Gone are the days when consumers only paid in cash as innovations in technology and financial services have made the process of buying goods and services more efficient. Merchant credit card processing services have created many ways to shop from businesses, some of which are more traditional and some of which are newer methods in the last 5 years. All the consumer needs is a credit or debit card account. Businesses need to be aware of all the options that consumers have in order to maximize revenue opportunities.
How have trading accounts changed over time? In the early days of credit card processing, pay stubs were filled out, credit card imprinted on the stub and mailed to the merchant bank.
This was followed by electronic processing, when the customer’s credit card was swiped through the terminal or the credit card number was reported over the phone. At first, these types of transactions were slow due to the slow speed of the dial-up connection, but as the connection speed increased, so did the transaction time.
Today, technology makes it possible to process credit cards online, as well as in stores and over the phone, making shopping convenient and fast. More recently, Google and Pay Pal have introduced their own forms of merchant accounts that do not reveal cardholder information to the merchant, making consumers feel more secure.
How a business can increase sales by offering multiple forms of payment
Let’s say a husband and wife are looking for a flat screen TV, start searching the Internet, and find three vendors. All three retailers have point-of-sale credit card terminals and also accept credit cards online (both of these credit card processing services are offered to businesses by companies such as North American Bancard, Pay Pal, and Google.) Only one of the retailers sellers accept Pay Pal, and husband and wife don’t feel very comfortable giving their credit card information to companies. So they decide to use a retailer that offers Pay Pal as an option.
This is one way businesses can gain a competitive edge by offering these new forms of online payment, and it will be interesting to see if Pay Pal expands its merchant services to regular locations.
A newly developed concept is to process sales using mobile phones. This can be a useful tool for out-of-office service businesses such as plumbers, electricians, or truck drivers. There are apps that can be downloaded to your mobile phone after you have created a trading account with a participating bank.
The customer’s credit card information is either manually entered into the fields, or Bluetooth technology is available to allow credit card swiping and thermal receipt printing. Or, if you want to cut down on paperwork, a receipt can be sent to the customer via email or text message. Watch out for the growing popularity of this method.
