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Allowing Customers To Use Credit Cards for On-Location Photography Services

When was the last time you made a big purchase with cash? In this day and age, practically all higher-priced purchases are paid through credit or debit (cashless) payment and yet, for the service sector like photography, many still haven’t embraced accepting the convenient and lucrative credit card payment option.

What’s Wrong with Cash or Check?

Any legal tender, whether cash, check, direct deposit, or credit, they all still add up to our bank accounts when we bill customers, but the old ways of using cash, check, and deposits aren’t able to keep up with today’s businesses pace. Imagine the steps your customer have to take in order to pay their album proofs or on-location photo session with cash, not only do they have to make a withdrawal, bring the cash, then pay you, you also may need to provide change as well if the cash wasn’t exact. With checks, your customer has to write a check (and at the back of your mind, you hope that the check won’t bounce), wait for the check to arrive (if sent by post), you have to make a deposit, wait for the check to clear, before getting your money. With direct deposits, you have to provide all the bank details beforehand while your customer has to either go to the bank or go through the info entry in their online banking to make the payment. All these are not very intuitive and every additional step you’re asking your client to make reduces your chance to make another sale.

Advantage of Credit Cards

We all know the advantages of using and accepting card payment – speed and security. A single swipe and a signature is all it takes for your customer and you get your payment in real-time without having to carry physical cash on your way back to your studio, minimizing loss or theft. In addition, accepting plastic practically guarantees that you get paid on the spot. For your client, it saves them the trouble of paying you up front because they won’t have to pay the credit card bill until the statement arrives. When it comes to higher ticket services, the ability to accept cards on-location can save you a lot of time in billing and accounting as well as drive higher sales on prints and bookings. The faster you can accept payment, the higher the odds you can make a potential customer commit to your future services. Being able to accept credit payment tends to add credibility to your company as well. The more convenient payment methods you provide your client, the easier it will be for them to do business with you.

Disadvantage of Credit Cards

The main business challenge for most people with offering card payment would be the charges involved for having a merchant account and the hardware required to actually accept payment. There are a lot of places you can open a merchant account from, it’s best to shop around and get all the surcharge details in print and compare. It’s best to ask any local stores or establishments for recommendations when doing credit card merchant account rate comparisons. The other hurdle on accepting credit would be how to securely accept credit payments when your credit card swiping terminal isn’t hooked up to your studio’s telephone line. I’ve read that some people actually write down their client’s credit card info and manually key the info into their payment machines when they return to their studio. This is highly impractical, unsafe, and defeats the purpose of instant payment. Paypal is another gateway for payment but this isn’t as convenient and fast as ‘swipe-and-sign’ credit card transactions.

Mobile Payment Solutions

Fast forward to 2011, with the proliferation of smartphone and smartphone application development, it is now possible to securely accept credit card payment using our mobile phones securely and wirelessly using WiFi or cellular data networks. Currently, there are two popular offerings in the market, VeriFone’s PAYware Mobile products and Square. The VeriFone system is a more robust, serious, and arguably more secure system than Square’s but the latter is cheaper and smaller, not to mention iPad compatible.

It’s no surprise that more and more people are doing money processing at home, using an online banking system. What’s interesting is that a significant number of people are starting to do their money processing using their mobile phone, and these numbers are increasing every year. In Europe and Asia, where mobile phones are more prevalent than in North America, there is the real potential for mobile money processing to become the method of choice to do one’s banking.

Banking online with your phone allows you to conduct many of the standard transactions that are currently possible when doing money processing with your computer. Checking your account information, monitoring different investments, bill payments and electronic transfers of funds are all possible with mobile money processing. Currently, it is the younger generation that is more comfortable with performing financial transactions on the internet; the majority of users simply review transactions and check funds.

Online banking from a computer presented some unique challenges regarding security, yet there are even more obstacles to overcome with mobile phones, since the wireless networks need to be strong enough to prevent unauthorized access and theft of data and/or funds. Because most mobile phones are so small and they get carried everywhere, there is a high chance that a phone will become stolen or lost, and if that happens then there needs to be strong enough online banking software and security systems in place so that online checking accounts and other information cannot be hacked into.

In addition to security concerns, the other challenge that online banking through mobile devices faces is keeping up with the future. As mobile phone users increase and banking online does the same, mobile phone companies and banks will need to foresee the demand and take steps so that customer needs are met. This involves the compatibility of the hardware (i.e. the phone) with online banking security systems, since there are numerous phone companies and even more types of phones; it also involves the infrastructure of mobile money processing and making sure that problems are addressed quickly and new procedures are put into place to deal with new situations as they arise. More about kontist app

The future of money processing on the internet is with the mobile phone with such apps like N26, Holvi, Kontist, Revolut etc.. Bluetooth technology, portability and convenience is what it is all about these days, and in addition to “play” by watching videos and listening to music, “work” aspects like using the internet for business needs are very important. Using your phone to check your account balances and do business banking online from wherever you are is only a short time away. Once the security and support issues are taken care of, this will likely be how most people will do their money processing.