Merchant Processing for Small and Mid-Sized Businesses

Small businesses need merchant processing - the ability to accept credit and debit cards, gift and loyalty cards, electronic checks and other non-cash payment options just as much, or even more, than large businesses. It is a business necessity, and if anything happens to compromise the ability to take credit or debit cards, the effect on the bottom line is immediate and significant.

Unfortunately, most business owners of small to mid-sized businesses, however, do not take the time to understand merchant processing or to make sure they are paying the lowest amount possible for the best possible service - and that means their larger competitors obtain an advantage.

Most small businesses, despite what their owners may believe, are paying more than they have to pay – often more than they are even aware of paying. Thus they are giving their larger competitors an advantage that is larger than most would think.

Smaller businesses also often accept lower quality service than their larger competitors. For whatever reason, business owners are not receiving consultation regarding changes in the rules regarding merchant processing. Since the business climate and processing options often change, smaller businesses are often the last to know about and implement changes that could save them significant amounts of money. This gives their larger competitors another significant, but unnecessary, advantage.

The purpose of this book is to provide small business owners the information they need, and Merchant Processing Central’s mission is to help even the "mom and pop" businesses in America level the playing field for small to mid-sized businesses in their competition with large corporations.

Examples of how this can matter, regarding the pricing of equipment and processing, is that paying for merchant processing is complicated, and often contains many different prices for different levels of risk or card usage. If you have seen a card statement, you know that "qualified" card transactions are priced at one level, "mid-qualified" at another, higher level, and "non-qualified" at yet another, and higher rate. This book explains why those rates vary and makes some suggestions on how a business can use less expensive options. Many business owners believe they are paying a flat percentage rate - that's very rare, but where it is true that rate is almost always deceptively high. This book will help business owners to analyze their statements and come up with their real, "effective rates" that they are paying for accepting credit and debit cards.

In recent years, more and more people are obtaining and using debit cards. These are processed directly to the bank and should be much less expensive for the merchant. Big businesses immediately began asking their customers for pin numbers (to make sure the transactions processed as debit cards), and they negotiated for and received lower processing rates. Small and medium-sized businesses, on the other hand, took much longer to adopt these changes.

More recently, there has been litigation and a settlement that would allow businesses to pass through the costs of their processing to the ultimate consumer. Big businesses are taking a sophisticated look at the options and deciding whether or not to do this - Is your business? Are you, as a small business person, receiving adequate consultation and advice from your merchant processing sales consultant? Again, this book exists to close the information gap between smaller and larger businesses.