Increase Your Holiday Sales with Merchant Services Credit Card Processing
As a small business owner, you may have decided to reduce expense by becoming a cash-only operation. But did you realize that your decision to avoid merchant services credit card processing fees could also reduce your potential for higher sales? That is especially important as the holiday seasons approaches.
For small business owners who don't accept plastic --15 million of them in the United States, as documented in a recent Intuit study-- eliminating credit card fees probably seems like an easy choice. It is one of the simplest ways to reduce operating costs. If you have a merchant services credit card processing account, you can simply drop it. If you do not have the service, you can opt not to get it in the first place.
Businesses do save expense money when they eliminate credit card processing, but the decision could minimize long-term profit potential. The 15 million businesses that reject merchant services credit card processing are missing their share of an estimated $100 billion dollars in credit card sales. It is also estimated that customers spend far more when they use the plastic option.
The good old-fashioned cash option VS. merchant services credit card processing
A recent CNBC.com article, "Cash-only business owners risk $100 billion mistake," described cash-only merchants as "..living in the past." The article quoted statistics from a Javelin Strategy & Research study that determined 27 percent of in-person customer sales were made with cash, while 66 percent used credit or debit cards.
For some businesses the choice to go cash-only was an expense decision. One merchant felt credit cards didn't fit his coffee shop's mom-and-pop image. After six years in business, he finally decided utilize merchant services credit card processing, because he could see how it affected his bottom line.
His no-plastic policy had been the reason for 75% of his negative Yelp reviews. Also, he realized that those customers who didn't have cash on hand simply patronized his competitors who did accept credit/debit cards, e-checks or POS payments.
The holiday shoppers are coming
Customers are already out shopping for holiday gifts. Your retail location might offer the goods and services they are looking for, but if nearly two-thirds of your potential customers prefer shopping where the merchant accepts credit cards, debit cards or other modern methods of payment, all of those customers could walk right past your shop?