Sales Up, Fraud Down -- Online Holiday Shopping Season a Merry One for Merchants with CardinalCommerce Consumer Authentication

CLEVELAND, Dec. 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- CardinalCommerce, the leader in consumer authentication, reports today that its customers' online same-store sales for the holiday shopping season are up more than 25 percent year-over-year. This compares to a nearly 20 percent increase reported by online merchants overall.

CardinalCommerce is also reporting a significant increase in its holiday season transaction volume, with Black Friday transactions up more than 66 percent and Cyber Monday transactions up more than 61 percent year-over-year. The company has protected more than 1.1 billion transactions (over $93 billion in volume) to date.

The increased online sales are attributed to merchants using advanced consumer authentication tools that allow them to authenticate their customers at the right time and place. This improves the customer shopping experience leading to more purchases and fewer lost sales.

CardinalCommerce enables more than 100 payment brands world-wide through thousands of merchants. "We complement familiar fraud mitigation tools with customized consumer authentication," said Tara Lavelle, Vice President of Marketing at CardinalCommerce. "We're proving that when merchants present seamless consumer authentication they can maximize sales, and perhaps more importantly, minimize or eliminate consumer abandonment." 

"Merchants that use Centinel Select^®, our Universal Merchant Platform, value the choice and control it gives them over authentication — and as a means to increase sales," Lavelle continued. "We are about helping merchants achieve sales growth while improving customer experience. The fact that Centinel minimizes fraud and provides credit/debit card processing savings is icing on the cake."

CardinalCommerce has a large footprint in the market across several verticals including electronic goods, apparel, jewelry, entertainment, toys, general goods and airlines. The company attributes its huge increase in transaction volume this year to two primary reasons: More merchants are using Cardinal's proprietary services, and those that are connected to Centinel Select are generating increased sales. "A substantial part of our success is due to merchants experiencing sales growth while deploying our consumer authentication tools," said Lavelle. "As the holiday shopping season progresses, we will continue to report results."

For merchants still looking to capture the glow of increased sales, Cardinal offers a "Naughty or Nice" checklist to help guide their selection of a consumer authentication provider – available for download at http://info.cardinalcommerce.com/cardinalcommerce-naughty-or-nice-list. 

The familiar song tells us to "make a list and check it twice …" — and checking twice is certainly a good idea in the payment industry. 

"More than just 'nice,' many of these are critically important qualities to find in a consumer authentication supplier, and Cardinal has them all," said Lavelle. "Without the care and diligence a comprehensive service provides, your consumer abandonment could go through the roof."

In addition, merchants can access China UnionPay, PayPal, Amazon Payments, Google Wallet and Alipay services, among others, with just one connection to CardinalCommerce.

About CardinalCommerce

CardinalCommerce is the pioneer and global leader for digital commerce normalizing payments with one connection since 1999.  Through this one connection to the proprietary cloud-based payment platform, Cardinal enables global capability in consumer authentication, alternative payment services including digital wallets and mobile commerce.

Cardinal SafeCloud™ SaaS software platforms for merchants, banks, processors and transaction supply chain providers create friction-free interoperability among otherwise disparate and incompatible operating systems. Cardinal's platforms enable technology-neutral authentication across a wide range of applications. The Company's proprietary, patented solutions easily facilitate the addition of new technology for remote distribution channels through one connection. This allows merchants to securely accept payments from the entire financial transaction ecosystem.

CardinalCommerce is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio and services a worldwide customer base from facilities in the United States, Europe and Africa. For more information, visit www.cardinalcommerce.com.

Media contact:
Tara Lavelle
Vice President, Marketing
CardinalCommerce Corporation
877.352.8444
[email protected]

SOURCE CardinalCommerce