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Accepting credit card payments is no longer a question, especially for digital businesses. Aside from making transactions convenient, cards are known to increase the likelihood of a purchase. Today’s contemporary consumers are more likely to buy using a credit card than hard cash.
Needless to say, accepting card payments saves you from the risk of carrying cash around which might be a security threat for you and your business.
Above all, credit cards are the trend. With online shopping on the rise, most consumers prefer to carry credit cards rather than hard cash. Therefore, failure to accept cards could cost you plenty of sales opportunities.
Start Accepting Cards Over Mobile
If like many SMBS you’re looking to start taking credit card payments over the phone, the following are four considerations to keep in mind;
- Internet Availability
You definitely need a strong and stable internet connection to accept credit card payments over mobile. While you can choose from cellular or Wi-Fi connections, both have downsides. For instance, in crowded places such as busy streets, cellular connection can be spotty, as can public Wi-Fi. You need to find a way to ensure that the signal reaches the entirety of your location.
Two common solutions are choosing a vendor with a strong presence in your area and creating your own hotspot. Going with a reliable vendor is the cheaper option and can help avoid issues of dead zones.
- Hardware Compatibility
There are a couple of issues to keep in mind here. First, check whether the app you want to use supports both iOS and Android or if it supports just one of these operating systems. Ideally, you want an app that supports both.
Secondly, consider the card reader you intend you use. For the most part, card readers are created to be universal, until you get to devices such as the iPhone 7 that lack the 3.5mm headphone jack. It’s advisable to purchase 3.5mm-to-Lightning adapters to combat the issue. Otherwise, choose Bluetooth readers.
- Integration
Aside from app and 3.5mm jack compatibility, you also need to consider how your mobile POS integrates with other systems within the business. Some mobile POS systems work as countertop setups that support a receipt printer, barcode scanners, and printer-driven cash drawers. Such scanners are the ideal choice. But, they don’t come cheap. Some cost upwards of $500.
- Taxes
Finally, some states don’t charge a sales tax. If you operate in such states, you don’t need to pay any tax on your mobile POS sales. However, in the majority of states, you’re required to report and pay taxes on all sales processed through the mobile POS. And the taxes range from 6-10%. In some states, you may even be required to pay local sales taxes on top of base rates.
To avoid collision with the authorities, pay all taxes as required. Fortunately, most mobile POS systems will let you add sales tax to the base purchase.
Once these four considerations addressed, you’re ready to begin accepting credit card payments over mobile.