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You’re set to open for business, and you have a few loose ends to tie-up, including who you’re going to have process your credit card transactions. Maybe it’s time to also take a step back and think about the pros and cons of accepting online payments.

Let’s be honest, you need to have an online presence that offers your customers the opportunity to pay with their credit or debit cards. If you don’t have one, it will be tough to grow your business without any online sales. Knowing what to look for in an online credit card processor will be beneficial to your bottom line.

Pros

Convey a sense of trust. As a new business you won’t have the credibility of a more established company, so promoting that you’re able to accept credit cards gives you instant credibility with your customers. They trust those companies with their personal and financial information, so you’ll be able to garner more respectability when compared to companies that don’t accept credit cards.

The more payment options, the better the sales. Why limit your customers to just cash? In an online business, cash is almost impossible to pay with online (minus COD orders.) Accepting credit cards will open more doors, and hopefully more wallets, because the number of people carrying cash gets smaller and smaller every year.

Plastic is better than a rubber check. If you accept one bad check, you can kiss goodbye any hopes for profits that day, and it will cause you to spend a ton of time dealing with banks and trying to find the customer to get reimbursed. Because of the high level of diligence done by credit card processors, it’s less likely that you’ll be a victim of fraud when compared to accepting checks.

Set-up is easy. Companies like Humboldt Merchant Services pride themselves on making the application process, and subsequent set-up of the merchant account, as painless as possible. Humboldt is known to help the hard to place merchant get the right payment processing needs for their business — no matter the type of industry.

Cons

Adds another accounting issue. According to sba.gov, accepting credit cards adds another thing to deal with when it comes to bookkeeping. Yes, it will mean a bit more time at the accountant, and another set of books to keep straight.

In dispute. If a customer decides to dispute the charges, you’ll have to be ready to justify what is in question. And if a refund is granted, you’ll have to return the full charge amount to the customer, meaning you’ll have to pay the processing fees out of your own pocket.

To learn more about the pros and cons of accepting credit cards, visit sba.gov where they have a complete list of how the benefits can outweigh the negatives.

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