How Adopting An Online Payment Method Can Boost Your Business

In the modern world that we live in, online retail is becoming ever more popular. Whether your business is retail or hospitality, if you’re selling a product or service online, e-commerce means that customers are looking for some form of online payment method to make that purchase.

Have you ever taken a booking or order, sent out an invoice, and ended up regularly receiving late payments, cancellations, or even no payment at all? Welcome to the world of online payments, the safe, fast, and secure way of keeping your hospitality/retail business afloat.

If you are a new business selling a lot of products, the thought of setting up your website to process online payments can seem like something out of your depth. But the reality is that if you have to manually process and take payment via bank transfer/cash for every order, your business cannot run at its maximum potential.

So, here are some of the ways in which online payment services can get you paid faster, safer, and make time for expanding your business.

What is online payment?

Have you ever purchased something online, and clicked on a box asking you to ‘pay now’ or enter your payment method? That business uses an online payment method to make it easy for you to instantly pay for that order.

What kind of payment methods are available?

The most common online payment methods are:

• Credit/ Debit Cards
• Automated Clearing Houses (ACH), i.e. PayPal
• Direct Debit

All of these methods make for instant payment from a customer, without the time and effort of going to their bank account and manually transferring money or paying you in cash.

This instantly offers two benefits:

1. Less effort = your customer is less likely to change their mind on their potential purchase
2. Less time = you don’t have to wait for customers to manually pay you in their own time, which could take a while

The benefits

• Businesses that accept online payment methods get paid 50% faster in the UK
• If you do not accept online payments through your website, you will only reach around 15% of your potential sales.

Specifically, for hotels/B&Bs, using online payment methods can mean that you are paid before a guest even arrives for their stay. Instant online payment can mean multiple things:

1. Your guest is less likely to cancel if they have already made a payment
2. You can put that payment back into your business instantly, without waiting for your guests to arrive and pay.

Offering a ‘pay now’ option prevents deliberation time for your potential customers, and a direct result of faster payments is higher sales numbers.

Do you have a customer that regularly pays late, or not at all? Online payment services can eliminate that, as payment is easy for them. You could even put rules in place on your website that do not allow them to continue with their purchase without payment, if you wish.

The drawback

There are likely to be transaction fees incurred with the merchant service provider you use to handle these online payments. These fees are often 2% – 4% of the value of the sale. However, if you treat this as an investment, the increase in sales due to faster payments will make your return on investment worthwhile.

The internet is based upon users gaining instant access to everything, be it news, information, booking a hotel, ordering clothes and doing their regular shopping. So as a result, if payment is instant for them, then it will be faster for you and your numbers will increase.

The fact lies that without online payment methods, you will not be receiving payments as fast as you could, and this will ultimately hinder your profit and sales potential drastically.

If you’d like more information on getting started with an online payment service to make payments to your hospitality/retail business faster, then contact Virgate Accounts. Our experience, know-how and dedication means that we will be able to offer the best advice and services to meet your business needs.