The importance of accepting online payments for small businesses

Written by Charge.com Payment Solutions, Inc.

Accepting online payments at its most basics is the ability to receive payment from a customer through an online store. This can be acceptance of credit card services, checks or even loyalty cards. The chain of events that facilitates these transactions includes the customer entering the details into the store at checkout and then the shopping cart will contact the payment gateway and confirm or decline the transaction. Here are a few reasons why accepting these payments online is so important for smaller businesses:

Making money

Although this is somewhat obvious, research has shown that 80% of customers do not make a purchase when they discover the merchant does not accept payments online. For the cost of getting an online merchant account, many businesses will see a large increase in revenue.

Around the clock

There are many businesses with sites online that process the payments and transactions manually. This means that any purchases done after business hours will not be processed until the next working day. It can take even longer if there is a backlog of orders. With online payment processing, the orders can be processed all day and the orders only need to be dispatched.

Security

Unlike offline or manual transaction, merchant accounts come with security protection for the customer and the vendor. There is a lot of fraud protection built in that makes the transaction safer. This keeps your transaction details and customer information safe as it is handled by the payment processor.

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Charge.com offers an online merchant account for small to mid-sized businesses who want an affordable way to accept credit cards online.