Additionally, under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed by Congress in 2010, retailers and restaurant owners can set minimum price levels for the use of credit cards in their establishments. The minimum must be under $10. Why bother? The transaction fees operators pay to process really small purchases—say, below $5—essentially cancel out the profit from the sale.

Using PCI-compliant technology at the physical point of sale constitutes PCI compliance by default. While this may be the case, remember that PCI guidelines also require the implementation of measures to ensure the physical security of networks and payment technology as well as the maintenance of written security policies. Although it is critical that terminals and other point of sale hardware be PCI- compliant, compliance as a whole doesn’t stop there.

A few months back, we explained why it’s important for retailers and restaurant operators to blog just as we at pcAmerica do. We hope you took our advice! Now it’s time to look at a few ways to prevent your blog from becoming stale and, as a result, losing some of its following. Here are three strategies to start with; see our next installment for more ideas.

In the last installment of this blog, we at pcAmerica offered three strategies for keeping customers coming back. Here are three more.

With consumers continuing to watch their budgets and those who are spending more freely again, becoming increasingly selective about where they put their money down, retailers and restaurant operators must double their efforts to keep customers coming back. Here are a few strategies for moving in that direction:

As a retailer or restaurateur, you can be just as innovative, even at the point of sale. Retailers might take a page from the book of Best Buy, which last year began putting QR codes on shelf signs to give shoppers more information about the products displayed at the moment of decision.

Merchandise returns are a way of life in the retail industry, but with the National Retail Federation (NRF) pegging return fraud as costing retailers a collective $9.6 billion annually, it makes sense to take steps to ensure that as many returns as possible are truly legitimate.

What’s more, the survey indicates, organized retail crime is not only an isolated problem in a handful of areas across the country. A staggering 72% of retailers who participated in the survey said they have identified organized retail crime syndicates who are exporting goods outside of the U.S. or across state lines.

Not long ago, touchscreens were among those categories of technology that were nice—but not essential—for retailers to have. Today, nothing could be further from the truth, because touchscreen monitors are an essential for retailers and restaurant operators alike. In fact, pcAmerica rarely ships a point of sale system that lacks a touchscreen component.

In short, to obtain a true picture of how well your retail business faring, you need a completely accurate accounting of how much inventory you own. And computerizing your point of sale system with a solution like pcAmerica’s Cash Register Express makes that job a lot easier.