etailers have expressed a growing interest in providing services to their customers that increase loyalty and business revenue-such as gift cards and prepaid calling cards. Additionally, applications including time and attendance reduce the costs associated with employee time-keeping and payroll accounting and provide solid benefits to retailers by:

• Creating a return on their investment
• Differentiating them from the competition
• Building consumer loyalty
• Providing new avenues of revenue

The concept of selling services means selling a value proposition and the return on investment that the services offer. When selling services, you, the merchant level salesperson (MLS), should concentrate on the benefits that the gift card or prepaid calling card program will provide-and not on the cost.

If you follow through with an analysis of the potential return on retailers' investment, you can help retailers see that their investment will provide a payback.

In this column, I will review three services available for you to sell. I'll present why they are needed, how you can sell them, and the potential income you can make. These applications are time and attendance, gift cards and prepaid calling cards.

The Need for Time and Attendance

Every business has employees who receive a paycheck. Employees' hours must be accounted for with the payroll that is prepared on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis.

There are costs incurred in payroll preparation; there are also preparation errors, auditing and lost time that must be accounted for.

Retailers can begin automating part of this process by collecting and tracking employee time on an EFT POS terminal such as the Ingenico Elite 712 or Elite 710.

There is an extraordinary return on investment for merchant's using a time and attendance application. A typical retailer or restaurant with 20 employees will have the following savings when a time and attendance system is installed:

• Human error savings - $57.60
• Audit savings - $20.00
• Lost time savings - $80.00
• Total weekly savings - $157.60
• Total annual savings: - $8,195.20

How much can an MLS make selling time and attendance? Chart A shows the three-year cumulative income opportunity for an MLS selling three new accounts per year over three years. The MLS makes $50 per account for activation fee and $0.25 per employee per month.

The Opportunity to Sell and Profit From Gift Card

An electronic gift card program replaces a paper-based gift certificate program that many retailers are most likely using today or would like to be using.

By implementing an electronic gift card program, retailers reduce paper certificate theft, reduce the time to issue, tender and account for each gift card sold, and turn a money losing paper gift certificate program into a money making program.

When selling gift cards you can tell your prospects that gift cards:

• Outsell paper gift certificates; a typical consumer purchases 33% more in the store when using a gift certificate
• Create profit in the store because more is purchased and the program costs little to manage-about as much as a cable TV subscription
• Build retailer brand awareness
• Keep full cash value in the store; value remaining after partial redemption stays on the card, ensuring additional opportunities to solidify the customer relationship or retain funds
• Are easy for your customers to carry and use
• Are a powerful promotional tool
• Provide complete transaction reporting, enabling you to track purchases, redemption and balances
• Enable real time transaction capture and virtually eliminate losses associated with paper gift certificates and from costly tracking and accounting

Selling gift cards is also very profitable for retailers and MLSs. Your average income earned from a retailer that implements a 1,000-card program is:

Commission from the initial sale

• Setup fee: - $100
• Plastic cards: - $150
• Merchandising product: - $25
• Total: - $275

Ongoing residual income

• Transaction fees: - $75
• Reorders: - $125
• Total: - $200

Chart B shows the three-year cumulative effect of a MLS selling three new accounts per month over three years.

Prepaid Telephone Card Profitability

Long ago, convenience stores learned how profitable it is to sell prepaid e-products for long distance, cellular, debit ATM, residential dial tone and long distance. Now many general retailers have also become aware of the opportunity.

Prepaid cards are a gold mine for MLSs, and there are many benefits for merchants, too. Prepaid cards:

• Require no inventory for the retailer to manage
• Reduce employee theft
• Require no management of specific card denominations
• Increase store traffic
• Enable retailers to carry other e-products
• Require no money paid until products are sold

Chart C shows the three-year cumulative effect of a MLS selling three new accounts per month over three years.

In total, an MLS selling the value-added services we've briefly described could make over $180,000 by the end of the third year.

To learn more...

There are many providers of value-added applications you can call to begin making more money and building retailer loyalty. Here are three companies that can help you get started:

Cignify is a time and work force management company offering a way to collect, reconcile and process labor management information. Cignify's product, TimeCap, is easy to learn, profitable to sell and fast to install. To learn more about Cignify, visit www.cignify.com .

Valutec is a financial service provider offering electronic products to the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries. Valutec works closely with each merchant to create the highest potential for additional revenue streams, brand building and customer loyalty. To learn more about Valutec, visit www.valutec.com .

United Prepaid Networks, Inc. puts customers in control of their prepaid phone card business. The company's Web-based technology ensures that customers are in touch with the information they need to run a profitable business efficiently and effectively-24 hours a day, seven days a week.

To learn more about United Prepaid, visit www.unitedprepaid.net .

Michael W. English is Ingenico's Director of Marketing and Communications. E-mail him at menglish@ingenico-us.com .