The number of credit cards in American wallets and purses is more than double the population, according to a Time magazine article on the beleaguered industry. Do those 640 million credit cards add up to missed opportunities if your business won’t accept a single one of them?
In an article published in PRO last year, Kenia Fulton, who owns the marine pump-out company Marine Waste Management with her husband, Rodney, in Davie, Fla., said to expedite payment and as a convenience for customers, they began accepting credit cards.
“As soon as we started accepting credit cards, we experienced a jump in business,” Fulton was quoted as saying.
Another portable restroom contractor, contributing to the PRO Online Discussion Forum (at www.promonthly.com), said accepting credit cards is the best way he has found to prompt event planners to pay for units at setup.
“Most organizations are willing to provide you with credit card information,” the forum poster wrote. “If they don’t want to be billed by using the credit card, tell them you will send them a monthly invoice, but get the credit information for security reasons. That way if they don’t pay by the invoice, you can apply it to the credit card.”
So, taking credit cards is all good, right? Not so fast. Another poster on the same forum thread cautioned against taking cards, saying: “Be careful taking a card. We take them, did a job some time ago (where the) husband paid with a credit card. His wife came home, thought we’d charged too much and called the card company, had the money transferred back into their account. (We) never did get paid.”
Yes, like just about everything in business, and life, there are pros and cons to accepting credit cards.
