A lot of business owners see the importance of accepting credit cards as a form of payment from customers. What some of them fail to realize, though, is how they can use credit cards to expand their operations. Credit cards have a two-fold benefit for small and big businesses. Accepting them increases revenue and using them can help cover business-related expenses.
Here’s a closer look at the various ways businesses can take advantage of credit cards.
Increase Sales Revenue.
Over the past decade, society has seen a great shift in the use of credit cards. Just because a business accepts credit cards doesn’t mean all of the credit card purchases are actually being charged to a credit card by the customer. Instead, some of them are using their debit cards. When you accept credit cards, you can run them as either debit or credit. This opens your store up to a whole new world of customers who don’t prefer to pay in cash.
If you’re worried about accepting credit cards because you don’t want to pay the credit card processing company a fee of each purchase, you may want to reconsider your fear. From 2008 through 2012, credit card purchases added $127 billion to the economy. Yes, you will have to turn over a percentage of each credit card purchase to the processing company, but this percentage is very small and will be far outweighed by the sales you are able to make.
Instead of viewing the percentage fees as lost money, view them as marketing expenses. You are marketing your business to a much wider audience by accepting credit cards and the fees will lead to more sales. Instead of an expense, accepting credit cards may become your most valuable asset.
Using Credit Cards.
Have you ever needed to make a purchase for your business but the service provider or retailer only accepted credit cards? If you don’t have one, you’ll have to shop around for a retailer who accepts cash. Ideally, though, you will start using a business credit card to make purchases. Not only does it give you access to a wider range of service providers and retailers, but there are a lot of credit cards that come with rewards for every purchase you make.
Making purchases on credit cards can quickly add up to a lot of rewards, like cash-back savings and more. Any time you need to make a quick purchase, you can use a business card to process the transaction, and even better, the transaction is saved on the monthly statement, making it simple to track your business expenses come tax time.
Not only should you accept credit cards to increase your sales revenue, but using credit cards is a major plus when you are responsible with them. Do your best to pay your monthly balance in full each month to ensure you don’t get hit with hefty interest fees. There are many business credit cards to choose from, so shop for one that can best meet your needs.
