August 25, 2008

I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday...

Ecommerce is nothing new and pretty easy to implement, even for very small businesses. PayPal is among the easiest online payment solution, but Yahoo, OfficeLive and dozens of other web hosting services have turnkey solutions as well. While all of these merchant services offer the ability to accept regular credit card payments, some customers might be interested in another option - being billed later.

Bill Me Later enables online retailers (and call centers) to offer this alternative to customers at the point of sale. It's a third party financing payment option where all purchases made through the service are tracked on one monthly bill. Bill Me Later manages the entire payment and financing process, including credit approvals, invoicing and collections.

For customers, it's an alternative to either using a credit card or having to wait for a purchase order to be processed. For sellers, it potentially captures lost sales at checkout by simplifying the payment process.

One new Bill Me Later customer, Generac Power Systems, is the first durable goods manufacturer to offer the service to its customers.

"We deployed Bill Me Later Business to give our dealers more financing options in order to allow them to react more quickly to market conditions. The positive response was immediate," said Kyle Raabe, director of dealer sales at Generac. "Our dealers find the sign up process quick and easy and appreciate the additional buying power that Bill Me Later Business affords."

The company also offers a private label credit card program.

Laura Leites, Assistant Editor, Smallbiztechnology.com

tags: Bill Me Later , credit , ecommerce | 0 comments