Understanding Why The Right Merchant Service Provider Is Important

If you own a small business, chances are that you accept credit cards. Accepting credit cards is a huge part of any business, and merchants who don't are seriously handicapping themselves when it comes to offering their customers different choices of payments.

Credit cards still remain strong in the US, despite the economy, so of course even new business owners want to make sure they are setup to accept them.

So whether you're a new business owner, or someone who is been in business for years, in order to accept credit cards at your place of business you need to be setup with a merchant services provider.

Basically, a processor makes it so you can accept credit cards as payment, but of course, there is a fee merchants must pay.

Now when you look for a processor, as a small business owner, you may be inclined to simply go with the lowest rates, or the most convenient.

However, picking the right merchant service provider is extremely important, and needs to go beyond convenience and low rates. click for more info North American Bancard Agent Program

When you decide to pick a provider, you need to see what they offer. Do they offer gift cards? What about a loyalty program? What are their cash advances like? Can you still accept checks, regardless of how people seem to be moving away from them? Do they offer a discount network that can save you money on your big purchases?

There's also the issue of convenience. A lot of new merchants may lean toward technology like the Square Up swiper, since it plugs right into your smartphone and you can easily start charging cards, but Square charges a high rate for this convenience, and also holds a merchants money if they make over $2000 dollars in a week from manually-entered payments.

Rates of course matter, but if a processor can't help you grow your business, why bother signing up with them?

Moving to the future, don't be surprised to start seeing merchant service providers offer you data on your business. Mobile swipers can already hold this data, and lets businesses pool information to know how to better serve their customers.

Merchant service providers can be extremely confusing, and of course you have to deal with some typical salesmen trying to push you on certain things.

The best piece of advice is to simply do your research, and don't settle on convenience alone, or the lowest rates.

Processing needs to be much more than just allowing a merchant to accept credit cards, so make sure you find the one that works for you.