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Portal Power for Smaller ISOs

S maller ISO shops love to get an extra piece of the revenue pie, and it's being served by POS Portal.

By leveraging browser-based technology that brings value to the entire point-of-sale transaction supply chain, POS Portal empowers small and midsize ISOs to create incremental-revenue residual streams from existing and future customer bases.

POS Portal opened in April 2000 in Sacramento, Calif., and in that short time it has set up an infrastructure of Internet portals intended to send merchants to ISO-branded, Web-based storefronts for transactional supply needs. The idea was simple: enable ISOs to set up a supply store without all the costs and expense of carrying inventory and deploying delivery. The fruition of that idea is POS Portal's latest and hottest product, POSBuy.

Standard revenue streams are created by ISOs signing up merchants and selling paper to processors for transactions with the processor getting the benefit of supply orders, cable lines, etc. ISOs weren't being given the opportunity to resell to their customer-base services, such as recurring terminal supplies (printer paper, toner, ink, etc.) - anything that merchants use on an ongoing basis to facilitate electronic payments. POSBuy provides that opportunity.

POSBuy is designed to help agents maintain customer relationships even after the merchant agreement is signed, and it provides a storefront that ISOs set up when they establish their pricing and customer base. Via POSBuy, sizable residuals are paid out on all supplies, accessories and miscellaneous equipment purchases made by new, existing and non-processing merchants.

All supply and equipment requests are transacted through POSBuy, including credit card payment processing for orders as well as implementation of delivery. POS Portal does it all, and ISOs reap the benefit.

The key to the program is its Web site, www.posbuy.com, and the accompanying toll-free order desk. As merchants log in or call to order, the POSBuy engine presents merchant pricing previously established by the ISO, calculates freight and sales tax, tracks orders and sends confirmation e-mails upon order receipt and shipment.

The e-mails are ISO-branded even though POSBuy originates them. Merchants are specifically asked for their ISO affiliation when ordering because POS Portal does not direct market to an agent's customer base. The merchant experience, whether on the Web or via the call center, provides the merchant a positive, technologically advanced reflection of the ISO.

Setting up POSBuy takes a matter of minutes and is free for ISOs. No special software is necessary, nor is any special downloading required. The ISO applies for and receives an administrator login at www.posbuy.com that allows the ISO to review direct costs from POS Portal, manage merchant- level pricing, determine what items can be ordered by merchants and view real-time residuals.

POS Portal ships terminal stickers to the ISOs, who distribute them to every merchant they service as well as those they meet. Printed prominently on the sticker is the ISO's login and company name along with POSBuy's toll- free number and Web address. Merchants purchase goods on their credit card from POS Portal through the Web site or call center, and POS Portal remits residuals from those sales to the ISO on a monthly basis.

The popularity of this program is evidenced by the fact that in its first four weeks on the market (in March 2001), POSBuy attracted more than 40 independent bankcard resellers, many of whom are using the technology to penetrate new accounts.

"From the early adopters of POSBuy, there are now four to five we're sending several hundreds dollars a month to just for supply-order residuals," says Buzz Stryker, President and founder of POS Portal. "Using our product has led them to new processing relationships with merchants they had targeted, especially those merchants who didn't want to change processors. Our product makes the ISO look very technologically savvy. We make ISOs look as big and powerful as Amazon."

Ask yourself: Does your organization have the ability to take an order, quote what freight costs will be, offer a choice of shippers, do the authorization while the customer stays on the line, complete the purchase transaction - designating where, when and how it will be shipped - and send an e-mail with all the embedded tracking details back to the customer? If not, POS Portal wants to be your new partner.

That new partnership has obvious and not-so-obvious advantages. One not-so- obvious advantage is the fact that POS Portal works closely with ISOs to ensure that certain types of sales are referred back to the agent. If a merchant wants to purchase a new terminal, POS Portal checks to see if the ISO has a setup store for new equipment. If not, POS Portal apprises the ISO of the potential sale. Now that's a partner.

"We can fill all types of orders," says Stryker. "We ship complete lines of consumable supplies, everything under the sun from 1,500 different line items of POS terminal supplies to everything that makes them work."

POS Portal's long established network of equipment contacts throughout the community substantiates Stryker's claim. POS Portal honors all manufacturers' warranties, for both new and refurbished equipment. POS Portal even sells direct to ISOs who prefer their own resell program for merchants and maintain their own inventory base.

"There is no similar product from anyone else," says Stryker. "We want to provide ISOs with the most innovative tools that they haven't had before. We love to work with small and midsize ISOs. They are unique in the type of business they provide and have needs the larger ones don't have. We love their personality. Their business is closely related to their family. They are their companies. They represent themselves, and we can provide them with extra income. We enjoy helping people make money."

Just how much money can POS Portal make for ISOs? ISO gets their spread over the POSBuy rate, minus the fixed rate of 5 percent of the retail amount to cover most of the processing costs incurred by POS Portal. The standard residual is the buy rate, net the 5 percent retail amount.

All well and good, but what happens when the POSBuy Web site is inaccessible? "We went live 1 1/2 years ago and have never gone down," Stryker says. And, of course, when all else fails, one can use the telephone. Seriously, though, POS Portal systems are operated in highly redundant, third-party-server environments. POS Portal maintains both primary and backup systems with detail.

It takes its customer service just as seriously, even assigning reps to deal exclusively with ISOs and providing a complete separate support desk for merchants. POS Portal also boasts comprehensive, in-house technology - nothing is outsourced. All POS Portal products and services have been developed, provided and maintained internally.

POS Portal's long-term plan is to build on its staff and services to attract investors. It sees itself at the top of the innovation chain. In fact, one of those innovative services is POS Portal's Auction Service. Addressing another channel - namely, distributors - it allows POS Portal to broker out large quantities of used equipment. It's an industry eBay, marketing excess and/or obsolete inventories.

POS Portal has 24 employees, and its top tier of management has 36 years of collective equipment-distribution experience in the ISO channel. One of its top vice presidents is newly recruited industry notable Audrey Blackmon, VP ISO Channel Sales.