CrossCheck Blog

“I know check guarantee services are convenient, but how on earth can they be profitable?” I’m glad you asked. Check processing services save time and money, the guarantee factor mitigates the risk of accepting bad ones, and optional premium services can further increase sales. Together, this trifecta is the essence of “check processing made profitable” that may be summarized as follows: Check Guarantee Prevents Returned Checks Check Processing Means More Sales Check Acceptance Rates Matter

It’s Saturday morning on Memorial Day weekend. The inflatable tube man is in perpetual motion, burgers are sizzling on the outdoor grill, and the television ads have been running for days. Your auto dealership is ready for its big, big marathon holiday sales event. You close out the preparations with a sales meeting. It’s “all hands on deck.” There are boxes of gooey donuts, pots of hot coffee, and a cadre of sharp-dressed sales people with their chins up. Your general manager delivers a pep-talk that would make the legendary Knute Rockne take notice.

Over the last few years, an interesting development has occurred in the business of selling new cars — a glut of off-lease vehicles has hit the market. Let’s take a look at what this means to dealers and consumers. During the new vehicle sales bonanza of 2014 – 2016, records were set for annual sales, and surprisingly, about a third of those sales ended up as leases. By the end of 2019, an estimated 12 million low-mileage cars were coming off lease to create the glut of off-lease vehicles. First, a recap of how leasing works. There is an up-front cash payment, and then you make a monthly payment for typically 24 or 36 months, with an option to do a buyout at the end of the lease. In theory, you are just paying for the depreciation during that time.

Owning a car is expensive. The American Automobile Association (AAA) says it costs about $8,469 if you drive an average of 15,000 miles a year. But Nerdwallet gets more granular and they calculate a typical monthly cost as follows:

Every construction project requires you to spend money on labor and materials. One way to generate higher business profits is by lowering the cost of building materials. It is possible to save money while buying building materials — you just need to know the right tactics to reduce overhead expenses. Let’s look at six ways to do that. Article Summary Buying Building Materials in Bulk or at Wholesale Buy Easy-to-Install Building Materials Choose Prefabricated or Modular Materials Have a Network of Suppliers Negotiate Free Delivery Establish Good Payment Terms

Consumers think that selling new vehicles is the most important and profitable part of running a new car franchise and that dealers make a lot of money on each unit sold. Yes, it is important, but there is another part of the business that really pays the bills and keeps the lights on: the parts and service operation. This now comprises 49% of a dealership’s gross profit, up from 45% in 2012. You will hear this referred to as “fixed ops.” That’s a strange term; what does it mean? Car dealers have historically called one part of the business variable and one part fixed.

A current study by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) found that there is a serious shortage of car mechanics at dealerships, somewhere around 20,000 – 25,000 people. The trade group predicts that dealers will need another 46,000 more people by 2026. If you own or manage a dealership, this will keep you up at night, because today the parts and service area (aka “fixed ops”) comprises fully 49% of the dealership’s gross profit. It’s what keeps the lights on and pays the bills!

CrossCheck started in the check guarantee business way back in 1983. Checks ruled at the time, and nearly every merchant accepted them at the point of sale. Back then, in fact, many merchants did not take credit cards at all. This was due, in part, to the high cost of interchange and because processing a card transaction was much more complicated than taking a check. Merchants had to put a bulky multi-part carbon form in a knuckle-busting sliding imprinter (aka “Zip Zap machine”), and then sort out the forms and send them out for processing. There is a reason why it was called a “knuckle buster.” By comparison, taking a check was pretty easy, comfortable, and familiar to merchants, and consumers commonly wrote them for purchases at the store.

The 2019 Summer Las Vegas Market is a great place for home furnishings dealers to learn about the latest furniture trends of the upcoming season. Discovering what is popular will provide insight when determining the right items to stock and ultimately attract more customers. This year’s summer LVM offers many opportunities and resources to learn about the current industry and acquire amazing furniture for your inventory.

When merchants sell something, they expect to get paid in full right away in order to generate more revenue. They don’t expect to have the payment fail for one reason or another, and never get the money. This seems pretty obvious, but every payment system has failure points, except perhaps the Federal Reserve Wire Transfer system (and even this is not immune from fraud). In this short piece, we will explore the concept of check guarantee, and how check guarantee providers manage their business to meet predictable targets for payment failure, salvage, and write-offs. Not every business is a candidate for check guarantee, but for those that are, such as car dealers and building supply companies, they can’t live without it!