Any comic strip aficionado knows how Clark Kent entered an ordinary phone booth as a humble newspaper reporter but emerged mere seconds later as Superman. If that type of dramatic transformation seems impossible to replicate in the real world, consider the following: With just a few elements and a tiny bit of technical knowledge, you can morph your cellphone into a mobile credit card reader for anytime, anywhere payment acceptance.
What’s so amazing about mobile payments?
By now, most consumers are familiar with mobile card readers. You may have used one when you paid a contractor at home, or on the sales floor of a big box store when you purchased a product. Even so, it may not have occurred to you that you could integrate this powerful technology into your own small business.
Mobile payments provide buyers and sellers with numerous benefits that include the following.
• Speeding up the time it takes to purchase products, resulting in less frustrated customers and happier employees.
• Protecting sensitive credit card details through the use of PCI-compliant systems and solutions, and certified, point-to-point encryption and tokenization.
• Accepting NFC contactless payments from customers’ digital wallets, thus eliminating the need for them to carry cash or physical cards.
• Providing contactless payment options that prioritize safety and hygiene.
• Portability to accept transactions anywhere using your mobile payment platform.
• Integrating with your POS system to offer various payment choices, including credit and gift cards, cash, echecks, subscription-based payments, and more.
Now that you have a sense of the many benefits that integrating mobile payments into your business can provide, it’s time to grasp just how easy it is to consolidate them into your current POS solution.
How the metamorphosis works.
You might think it’s complex. You may fear you’ll be overwhelmed. However, if you are capable of having a conversation with your payment processor, downloading an app into your phone, and connecting a Bluetooth card reader, you have all the skills you need to put the power of mobile payments to work for you.
That’s because mobile payments technology is deceptively simple and extremely easy to integrate into your current infrastructure. Just take the following simple steps.
• Tell your payment processor that you want to begin accepting mobile payments and are looking for a mobile card reader for your smartphone or tablet. (Chances are, you’ll want one that can accept traditional magstripe and EMV chip cards, as well as NFC contactless payments like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.)
• Ask them for the name of the payment processing app associated with the reader, and download it onto your device.
• When your card reader arrives, follow the included instructions to connect it to your phone.
That’s it – that’s all you need to do to accept your first payment on your smartphone or tablet!
When Superman emerged from that phone booth, he was fully equipped to take on any evil-doer foolish enough to come his way. Although the results are a lot less dramatic, your ability to change your smartphone into a mobile card reader will have a radically positive effect on your business, your customers, and your bottom line. There is no time like the present to harness the power of this transformative payments technology!
