Kanakaris Wireless, which is preparing to launch the ak.tv web/TV shopping site, has ordered 1,000 eCashPads from eConnect Inc. Kanakaris will distribute the home-based payment terminals to customers for payment of merchandise on ak.tv, eConnect says.
The eCashPads are card swipe devices that the consumer connects to a home PC. They accept credit cards. Plans are for the terminals to accept debit cards with PINs. They also are equipped to accept smart cards. EConnect is planning to obtain card-present status from MasterCard and Visa for transactions performed over the terminal, Thomas S. Hughes, eConnect's chairman and CEO, tells Internet Retailer. Such status would reduce merchants’ discount fees. Until eConnect obtains that status, Hughes says the appeal to merchants to distribute the terminals to their customers is that the devices will reduce chargebacks because card-present transactions have a higher likelihood of being legitimate. Retailers will pay eConnect 50 cents per transaction on top of whatever discount it pays its merchant bank for use of the terminals.
Kanakaris is paying $50 for each terminal. It has an option to buy 4,000 more terminals at the same price by the end of the year. Hughes says eConnect has orders for 15,000 terminals.
EConnect is marketing the terminals directly to consumers, as well as to merchants and through resellers. The company is offering merchants who distribute the terminals to consumers a commission on every transaction performed over the terminals. Depending on volume, the commission ranges from 0.5% to 5% of the 50-cent fee that eConnect collects per transaction.
Merchants can sign up for the eCashPad service by downloading a merchant integration kit from eConnect’s web site (econnectholdings.com).
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