Nowadays online transactions have become extremely commonplace. People have almost forgotten about the habit of carrying money in their pockets. They have done away with the hassles of counting money in their pockets and they instead took to carrying their credit and debit cards with themselves. Although this has got a pitfall as well since most people tend to overspend when they have their cards, yet more and more businesses have seen to have started accepting credit cards.
If your business is a part of a small offline circle, you might feel its fine to accept cash and that might seem to be a good option. But this isn’t the smartest way of growing your business. So, if your brick and mortar company have started accepting credit cards, here are few tips to take into account.
- Negotiate the rates for swiping cards
You have to shop around different financial institutions for the swipe fees the same way in which you got a mortgage loan. You may think that the difference between 2.1% and 2.3% is small but you will be rather happy to have that much of money when you’re already investing millions in a year. Hence, make sure you get the most affordable swipe rates.
- Know the security risks
When you begin to accept all sorts of credit cards in your store, make sure you can bear the responsibility of maintaining and protecting the security of the details of the customer’s card. If there is any kind of suspected fraud, be sure you report it to the provider of the merchant account so that you can avoid any kind of future discrepancies that might shake the trust of the shoppers.
- Negotiate and know the rates
There are lots of small businesses which get screwed due to the high transaction costs. If you make the mistake of listening to a single salesperson, you’ll be at a loss. Try and get multiple quotes and try to complete them for your business so that the result is favorable. You can even choose to use Square as they have fair rates and it is even easy to use.
- Know what you should ask for
You should know the right questions that you need to ask. Will there be a definite contract term? Will there be a set-up fee or is there any monthly penalty that you have to pay? What are the rates that will be charged for different kinds of transactions like reward cards, debit cards, corporate cards and others? Will they set you an EMV compatible terminal or an EMV card reader as is offered by companies like SumUp?
- Think of the future
The payment industry usually moves at a fast pace. Make sure you not just invest in some device which allows you to swipe a stripe but think about the other factors which your customers may use in the coming 3-5 years. Make sure you’re ready for chip cards if you’re a newbie firm.
Therefore, if you’re a business which has newly started accepting credit cards, make sure you follow the above mentioned tips and strategies.
