The way in which businesses are accepting payments is rapidly evolving. 50 years ago, most businesses would only accept cash and cheques. Nowadays, there are a whole range of ways to pay for products and services. By embracing new payment methods, you could help expand your customer base and improve general efficiency. Below are just a few examples of how you could modernize your company’s payment solutions.
Get a mobile card reader
Mobile credit card readers are portable cards that can attach to a smartphone or tablet. This can enable payments by card in person from any location. In the past, many professionals like taxi drivers and plumbers would never have been able to accept card payments.
Nowadays, anyone can accept card payments providing that they have a working internet connection. Such card readers come with fairly low fees. Mobile credit card readers are slightly more expensive but could be worthwhile in many industries where credit card transactions are common.
Allow in-store app/website payments
Instead of presenting a card to a card reader, you could consider asking customers within your store to pay for products via an app or website. This is a modern approach to receiving payments that are most popular in restaurants.
Customers can order their meals via a digital app/webpage on their phone and then pay through the app/webpage. This reduces work for waiting staff while also allowing customers to order when they are ready instead of waiting for a staff member to come to their table.
Consider accepting crypto payments
More people are starting to own cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Accepting cryptocurrency payments could help to provide added payment options for these people. Many online payment gateways now accept Bitcoin. Consider opening a cryptocurrency account so that you can start receiving crypto payments. Just be wary that cryptocurrencies can fluctuate immensely in value.
Offer digital loyalty points
Loyalty points are a means of inspiring customers to stay loyal to your company. By making frequent purchases or by simply subscribing to your company for a certain period of time, customers can gradually build loyalty points.
These can then be spent on products and services, allowing customers to save money in the long run. Loyalty points could be stored on a card, however, a more modern approach is to use a loyalty card app. Loyalty points can also be collected on online e-commerce accounts.
Go cashless
On top of introducing new payment methods, there could be old payment methods that are worth rejecting. One such form of payment that could be worth rejecting is cash. There are many drawbacks to cash including its vulnerability to theft, its vulnerability to damage, its ability to spread germs/viruses, its ability to be miscounted/mishandled and the fact that it’s slower to process.
Going cashless can prevent you from having to deal with these pitfalls. Many companies that sell big-ticket items and many companies that need to accept payments quickly to reduce queuing are now cashless. Could you benefit from saying no to cash?
