Core Tech Moving

Starting Monday, December 30, Core Tech, the vendor of Mailware Multi Channel Manager, will be moving to larger quarters at 1245 Pearl St. #212, Boulder, CO 80302 (866-624-5927).

House Passes Innovation Act To Squash Patent Trolls

The House of Representatives voted 325-91 on Dec. 5 in favor of the Innovation Act, which will limit activities of non-practicing entities (NPEs) that stockpile patents in order to file frivolous lawsuits looking to extort grievous settlements from hapless users.

Direct mail and marketing tech companies have been frequent victims of these NPEs, reports Direct Marketing News. Click HERE for more details.

This has been a pet peeve of mine since the 1990s, and I'm delighted to see this legislation pass the House. Now on to the Senate!

Supreme Court Declines Case Re Making Online Retailers Collect Sales Taxes

The Supreme Court today declined to interfere in state efforts to force online retailers to collect sales tax from customers even in places where the companies do not have a physical presence, or "nexus."

The case involved a decision by New York’s highest court to uphold that state’s 2008 law requiring sales tax collections. Amazon has no offices, distribution centers or workforce in New York, but the New York Court of Appeals said Amazon’s relationship with third-party affiliates in the state that receive commissions for sending it Web traffic satisfied the “substantial nexus” necessary to force the company to collect taxes.

The Quill Case
It has been 20 years since the Supreme Court ruled in Quill v. North Dakota that a state’s efforts to require tax collections from out-of-state companies violated the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. It said the necessary “substantial nexus” exists when the out-of-state retailer has a “physical presence” in the state.

But that decision came before the advent of eCommerce, and the New York court said the old test may now be outdated. “An entity may now have a profound impact upon a foreign jurisdiction solely through its virtual projection via the Internet,” the court ruled.

Patchwork
As noted in The Washington Post, online retailers complained that a patchwork of state laws and conflicting lower court decisions needed the Supreme Court’s attention.  The Supreme Court’s Quill decision said Congress was in a better position than the court to provide uniformity in state tax collection requirements, but there has been little progress.

The Senate in the spring passed the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, which requires companies that surpass $1 million in Internet sales outside the states where they are located to collect every state’s sales tax, but the future of the bill is uncertain in the House.

GoECart Receives 2013 Connecticut Excellence Award

GoECart is pleased to announce that we have been chosen for the 2013 Connecticut Excellence Award by the Small Business Institute for Excellence in Commerce (SBIEC).

Each year the SBIEC conducts business surveys and industry research to identify companies that have achieved demonstrable success in their local business environment and industry category. This year, GoECart has been recognized for having enhanced the commitment and contribution of small businesses through service to their customers and community.

The SBIEC released a statement saying, "GoECart has consistently demonstrated a high regard for upholding business ethics and company values. This recognition by SBIEC marks a significant achievement as an emerging leader within various competitors and is setting benchmarks that the industry should follow."

Canada Post Teams with GoECart, Improves Shopping Experience for Canadians Buying from U.S. Retailers

GoECart announced a new collaboration with Canada Post that will improve the online shopping experience when Canadians buy from U.S. retailers.

The integration of the Canada Post shipping platform with GoECart's multi-channel eCommerce platform will enable GoECart's U.S.-based retail partners to quickly retrieve shipping rates and times, print shipping labels and track shipments. As a result, Canadian customers will benefit from a transparent, hassle-free shipping and delivery experience when they're shopping online from U.S. retailers.

"Canadian shoppers want an efficient, convenient and seamless end-to-end shopping experience no matter where they shop. Canada Post is serving these customer expectations by simplifying and improving the cross-border online shopping process," says Rene Desmarais, Senior Vice-President, Parcels, at Canada Post.

"Our integration with Canada Post enables GoECart merchants to manage their order fulfillment, shipping and logistics operations in Canada with more confidence, as they are now seamlessly connected to the largest retail postal network in Canada. Shipping to Canada has become as simple as shipping to Texas," says Manish Chowdhary, CEO of GoECart.

New PCI Guidelines Go Live Jan. 1, 2014

The PCI Security Standards Council has published version 3.0 of the PCI Data Security Standard and the Payment Application Data Security Standard, both of which go into effect on Jan.1.

Note that version 2.0 will remain active until Dec. 31, 2014, to allow time for merchants to make the transition.

Version 3.0 offers more flexibility and an increased focus on education, awareness and security as a shared responsibility, according to a news release from the Security Standards Council, which stated that “Version 3.0 builds on ... feedback we’ve heard from our community... to help organizations make payment security good business practice — every day, all year round."

