Why It’s Important To Offer Your Customers Payment Options

In the year 2018, the average person has become accustomed to having a variety of options. This is true for many different facets of life. Take ordering food, for example. For quite some time now, it’s been known that a person can choose to order more than just pizza. Any and every type of meal you can imagine can be delivered straight to your doorsteps, especially with the help of such services as Uber Eats.

Consuming entertainment is no different. Today, a person can choose to go to the movie theatre or simply stream a recently released film on the internet. Naturally, we all have the ability to choose between thousands of different titles to watch. You get the picture. We live in a world where the ability to choose is an expectation, not necessarily a request.

So why aren’t more merchants giving their customers the ability to choose?

You may be surprised to know that, throughout Canada, there are still some business owners who insist upon a “cash only” policy. These days, such an insistence is the equivalent of telling customers to go elsewhere – not exactly a good business practice. Firstly, the majority of Canadians aren’t even walking around with cash on them anymore. “Cash only” businesses clearly won’t receive support from such individuals.

Secondly, shoppers like to feel that they’re in control. They want payment options so they can determine the type of spending they’re doing. Credit cards are hugely popular methods of payment because they allow consumers to pay their balances off over time, if they choose. The use of a credit card provides a shopper with ease and peace of mind, knowing that his/her purchase doesn’t literally have to be paid for immediately.

A lack of payment options will lose a company its customers.

On Due.com, Miranda Marquit admits that a local eatery misses out on her patronage because of its “cash only” policy. “There’s a restaurant in my town that doesn’t take any form of payment other than cash,” she explains, “If I want to eat there, I have to double-check to see if I have enough cash. If I don’t have the cash, then I need to decide if I want to go to the bank and get cash. Some days, I don’t want to bother with it, so I just go to another restaurant instead.”

Marquit goes on to explain that the restaurant installed an ATM to allow customers to retrieve cash on the premises. She notes, however, that this isn’t much of a solution since it forces patrons to have to pay extra fees to retrieve their cash. The bottom line, she intimates, is that when you provide limited payment options to your customers, they are likely to go elsewhere for things they could have gotten from you.

“The more payment options you offer, the more likely you are to appeal to a wider audience,” writes Marquit, “You will have more business because your customers will find it convenient to work with you. The easier you make it for people to pay you, the more likely it is that you will have more money coming in.”

Are you offering your customers payment options?

Contact Canadian POS Corporation today by calling 1-877-748-2884 or emailing info@localhost to learn how you quickly you can be set up with our Countertop or Wireless POS terminals that accept all credit cards and debit cards!