Providing your customers with inefficient or non-intuitive methods of payment can harm your customer base. Customers want to pay quickly and efficiently. Indeed, waiting to pay can turn them away from your business.
This means you will need to choose the right equipment. Here’s how to pick the right card machine for a small business.
Before understanding how to pick a credit card machine, let’s go through some basics as to how it completes transactions. There are three phases to the actual processing of credit cards.
There are different kinds of credit card machines and terminals that a small business can use for payments.
The trick topicking the most appropriate card machine for your business is to understand what you want from it.
1. Making Payments with Smartphones
Even if you’re a small business, you can accept contactless payments from cards and digital wallets using a mobile payment system, stand-alone credit card machine, or integrated POS system software. Near-field communications (NFC) technology makes contactless payment secure, fast, and convenient. With NFC you can accept payments via digital wallets in smartphones, smart watches, and similar devices.
2. Processing Credit Cards at Lowest Possible Cost
If you are looking to process credit cards at the lowest possible cost, without frills, a stand-alone credit card machine is your solution. These terminals have been in use for decades. They last and are durable because they have a simple function but can handle the security in processing equally efficiently.
Today, card machines for small businesses come with secure EMV “chip card” technology, NFC, and legacy magnetic stripe for accepting digital wallets.
3. For a Quick and Integrated Payment System
For a packed restaurant, you will need an ordering and checkout system that can keep up with the crowd. And you need your systems to be able to talk to each other, so you don’t have to worry about reconciling accounts every night.
Here, fully-integrated POS system software functions very much like a smart credit card terminal. Plus, it has other essential systems like software, hardware, and support. These systems are easy to customize. So, it is easy to evolve them according to the changes and growth in your business. POS system software is designed to manage the functions of virtually every type of restaurant.
4. On-the-Spot Credit Card Payments
If you are a business that operates outside your physical location a lot, you will need a payment system that you can easily carry around. Your smartphones or tablets are the perfect mobile POS solution for your business. They allow you to download their mobile apps easily and plug in a card reader to accept payments on the spot. They are extremely useful for festivals and trade shows, food trucks, in-house services, and any business that exchanges services on the go. It is extremely easy to implement and use.
Selecting the right credit card machine for your small business will not only boost the business but make tallying and management easier. With the extra time, you can concentrate on expanding your business.