Card payments are now commonplace online and it’s a rarity for a small business with an online presence not to offer this option to customers. Indeed, not offering a card payment service can be a quick way to lose business both in the short and long term – as consumers will likely avoid your site in the future. While the benefits are multiple there are potential pitfalls to accepting online payments, not least in choosing the right card acceptance provider, however, integrating card payments into how you do business online is likely to be the right move. The chief benefit is simply increased revenue.
If you are in retail, for example, and you’ve gone to the trouble of creating a virtual storefront, which prospective customers can browse, then an online card payment mechanism is an essential accompaniment. The impulse purchases that follow from browsing activity can account for a significant percentage of overall revenue.
Businesses in service industries have similar incentives for accepting card payments. If a client has an easy time paying through your online system, then they are more likely to recommend your services to others.
Security & Speed
Card payments can be secure and quick if you choose a reputable card acceptance provider. Waiting around for a cheque before you can send off a customer’s goods is a tiresome hassle. And there’s less security with older methods of payment – the cheque may bounce and not only have you lost revenue, but you may have been withholding inventory that could have been sold to another customer. The mechanism of paying by card helps filter out those that can pay from those that can’t, and a reputable merchant account provider will also have systems in place to scan for fraudulent transactions. Online card payments are a convenience for you, just as much as for the customer.
Credibility
While convenience is a primary reason for the popularity of bank cards, offering an online card payment option is also important for credibility; consumers may be unwilling to make any kind of payment if they don’t see a bank card option somewhere on your website. In short if you don’t offer an online card payment option, then the consumer will quickly be able to search for and find a business that does.
Administration
In addition, record keeping is made easier by accepting bank card transactions, which in turn makes it easier to estimate the overall health of your business. The whole process of managing transactions is streamlined, which saves you time – fewer cheques means fewer trips to the bank or phone calls to slow-paying customers.
The migration of our purchasing habits to the web is unlikely to abate and the ability to pay for goods and services online by card payments has been a facilitator of this growth. The small business that ignores these trends may lose out to better equipped competition.