The most important payment technology for your business is debit and credit card payments. Once you have this you can start expanding into other payment technologies. Great techs include online, smartphone, subscription, and cryptocurrency payments.
When customers can easily pay for your services they will be more likely to come back. Having plenty of payment options will expand the ways that customers can interact with your business. Each of the payment technologies below can help your business.
Start with card payments
The phrase “cash is king” may not be as true as it used to be. While cash transactions are simple and painless, many younger people these days don’t carry cash. This trend makes it more important than ever to have credit and debit card payment options.
Luckily there are plenty of options available. There are card readers that work off of a smartphone like the ones from Square. Bigger options are also available depending on your business needs.
Many card readers take processing fees which is something to take into account when upgrading. Usually, these fees aren’t horrible. Consider the various fee rates and conditions when looking for a card reader.
If this is the only payment option you have other than the cash you will be set to expand.
Expand into online payments
Adjacent to card payments is online payments. Online shopping is much more convenient in many cases as proven by Amazon. Not to mention the complications that come from public safety guidelines.
With COVID-19 still a threat, contactless payment options are crucial to keeping your business afloat. Online payments allow your customers to continue supporting your business without leaving their homes.
Your online store should have as many payment options as possible to encourage customers to spend using whatever methods they have. Online payment options open the doors to many marketing strategies.
Additionally, online shopping allows your customers to shop on their own schedule. No need to worry about operating hours.
A great example of well-done online payment options is the online casino industry. Most of them offer a variety of payment options and promotions.
One of their best promotions that gains them a lot of new customers is cheap entry requirements. Some online casinos let you start playing with just one NZD.
Add value with smartphone apps
While people aren’t carrying cash as often as they used to, everyone is carrying their smartphone around. More and more industries are adjusting their marketing strategies to focus on mobile users.
Expanding your business to accept mobile payments will open so many doors for both you and your customers. Year by year more people own smartphones making it that much more important to have good mobile payment options.
These options can be as simple as a card reader that can make use of mobile wallets such as Apple Pay. Other more complicated options include a mobile app for your business. The latter is certainly an investment, but a worthwhile one.
Streamline with subscription billing
Subscriptions, recurring payments, and paying by instalments are all great payment options. They make payments effortless once set up. Depending on your business this can take a couple of different forms.
Subscriptions and recurring payments are quite similar but have a few key differences. Chief among these differences are payment tiers.
With subscriptions, you have the option to offer a few levels of pay rates. This can open up the options for customers who may not be willing to spend as much. Having several options makes the lower-cost tiers look cheap in comparison.
Recurring payments are often just a single flat rate. Their benefit is the convenience of setting up the payment once and letting it go.
Paying by instalments is a great way to open up your business to a wider range of customers. This also provides a great opportunity for various marketing strategies. Four payments of ten dollars can seem like less than 40 dollars at first glance.
Broaden your options with cryptocurrency
Here is where you can start getting ahead of the curve in terms of payment options. Cryptocurrencies have exploded in popularity over the last few years.
Consider your target audience when deciding to allow cryptocurrency payments. If the crypto community intersects with your target audience you will do well by adding this option. Your customers will be amazed at the option to pay using crypto.
That said, this last payment option is still in development. At the moment it can take a couple of days for cryptocurrency payments to process. This is compounded by the current volatility of cryptocurrency values.
Final thoughts
As your business grows, so too should your available payment options. This will improve your customer reach, accessibility, and convenience. Take care to explore all options when expanding your business.
