Why Any Business Needs to Accept Credit Cards

If your business doesn’t accept credit cards, you are losing business. Find out why it’s so important for you to take cards and why it’s never been easier to do it.

The days that people carried money around with them all the time are gone. Today, many people frequently carry little to no money in their wallets and purses. Instead, they just put everything “on the card,” whether this means a traditional credit card, and ATM card or a debit card used as a credit card. The expectation they have is that any store, restaurant or shop they go into will accept credit cards.

With this in mind, it’s surprising how many companies still are “cash only.” Not only is this inconvenient for customers, but it can also drive people away from shopping there. For example, even if a restaurant has an ATM on-site, customers don’t want to go through the hassle of making a withdrawal (or pay the likely service fees). Some businesses charge a fee for customer to use their card as a way to cover their costs. This just turns off customers who don’t understand the basics of credit card merchant services fees.

Trying to find the balance between making it easy for customers to pay for goods and services while not racking up major credit card service fees is a challenge for any company. This is especially true for small businesses that might not qualify for the discounted fees offered to large companies. But this doesn’t have to be the case, as more options than ever are available for accepting credit card payments at stores and doing credit card processing online.

Companies such as Charge.com Payment Solutions, Inc. offer several affordable options for small businesses that want to start accepting credit card payments online or at their physical store. This new breed of merchant banking service providers can reduce or eliminate many of the fees that have made accepting credit cards cost-prohibitive for small business in the past, such as:

• Merchant account application fees, which can be up to $250 and are most often non-refundable
• Processing set-up fees for credit cards and debit cards up to $150
• Programming charges for credit card systems up to $95
• Cancellation fees that can run up to $1,000 on contracts that can be as long as three years

If you own a small business and don’t accept credit cards, you’re losing out on lots of potential sales. With the many different options currently available for business owners from online merchant banks, there’s no reason not to offer your customers the convenience of being able to use their credit cards to shop with you.