The rising popularity of e-commerce transactions, as well as the use of credit cards and electronic wallets for in-store purchases has made small business owners often consider the merits of accepting digital payments despite the additional cost. A quick examination ofthe various advantages for businesses to go cashless and the factors they need to consider before doing so:
Top Advantages of Your Small Business Going Cashless
The most obvious benefit of going cashless is that you no longer have to handle cash and ensure its safekeeping in the store as well as during transit to the bank. Also, there is no need for the cash to be counted and reconciled with the sales register and no opportunity for employees to pilfer the money. Additionally, businesses can spare themselves the hassle and cost of getting the cash picked up and transported to the bank.
From the customer’s point of view, purchases with credit and debit cards are also more convenient as the transactions are processed faster without the associated hassle of them or the cashier having to provide change, observesGary Saitowitz.
Knowing Your Customers’ Payment Preferences Is Important Before Going Cashless
If you are toying with the idea of making your business go cashless, it should be a carefully considered decision and not because it looks trendy. You need to understand if you are going to lose a significant amount of your sales if you refuse to accept cash. It is a situation that typically arises if sales for small amounts form the bulk of your business because customers usually prefer to pay with cash for these purchases. According to https://edition.cnn.com, cash is preferred for purchases under $10 and favored more by people earning less than $25,000 annually. Also, there are certain types of businesses like fast-food restaurants and cafes where customers have traditionally shown a preference for paying in cash rather than cards. According to studies conducted by TSYS, younger customers were not necessarily the largest users of cards as would have been perhaps expected.
Calculate the Trade-Off before Taking the Plunge, Recommends Gary Saitowitz
By going cashless, you don’t need to lose all your cash-paying customers, however, you need to do the math and see if the loss in sales is more than made up by a faster customer turnaround time, reduced cost of security, and fewer trips to the bank. A temporary transition period will help you to gauge the customer response better. If your business has had a long tradition of accepting cash, there could be a chance of customers engaging in bad PR to complain against your changing over to the new system. Also, you need to find out if local laws need you to accept cash for purchases if asked to do so.
Conclusion
If you finally decide to go cashless, you should carefully review your merchant account. You have to ensure that your business is equipped to accept a large variety of electronic payments, including all the major card payment processors like VISA, MasterCard, Discovery, as well as PayPal and Apple Pay. If upgrading your account to accept additional modes of payment looks to be costly, shop around with other merchant processors for better rates.
