Payment Acceptance Capabilities That Every Small Business Needs

Payment is an important part of the commerce journey. Today all businesses, whether B2B or B2C, are looking for embedded payment solutions that make payments an invisible experience in their customer’s purchase journeys. While the payment acceptance needs vary from business-to-business use case, below given is the list of must-haves that you must keep an eye on while selecting your payment acceptance service provider.

1.     Omnichannel: Today, customers want to pay on the go through the payment channel of their choice and convenience. Post Covid19, it is a must-have to have omnichannel payment acceptance capabilities, and advisable to go with a solution provider that enables your customers to pay in-store using POS terminals or online via a payment gateway.

2.     Payment Modes: In addition to the choice of payment channels, customers today also want the choice and convenience to pay through different payment modes available in the market. While pinning down your solution provider, ensure it supports card acceptance across networks (Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Amex, etc.), digital wallet payments (Google Pay, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, etc.), cryptocurrencies, gift cards, and much more.

3.     POS Software & Hardware: There are a host of options available in the market today when it comes to in-store POS hardware and software. Prefer to choose a solution provider which sells POS terminals of multiple manufacturers/brands (e.g., Verifone, Ingenico, PAX, mPlus, etc.), as this will give you the option to choose as per your own business needs. It also enables you to opt for a hardware solution that fits your POS hardware spending budget. As a good starting point, you can go for Android-based handheld terminals that can work on a standalone basis i.e., plug-and-play mode. Additionally, look for the POS software integrations the solution provider already has as well as the capability to integrate with one of your choices if not already present.

4.     Fraud & Chargeback Management: Although fraud and chargebacks can happen for both in-store and online transactions, it is more of a concern in the case of the latter. One must ensure that the chosen solution provider has an efficient mechanism in place to deal with fraud and chargeback issues on your behalf, as the absence of it can otherwise put a heavy dent in your financial statements.

5.    Level-3 Data processing: Card acceptance comes at a cost for small business owners which is called ‘Merchant Discount Rate (MDR)’ which is charged as a percentage of the transaction amount typically in the range of 2-3% based on the card type, card network, and data-level processing. If you want to lower this cost of card payment acceptance, then you must select a solution provider that allows level-3 data processing on your behalf which will lower the MDR.

Otterz, as a part of its strong solution offering suite, provides state-of-the-art payment acceptance solutions which are tailor-made for small business owners. It enables omnichannel payment acceptance with an advanced payment gateway as well as connections to multiple POS hardware and software providers. It sells POS hardware of all the major brands in the US with varying features and functionalities across a broad spectrum of price points to cater to the customers varying budgets. It allows end customers to pay via debit/credit/gift cards, ACH, digital wallets, cryptocurrencies, and more. The solution is fully Level 1 PCI compliant while ensuring effective fraud and chargeback management along with Level 3 data processing to lower the cost for small business owners.