Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Patrick Burton - Citigroup.
Patrick Burton - Citigroup
My question will be: Did you guys see another turndown in the customer base in October and, if so, have you factored that into the forward-looking fourth quarter guidance?
Robert Baldwin, Jr.
It's hard. We just have the volumes numbers relative to last year, and it was pretty consistent with the September figure, September growth. But September, as we mentioned on the call, sequentially was the worst month of the quarter, so we were down 2% for the quarter. Same-store sales were down about 3.9% for September, and it's hard to judge precisely but I would say October was in the same ballpark. And yes, that deceleration has been factored into our expectations for the fourth quarter.
Obviously, it is extraordinary difficult to figure that out given the current environment, but we think we've been pretty cautious on it.
Patrick Burton - Citigroup
On the Payroll product, could you talk maybe a little bit about the opportunity there, how you're going to go against some of the entrenched market players? Is it going to be on price or leveraging your merchant relationships? How are you going to move into that market and what's the growth opportunity over the next couple years?
Robert Baldwin, Jr.
It's a great growth opportunity. We've put together a very strong team based in Cleveland. We are right now writing our own platform. We've been operating on a third-party platform which has constrained us in some respects, but during 2009 we expect - or really in the beginning of 2010 - expect to roll that out.
But the driver is having our sales force across the country selling. We are directly competitive with ADP and Paychex. Of course, we're dramatically smaller than they are and, in fact, we benefit a lot from opportunities to come in under, in essence, their price umbrella. So it is a price competitive product offering. They generally do a good job, but even if they turn off 3% or 5% of their existing customers, that represents a lot of growth opportunity for us.
So it broadens the product that our salespeople can sell. About half of our customers in the Payroll business are also card customers. We think in that case it enhances our retention of merchants when we have two products. But it definitely also allows the salesperson, as with our Check product, to go to a merchant who may not accept plastic and have a robust product set to handle some of their major cash flows of their business, in that case perhaps payroll and their check payments. So the opportunity there really is to broaden the target for our sales force.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
