paymet options for small business 1

As a small business, you need to offer customers just as much flexibility as a company many times your size. Often, that means ensuring that you can accept a variety of payment types online or in-store. Versatile payment options for small business helps attract new customers and saves existing customers time and effort.

Credit cards and PayPal are among the most popular payment types, especially online. But are you missing out on other options? Find out when you check out this overview.

Credit cards

While you might already take credit cards in-store and online, there are some details you might be missing. Visa and Mastercard are two industry-leading credit providers that are widely used around the world. Some businesses have trouble with card processing because they’re considered to be in a high-risk industry, like marijuana sales or gambling. Still, most businesses can find a payment gateway that will work with them. Having third-party help with payment processing comes with plenty of benefits, including customer data security, automatic calculation of taxes and shipping costs, inventory management, and technical support.

Automatic Recurring Credit Card Payments

If your business is one that needs to process recurring weekly or monthly payments, like subscriptions, a card processing company can help make it easier! Many gateway processing systems offer automatic credit card payments that eliminate the need for you to manually track and process recurring payments each month. Schedule your billing in advance to make everyone’s life a little bit easier.

Alternative Digital Payment Options

Credit cards are no longer the only form of digital payment you can accept. From Bitcoin and PayPal to Venmo and Klarna, there are so many new ways you can accept money from your customers. Consider some of these digital payment options for small businesses and add some of them to your checkout process today!

PayPal

PayPal has long been amongst the biggest names in alternative digital payment services. You can use a simple plugin that adds PayPal as a checkout button option on your website. Not only does this offer customers more flexibility, but it also earns trust for your business, as PayPal offers customers a security and risk management guarantee.

While PayPal does charge you a processing fee based on a percentage of each transaction, it’s the same fee you may be paying a card processing payment gateway.

Apple & Google Pay

Apple and Google Pay offer a more mobile payment structure that makes it possible for a merchant to accept customer payments through Face ID, Touch ID, or other existing personal accounts linked to their phones and computers. With these services, merchants have the flexibility to accept payments at approximately 383 million phones worldwide. With 43% of iPhone customers using Apple Pay and over 10 million people using Google Pay, you can tap into a massive market with these payment options for your small business.

There are no additional costs for merchants accepting these payment types, aside from processing fees. Integrate Apple and Google Pay into your checkout process and discover some of the most lucrative application niches in online business.  Whether you’ve integrated selling on Instagram through BigCommerce or you have contactless payment processing in-store, you might be surprised by how many customers prefer this payment option for small businesses.

Buy Now, Pay Later

From Afterpay and Klarna to Sezzle and PayPal Credit, many people love the BNPL structure when shopping online. It doesn’t matter whether your customers are making massive purchases or spending just a few dollars; buying now and paying later means they can shop even if they’re waiting on payday. With Buy Now, Pay Later, you get the full payment for a product or service right away. The customer then repays whichever company you’re using without your involvement.

BNPLs will do a quick credit check on a customer before approving a transaction to protect themselves from a possible default. Once a customer is approved, you get paid. As a merchant, you’re protected from any issues with repayment, as the BNPL service has transferred the liability and risk from you to themselves.

Who Pays for the BNPL?

paymet options for small business 3

There are two ways in which BNPLs work; they either charge the customer or charge the merchant. It’s up to you which pricing model you choose. If you prefer to cover the processing fees, you may find your business paying between 2 and 8% of the purchase amount, as well as a small transaction fee per purchase. You might also choose to transfer the costs of using these companies on to the customer. With this option, your customers will be paying interest on the loan amount until they pay it off.

While BNPL payment options for small businesses can increase your average order amount by over 40%, if your customers are paying the interest, they may be less likely to choose this option at checkout.

More Flexibility for Your Customers & Your Business

There are so many benefits to adding alternative payment options to your checkout process, both in-store and online. You can increase sales by motivating new buyers and guarantee customer satisfaction with increased convenience. Using a well-known third party, like Venmo or PayPal, can also improve customer trust in your business.

Even better, so many of these digital processing service providers also offer tons of auxiliary services that can streamline your business and save you time:

  • Enjoy additional security and fraud protection through data encryption with companies that are First Data Certified, Anti-Money Laundering Compliant, and FSA Certified.
  • Diversify your payments to accept international currencies from over 100 countries and break into the global market.
  • Integrate your payment processing with support applications, including accounting, order management, and inventory tracking.
  • Run sales reports, schedule automated billing, and track refund requests all in one place.

It doesn’t matter if you run a small business online or you have a brick-and-mortar store, you always want to offer your customers more flexibility and convenience. Keep your customers happy and protect yourself from fraud and chargebacks when you explore the best payment service providers for merchants.

Subscribe to our newsletter

    Content Writers Team TBG

    The content Team Writer is one of the writers from our team of content writers. The Business Goals blog is expanding day by day and we need more writers and brand ambassadors for promoting our media website. If you are interested contact your portfolio through the Write for Us page.

    LEAVE A REPLY

    Please enter your comment!
    Please enter your name here