author: PayPal-Forward