Accepting Credit Cards Online

If you're going to be selling anything online, accepting credit cards is an absolute must.

In recent years credit cards have become more popular online as households have turned to the Internet to pay their bills, do their banking and retail shopping.

Credit cards allow you to 'strike while the iron is hot' by giving visitors a quick and easy way to purchase your products and services.
Internet shoppers are an impatient and impulsive bunch, they want instant gratification.

Once you've got a customer interested in your products and services, obviously you don't want anything to get in the way of them making a purchase.

Unfortunately, many websites act as their own worst enemy by forcing their customers to:

• Pick up the phone to manually make an order
• Send an email with their details
• Send a cheque in the post (snail mail).

Think of the hassle a customer has to go through to make a payment via cheque from your website.

They need to:

1. Process their order as usual
2. Write a cheque
3. Post the cheque
4. Wait for the cheque to be cashed
5. Wait longer to receive their goods

Imagine your website payment process like a thermometer. The higher the 'hassle factor' reading, the lower the chance of making the sale.

The bottom line is, if you can't quickly and conveniently process payments online - expect to lose a huge chunk of your sales.

Benefits of Accepting Credit Cards

1. Familiar and Convenient

Other digital payment systems have come and gone, but credit cards remain the most preferred payment source for online shoppers.

2. Improves Cash-flow

Accepting credit cards is also great for cash-flow.

By accepting credit card payments, you get your money straight away.
That also means avoiding late payments and the infamous 'cheque's in the mail' excuse.

3. Greater Flexibility

Accepting credit card payments on your website allows you to process orders 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

This is crucial as a large percentage of online purchases are made outside traditional operating hours.

4. Greater Efficiency

In business, your time is arguably your most valuable asset.

Manually processing credit cards and queuing at the bank to deposit cheques can be big time wasters (and therefore money wasters).
A good automated payment system allows you to save money in administrative costs and frees you from tedious manual chores.