As a small business, the decision to accept or not accept credit cards is before you. You could set something up to accept secure payments or you could settle for cash only. However, you could be hurting your business if you do not accept credit cards. There are places that are ‘cash only’ stores and they are making it but you could make even more of a profit if you decide to allow credit cards. Plus, nowadays, with the amount of credit card processing merchants that there are, it’s not very expensive to be able to accept credit cards so there’s really no excuse not to. Here are a few reasons why you should accept them.
Client Base
When you only accept cash, there’s no way to keep a record of the person who came in. While you don’t want to save credit card information, when you accept a credit card, it may save their contact information for your client records. Of course, you may need to ask permission to save this kind of information but cash won’t even give you that opportunity. The person will remain anonymous. If you are trying to build an analysis of customers, get customer contact info, or statistics for your business, only accepting cash will eliminate these possibilities or at least make it a lot harder to do. Accepting credit and debit cards will automatically do those things for you which is a great convenience to your company or business.
Wider Audience
Not very many people carry around cash. If they happen to wander into your store and then find out that you do not accept cards, they will probably leave because they won’t be able to buy anything. By not accepting cards you are excluding a whole group of people that would have been willing to give your business money otherwise. While there should be a balance; you don’t want to only accept cards and no cash, only accepting cash will make people feel like your company is outdated and probably going out of business. Even people who are paying with cash may not want to spend their money at a place which they don’t know will be there next week if they need to make a return.
More Money
If you don’t accept cards because of having to pay the fees, you aren’t saving money. You are losing it by losing out on the customers that only pay with card. The amount you would make by accepting cards far outweighs the amount you would lose on fees. Don’t let the hassle of setting up a card payment system deter you from doing so. The amount of money you will gain by letting people pay with cards will be through the roof.
Online Store
If you don’t accept cards, you probably don’t have an online presence or store connected to your website. This is a fatal mistake to make as a business order. Most people before to shop online these days and would much prefer that to actually leaving their homes to go to your store. You could have regular customers that spend a lot of money at your business and have never met them face to face. But, if you choose to only accept cash, you’ll miss out on this opportunity as well. Online shoppers are some of the biggest spenders in the shortest amount of time and they usually come back often. Once they find a reputable store that they trust, they will buy from them often. Especially if you offer free and quick shipping. Don’t sell yourself short because of time, money or inconvenience. Having an online store could increase your business immensely without you even having to do much.
Here are just four reasons to accept cards. Cards may make you afraid of fraud or card not present transactions from an online store but these should be risks that you are willing to take in order to make all that extra money. You will need to protect yourself, especially online and you should have a secure payment system in order to deter hackers and fraudulent transactions. However, the benefits of accepting cards online and at your store front will far outweigh the risks involved.