If you own a boutique and do not yet accept credit cards, then you have likely been missing out on sales, as well as making it more difficult to run your business. A recent survey showed that 75% of consumers pay with credit cards as their preferred payment method.

This means that accepting credit cards as a small business will open doors to more business transactions, opportunities and more customers, which will translate to more sales.

If you are wondering how your boutique can accept credit cards, this guide will show you how to setup and manage this process. You will also see that setting up and accepting credit cards as a means of payment might not be as difficult or technical as you think.

Before we go through the steps of setting up credit card payment for your small business, let’s review the benefits and why you should be accepting credit card payments in order to achieve your goals.

8 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD BE ACCEPTING CREDIT CARD PAYMENTS

1. Encourages Your Customers: Your customers are assured that you operate a legitimate business when they see that credit cards are accepted in your store.
2. Increase Your Sales Output: By presenting people with the option of paying with credit cards and not just cash, you can attract more customers to your store and get you more sales. It also improves the experience customers have in your store, since not everyone carries cash around, you might just win yourself long term customers.
3. Customers Are Encouraged To Purchase: Being able to pay with a credit card removes one of the barriers to finalizing a purchase, meaning you’re a more likely to make that sale.
4. Better Cash Flow & Time-Saving: Compared to invoices and cheques which could take several days or up to a week to get cleared and receive payment, with credit cards you usually receive payments within 24  hours in a seamless, automatic process.
5. Lower Security Risks: Even though credit cards have their own security issues, when compared to housing large sums of money in your store, your transactions are automatically credited to your merchant account, which is safer.
6. Easy Book Keeping: All your transactions are processed on a single platform and are recorded electronically, making record keeping and reconciliation an easy process and can help you when it is time for your tax payment.
7. Makes You Versatile and Business Ready: If you ever have plans to take your business to the millions of online customers available, you will definitely need a credit card payment option. You wouldn’t want your competitors to outdo you because they are already accepting these options and drive all the customer traffic their way, would you?

How to Set Up and Accept Credit Card Payments

Making use of credit card for payments will satisfy customers and also increase your revenue. Who says you have to go through a lot of stress to do business? Let’s take a look at the steps to take when accepting credit card payments:

• Research providers
• Set up a merchant account
• Investigate processing fees

Once you know all these, you can now start accepting credit card payments at your boutique.

Guide To Accepting Credit Card Payments In Small Businesses

As a boutique owner, it is better if you already have a point of sale (POS) system in place. Accepting credit cards will require you to also have a credit card reader. The credit card reader runs in coordination with the POS system, recording credit card sales.

Whether you are a small business or a vendor at a local market, using the PDQ card machine will let your customers swipe or insert their credit cards into the credit card reader. When a customer swipes his/her credit card into the machine, the transaction will automatically be approved (or not) by their bank.

How To Accept Credit Card Payments Online

To accept credit card payment online, you will need to set up an online payment gateway system. This gateway processes your POS credit card. With it, customers can enter their credit card information online on any device with an internet connection. All information provided by a customer is always secured.

Credit Card Transaction Fees For Small Businesses

You will be required to pay a certain fee to be able to accept credit card payments. The fee depends on your industry, merchant account provider, the company of your customer’s credit card, and the channel of collecting your payment. Some of these fees are:

• Fee per transaction
• Setup fees
• Percentage of each sale (for example, 2%)
• Rental fee or purchase fee for card processing equipment
• Monthly, quarterly, or annual fees

As previously mentioned, the fee varies but some companies charge a percentage per transaction and also on each sale. Others choose to charge a flat rate. The processing fees for credit card payments online are usually higher because there is a higher chance of internet fraud involving a credit card.

Meanwhile, some businesses pass a surcharge fee for paying with their credit cards, which can take away the burden of the fee from businesses. However, you should check with your merchant processor before passing such fees.

Some vendors can charge you for not meeting the minimum monthly sales target. As a small business owner, avoiding such vendors is in your best interest. So, keep an eye out for such companies to save you time and money.

Accepting different kinds of payments in your business comes with its pros and cons. Although using a credit card payment system involves some costs, it will definitely afford your business with more opportunities, more sales and help your business to succeed.