How do your customers pay for your services and products? By credit card or debit card? By check? By cash? Each form of payment has it’s own risks, but credit cards are by far more reliable, safer and quicker all parties involved. And if your business accept credit cards, then it helps to have a merchant account. Here are five ways to see whether your business needs a merchant account.
1. Do your competitors accept credit cards? If your competitors accept credit cards, but you aren’t, that’s probably a sign that you should be accepting them, too. You can learn a lot from your competitors, from their successes and failures. Credit cards are the most efficient and widely used form of payment, so having a merchant account is essential to making your business run smoother for both you and your customers.
2. Do you sell large ticket items? Your customers can buy any of your products with a credit card, no matter if it costs 50 cents or $5,000. But if your business isn’t accepting credit cards, and it has large ticket items for sell, then you are making a very great mistake. Who wants to deal with and handle large sums of cash, when it could be so much easier and secure with the mere swipe of a credit card? High prices equals accepting credit cards and having a merchant account.
3. Are you turning away customers who don’t have cash? Are you? Seriously? It’s the 21st century. It is the age of the credit card. Even people who live no where near civilization have and use credit cards. The thing about credit cards is that almost any person can use them, anywhere. That is, until they realize that your business, one of the few, doesn’t accept credit cards. Doesn’t this seem like a huge disadvantage to your business?
4. Can your business accept credit card payments over the phone or internet? Ok, so your business does accept credit cards. But does it accept it over the phone or over the internet? Which one you use to process credit cards will make the difference as to what kind of merchant account your business is best suited for.
5. Do you ever need to collect unpaid payments from your customers? In this day in age, this should never happen. By making sure you accept credit cards, not IOUs, and have a merchant account, you will guarantee that you will never have to be calling you customers and pestering them about collecting their unpaid payments.
