To celebrate our very first Jumio holiday season with you, we came up with a special Jumio version of the most beautiful christmas carol of all time. So please sit back, light a candle, maybe open a bottle of wine and enjoy…

(Thank you Jasmin for the impressive performance.)

Season’s greetings from everyone here at Jumio!

People spend ridiculous amounts of money on their Christmas shopping every year. In shopping malls, online shops, little boutiques, using their phones, credit cards, cash, cheques, on lay-by. Happy times, and a lot of shopping induced endorphins are released all over the world.

So there is hardly a better time of year to open a shop of your own. Good idea, but there are always a few things to consider. Let’s look at one particular, fairly important issue: Regardless of what you sell, you will have to deal with payment methods. How are your potential customers going to pay what you sell them?

We found an interesting article that looks at the benefits of enabling your happy shoppers to pay using their credit card. And to counter the age-old argument of “those outrageous credit card fees” (completely ignoring what is in the interest of the customer), we agree with the statement “During the Christmas period, because spending is high, the fees will pay for themselves.”
Read the article here.

Sounds like a costly coalition, doesn’t it? Here are some things to keep in mind when paying for the presents for your loved ones that we found on the UK Telegraph website. Play it safe when you do your Christmas shopping (applies to all other shopping occasions as well, obviously).

First up, the safest way to buy is actually the credit card. Why? In the UK, you are protected as a customer through the Consumer Credit Act 1974. That means, if the online shop you are buying from goes bust before your goods are delivered and can’t reimburse you, your credit card provider will be liable for your costs.

When using credit cards for your online shopping, keep a few things in mind.
- The actual page you are asked to put your credit card number in, has to begin with ”https” rather than just ”http” to indicate that you are on a secure page.
- You will always be asked to enter the Secure Code additonally to your credit card number.
- Credit card companies will never ask you to send them your details.
- See if you can check the seller’s rating on shopping websites to get an idea, how trustworthy they are.
More pointers and the whole article can be found here.

Happy Christmas shopping everyone!

This Christmas, shopping malls will turn into ghost towns. Especially in the UK. Why? Because, let’s call it, ‘remote shopping’ has crushed some of the Christmas spirit. Contrary to previous years, where a lot of Christmas shoppers did their shopping online from the comfort of their living rooms, people are now m-shopping. Buying Christmas presents with their mobile devices.

Interesting concept. People might still be browsing around the shops, checking out what they like. Then, whilst sipping a latte at the nearest Starbucks, they purchase the gifts on the mobile shopping sites.

Have a look at some of the numbers on mobile shoppers (intersting term). Apparently, more than 7 mio UK shoppers use their phone to buy and save (time, that is), with rapidly growing numbers. Read the article and the study by Populus here.