Accept Credit Cards

Why Your Business Needs Credit Card Processing- Accepting credit cards may be the key to a business growing and flourishing, rather than languishing and never really taking off. This article explains why your business needs credit card processing.

Why Is it Important to Accept Credit Cards?

There are several reasons why it is important, and maybe even crucial to your online business to accept credit cards. Let’s look at the arguments both from the customers’ point of view and the merchant’s point of view.

From the customers’ point of view, using credit cards is an attractive option. Given current business practice, your customers are likely to expect that they will be able to pay for merchandise or services using a credit card anywhere they shop. Particularly online, where cash and checks are generally not an option, credit card processing is becoming de rigueur. Although paying by direct withdrawal from a credit card is possible, using a credit card provides better record keeping and more protection for the consumer in case of a problem with a merchant. The increased use of point systems and rewards by credit cards increases customers’ reluctance to use an alternate method of payment. In addition, the speed and security of transactions using credit cards is appealing to customers.

From the merchant’s point of view, it’s important to realize that at least one third of consumer purchases in the United States are made with a credit card. Moreover, there are specific reasons to accept all of the big four credit cards—VISA, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express.

• There are over 1 billion VISA cards being used globally, with 450 million of those belonging to US residents. VISA consistently has had forty-something percent of all the credit and debit card business, with an annual volume over $1 trillion. The VISA website says that customers make larger purchases with their cards than they do when the means of transaction is cash.

• With MasterCard, customers on average spend 16% more than they do using cash.

• In 2009, Discover Card was adding 6000 locations for acceptance each day. With 50 million card holders, and 3 billion transactions in 2006, Discover is no longer the last and least of the top four credit cards. Its acquisition of the PULSE ATM network broadened its reach considerably to 70 international countries. Discover is now offered by more than thirty issuers, and has more than 1.7 million POS (Point-Of-Sale) locations in the United States.

• Think twice before leaving out American Express. A November 2005 survey found that almost a quarter of cardholders use only their AMEX cards in any given month, which suggests that not accepting AMEX may cost you their business. Besides that, almost a third of AMEX cardholders use their card for both personal and business purchases.

Merchant W.H.

Charge.com

MerchantExpress