I Have a Small Business – Should I Accept Credit Cards?

Unless you’ve just woken up after a decades-long nap, or you’re a time traveler from an earlier century, you know that the answer is a resounding Yes!

Small business owners can leverage a huge range of benefits, stay competitive and relevant, extend their reach, boost their brands, and ramp up revenues by offering customer friendly payment methods like credit card payments.

Card Payment Facts

• Having a credit card or debit card in your wallet is no longer a status symbol but an ordinary occurrence.
• One or more brands of cards can be found in nearly 71% of American households.
• Statistics released by the US Census Bureau reveal that 183 million Americans have credit cards, with 1.27 billion cards in circulation.
• In 2016, 110 million new credit card accounts were opened by Americans.
• Use of credit cards is for a range of purposes: general and regular purchases like groceries, gas, gifting, entertainment, dining out, or coffee shops, making online purchases, travel, emergencies, and making regular payments such as utilities.
• Most credit card brands offer attractive value-adds like rewards, points, and discounts at select outlets
• More than 20 million American adults use their credit cards to pay for medical services

Accepting Credit Card Payments Is Smarter

When it comes to your business, there’s hardly anything more frustrating for them or you than a customer who loads their shopping cart and then abandons it at check-out because you don’t offer credit card payment acceptance. In fact, one in six customers fails to complete a purchase if credit card payment facilities are unavailable.

The chances are high that this customer may never return and may also report the experience to their immediate social circle or on a public social media platform. Small businesses should strategize to target Digital Natives or Generation Z (those in or after the mid-1990s, with various commentators placing the earliest year somewhere between 1993 and 1997) who haven’t yet developed brand loyalties and who hold the potential of $143 billion in spending power.

Card payments show your customer that you are in sync with their preferences and that yours is a smart and modern business.

Here are just a few of the advantages of accepting card payments:

• Convenient, easy, and fast for customers
• Gives customers more options
• Promotes big ticket purchases
• Allows you to tap into previously unexplored markets
• Can Increase revenues
• Facilitates loyalty programs and rewards
• Helps establish your brand on social media
• Provides more credibility and relevance to your business
• Offers an image of trustworthiness, based on the card brand logos displayed on your website or in-store
• Sets you apart from competitors who haven’t adopted this payment method
• Keeps you and your staff safer as you keep less cash on the premises
• Reduces chances of embezzlement or fraud
• Smoother cash-flow
• Detailed and regular reporting
• Encourages impulse buying

For more information on I Have a Small Business – Should I Accept Credit Cards?or to sign up for a merchant account, please call (888) 924-2743 or go to Charge.com.