Last Updated on September 13, 2014 by Tim
As a small business owner, you may have been operating your business from home. Your customers are very happy with your website and most of your products are sold through the website. With good word-of-mouth publicity, you have established a solid reputation for your goods and you now sell your items through a mobile truck. Your customers love you and you are seeing a steady increase in your truck business. Your old customers offer cash and you can process these payments quite quickly. However, new customers offer credit cards and you do not have a credit card terminal. Ordinary credit card terminals are expensive and you cannot afford the fees.
What Are Your Alternatives?
Lucky for you, miniaturized credit card terminals are now available, says Bluepay. These credit card terminals can be plugged into smartphones and tablets and they will process payments immediately.
Vendors like Shopify now offer POS terminals for customers. All you have to do is invest in a wireless credit card terminal, plug it in to your smartphone or tablet, and start processing credit card payments immediately. This does sound easy and you are partially convinced about getting the credit card terminal. However, before you invest in the system, you want to know exactly what benefits and disadvantages the system has. So to help you out, here is a quick guide to the pros and cons of wireless credit card systems.
Pros
- Miniaturized credit card readers can use the phone’s internet connection or the tablet’s Internet connection. As long as the device and its connection are working, the credit card system will work.
- Several different models are available in the market in different price rates.
- Increased sales are possible as you can use the credit-card enabled tablet in any location.
- If you are using a smartphone with a camera, some systems allow you to take a snapshot of the check or credit card and validate payments without the need of a card swipe.
- The credit card terminal can also be connected to your website POS and it can be used to process payments for items on your website as well.
- Customers are offered multiple payments options and they can complete billing faster. Your business can collect cash payments and the tablet can be used to process credit card payments.
- These terminals are compatible with almost all kinds of operating systems, tablets, and smartphones.
- They are convenient, simple, and safe
Cons
- Some systems are a little expensive with rates ranging from 2.75 percent swipe fees, transaction fees, and yearly fees increasing to about 3.5 percent yearly.
- Users are not yet convinced about the security of tablet credit card transactions. Most mobile payment systems have some level of customer data collection. Sometimes, the wireless credit card system may require customers to submit more information about themselves to validate the transaction.
- Although the main plus point of wireless credit card processing is the speed, it is also a considerable disadvantage. A slow connection or a frequently disconnected connection could result in dropped payments, missed payments, and slow payment processing.
- Another problem with wireless processing is the type of connection used by the credit card terminals. Some systems use the tablet’s dial-up connection while others can only use Wi-Fi connections. This selectivity may limit the use of your credit card terminal.
- Customer support for the system may vary considerably.
As you can see, each system does have its own pros and cons and tablet credit card systems are no different. Despite these growing pains, tablet-processing systems are gaining in popularity. According to Generator Research, mobile payments and tablet payments are going to increase by 600 percent in the decade. The industry will deal with more than $490 million in payments and it is expected to increase to $633 billion. In fact, the company states that significant chunks of these transactions are due to Starbucks and its policy of offering mobile transactions for customers waiting for their early morning cuppa. The coffee giant is supposedly processing more than three million mobile transactions per week. Multinationals like McDonald’s and Pizza Hut are not far behind and this has led to a huge surge of interest in miniaturized credit card terminals.
For The Business Owner
You may think that investing in a wireless credit card reader is an unnecessary expense. Your customers can make do with cash payments and so can you but this means that you fall behind in a technologically competitive market. TopTenReviews states that every other business is accepting credit cards and improving their cash flow, and if you do not, you will fall behind. To prevent that from happening, think about investing in a credit card terminal to boost your business and to remain competitive in the business rat race.