Resist the Temptation to Terminate your Credit Card Processing.
In this horrible marketplace each company is looking for ways to save cash. Some Merchant’s are even thinking about terminating their credit card processing services to save as small as two percent of those sales produced by Visa, MasterCard and Discover, and three percent from American Express sales.
“Do not do it!, It’s a false economy”. If I agreed with that, we’d both be wrong. Individuals nowadays in our communities have much less cash in their wallets and income in their checking accounts than ever just before, attributable most likely to the high unemployment rate gripping the nation and dried up credit markets. Folks are a lot less likely nowadays to “impulse” spend. To turn away sales opportunities by limiting yourself to these considerably, significantly lower “money only” amounts and tight fisted mentality is merely a mistake.”
While credit card based transaction volumes have fallen substantially for the first time in our history, debit based transaction have grown dramatically, surpassing credit volumes as the number one kind of bank card processed in America right now. And the vast majority of the American public under 65 years of age no longer carries their check books with them. Stopping your merchant account means you need to stop accepting ALL signature debit cards. When credit card processing services are stopped a merchant has no option but to accept hand written checks the “old fashioned way” – without verification, without electronic deposit and without having realizing if the check has bounced routinely for 8 to 10 organization days. This is a recipe for disaster and the reason why most merchants all across America have stopped accepting paper checks.
So what are the top five issues a organization really should do in these troubled times, especially if you are experiencing monetary difficulty, like most merchants are?
1. Since a bank is a location that will lend you income, ONLY if you can prove that you do not require it, do not terminate your merchant account! Rather call up a transaction processing specialist, fax in your merchant account statements and let them aid you to re-evaluate your merchant services requirements and rate program.
2. Work with a organization that has a history of not increasing merchant account rates, and ask them to aid you acquire a lower rate.
3. If you do not already have one, add a pin pad. Pin debit services access your buyers account balances on-line, real-time, and it’s a guaranteed transaction. It won’t go through if there are inadequate funds. And when it goes by means of, funds are deposited into your merchant account the next banking day, and the rates most typically are better than with signature debit merchant services.
four. If you don’t already take American Express, add it now. “Everybody has a bankcard” is wrong. 16% of all American Express cardholders don’t have any other bankcards. And even though the rate is a bit higher, American Express has the best Membership Rewards programs out there so folks want to use them. And use them they do with an average American Express charge being 27% higher than the average bankcard obtain. 55% of American Express cardholders look for the decal to see if the card is accepted, so post the decal and appreciate generating new consumers!
5. Add an electronic check scanner and merchant services program to take all checks from your clients safely, swiftly and without having fear of fraud or NSF losses, for less than you are paying for your credit card processing now.
Stopping your credit card processing and merchant services program will no far more improve your “profits” than standing in a garage will make you a car since it’s merely not going to enhance your total sales. It’s been proven in America for over 40 years that the number one way to enhance a merchant’s total sales is to accept all forms of payment from your customers that they prefer to make.
And of course, if you do not already have credit card processing services, call in and get them now.