New requirements (as summarized by RetailCustomerExperience. com) include:

PCI DSS

• Req. 5.1.2 — evaluate evolving malware threats for any systems not considered to be commonly affected
• Req. 8.2.3 — combined minimum password complexity and strength requirements into one, and increased flexibility for alternatives
• Req. 8.5.1 — for service providers with remote access to customer premises, use unique authentication credentials for each customer*
• Req. 8.6 — where other authentication mechanisms are used (for example, physical or logical security tokens, smart cards, certificates, etc.) these must be linked to an individual account and ensure only the intended user can gain access
• Req. 9.3 — control physical access to sensitive areas for onsite personnel, including a process to authorize access, and revoke access immediately upon termination
• Req. 9.9 — protect devices that capture payment card data via direct physical interaction with the card from tampering and substitution*
• Req. 11.3 and 11.3.4 — implement a methodology for penetration testing; if segmentation is used to isolate the cardholder data environment from other networks, perform penetration tests to verify that the segmentation methods are operational and effective*
• Req. 11.5.1 — implement a process to respond to any alerts generated by the change-detection mechanism
• Req. 12.8.5 — maintain information about which PCI DSS requirements are managed by each service provider, and which are managed by the entity
• Req. 12.9 — for service providers, provide the written, agreement/acknowledgment to their customers as specified at requirement 12.8.2*

*Indicates future dated requirements that are best practices until July 1, 2015.
PA-DSS

• Req. 5.1.5 — payment application developers to verify integrity of source code during the development process
• Req. 5.1.6 — payment applications to be developed according to industry best practices for secure coding techniques
• Req. 5.4 — payment application vendors to incorporate versioning methodology for each payment application
• Req. 5.5 — payment application vendors to incorporate risk assessment techniques into their software development process
• Req. 7.3 — application vendor to provide release notes for all application updates
• Req. 10.2.2 — vendors with remote access to customer premises (for example, to provide support/maintenance services) use unique authentication credentials for each customer
• Req. 14.1 — provide information security and PA-DSS training for vendor personnel with PA-DSS responsibility at least annually

Supporting documentation, including updated self-assessment questionnaires, attestations of compliance and reporting templates, will be available in early 2014 once version 3.0 is effective.

Merchants struggle to meet multichannel payments needs

Multichannel selling is a reality for a majority of small-to-medium sized merchants, but payment processing capabilities lag far behind, according to a new research study commissioned by SecureNet Payment Systems. The study, conducted in partnership with First Annapolis Consulting, evaluated the degree to which small-to-medium sized merchants conducted business through multiple sales channels, in order to assess not only how the merchants currently process payments, but what needs weren't being met by their payment providers. The research study is available for download at: www.securenet.com/merchantsurvey2013/.

More than 60% of merchants surveyed already accept payments in more than one channel, but these merchants are not well served by the payments industry today. A key finding is that in many cases, each new selling channel requires a different payment provider; in fact, 27% percent of merchants surveyed had three or more payment processing software solutions to facilitate payments by channel. Because of the ineffective implementation of a payments strategy through a single, omnichannel payment processing provider, merchants struggle with unnecessarily complicated reporting, complex reconciliation processes and ineffective transaction pricing structures. 

Small businesses identified the two most important issues regarding their multi-channel payments as:

• Access to reporting that is easy to understand, and
• The ability to easily understand how cash flows across channels. 

Additionally, nearly 50% of single channel merchants anticipate implementing multi-channel commerce in the next five years. Among single channel merchants contemplating a multi-channel strategy, the three issues ranked most highly (important or very important) were simple technology (49%), easy integration with existing technology (46%), and a single solution for all of the merchant’s payment needs (41%). Lower pricing came in fifth, with 39% of single channel merchants indicating it was important or very important in a multi-channel solution. 

Large multi-channel merchants naturally face different challenges than small merchants:

• 64% of merchants with sales above $5 million report inventory control as a large or very large issue compared with 35% of small merchants.
• 45% of large merchants indicated that facilitating a consumer purchase in one channel and a return in another channel was a large or very large issue.

Likewise, large, single-channel merchants have a different set of concerns than their smaller counterparts regarding the implementation of a multi-channel solution:

• 71% indicated that strong technical support would have great impact on their desire to implement a multi-channel solution versus 38% of small merchants.
• 57% identified reconciliation tools as being a key to multi-channel commerce versus 27% of small, single channel merchants.
• Nearly half indicated that integration into the merchant’s other payment solutions would have a very substantial impact on their ability and desire to implement a multi-channel solution.

"This research study confirms that traditional, single channel payment partners are simply not fulfilling the needs of a large segment of American businesses,” said Brent Warrington, CEO, SecureNet Payment Systems. "The successful multichannel SMB will look for not just a payments processor, but a technology partner that can scale with a merchant as business needs change. A truly omnichannel payments solution offers multichannel merchants the most effective way to streamline payments across all channels with improved ease, speed and costs. As merchants demand better solutions, the payments industry will see more widespread change."