Does My Small Business Need a Credit Card Machine?
When you’ve decided to start accepting credit card payments for your small business, it’s important to make certain decisions early on in the process.
Small business owners are often rightly focused on marketing, profitability, sustainability, product or service improvement, enhancing the customer base, and dealing with the competition. Of course, these aspects are vital to the health and growth of your business. But it’s easy to get sucked into a labyrinth, and miss the forest for the trees.
The Benefits of Accepting Credit Cards
With the American Banking Association reporting in 2018 that 364 million open credit card accounts exist in the US today, this is a number that any business, whether big or small can’t afford to turn a blind eye to. Among the advantages, accepting credit card payments:
- legitimizes your business
- offers a more modern, customer-friendly image
- offers ease and convenience
- provides customers with different payment options
- reaches out to a bigger pool of local, national and international customers, tourists, and corporations
- puts your business on par with the competition
- gives you rapid access to funds
- enables big ticket sales, impulse sales, and large one-time sales
- helps you to strategize and plan for business development and growth
- provides more safety and security, less risk of theft and fraud compared to cash or check payments
Today, the world is increasingly moving away from cash-only payment options. Millennials and members of Generation Z have grown up with technology and are very comfortable with it. One study shows that 45% of millennials avoid shopping with merchants who don’t accept credit cards. And many of these are people who can influence their immediate circle of friends and family, creating a multiplier effect. Surveys conducted by Finder.com report that an estimated 11.8 million customers are lost annually by small businesses that don’t provide credit card payment options.
Points To Keep In Mind
When you’re trying to decide whether your business needs to accept credit cards or not, a detailed cost-benefit analysis helps you make an informed choice.
For more information about whether a credit card machine is necessary for your small business, or to sign up for a merchant account, please call (888) 924-2743 or go to Charge.com.