Surreal Entrepreneur

I have become increasingly more aware of the necessity for accessibility in this current economy. Especially when a business revolves around non-essential items, a store owner must do everything they can to be the easiest purchase possible in order to retain a customer. To relate this to real world situations let’s take a journey to the last time you were in a small town feeling store. There were wood floors, lots of trinkets and knickknacks everywhere. The place smelled like a melange of different sweet candles and scents trying to emulate a good memory. You pick up a small children’s toy made of wood, thinking that your friends child might enjoy it, as you walk up to the register line you see in bold letters a sign that says “CASH ONLY”. You put the toy down and slowly but confidently walk out the door.

This has happened to me several times. I’m not necessarily a person who buys on whim but I also don’t have cash on me, prepared to the cent, to purchase a specific item. I use mainly a debit card and credit cards to make my monthly purchases. So when a business doesn’t allow me to use my preferred method of payment, I’ll most likely walk, especially if I don’t really need the item.

That being said, there are several topics that deter businesses from wanting to participate in taking cards. Firstly, there is a fee associated with each transaction. Most companies charge anywhere from 2.5% to 3.5% to use their card charging services. There have been some revolutionary advances in these technologies including the easily accessible and incredibly affordable hardware that simply plugs into your favorite handheld media device and instantly becomes a card reader complete with signature. But the terms of agreement can be confusing and one can get trapped into contracts and lengthy agreements. So read the fine print when choosing a card processing service. This is the largest deterrent for small businesses and I would only suggest a product based store that moves enough volume to not be affected by a 3% shot to margin to embark on getting credit card receiving capabilities.

Also this means the money isn’t instantly in the businesses account. It requires a small holding/processing window and a completion of some online claiming to receive the money from accounts.

The last downside is that you have to make sure that the records that you keep for these transactions are very (I mean overly) secured. This is the difference between sinking and swimming. Imagine if a bored hacker was able to acquire all the information of your customers, that could be a reputation and finance disaster.

Once again though, we need to focus on convenience. If someone else is selling the same thing as you, and they don’t have cash in hand but your competitor has the capability to take cards… who do you think will make the sale?