Small businesses need to accept mobile payments now more than ever.

Long before the 2020 pandemic, customers were embracing their power. With every passing year, they were demanding an ever-increasing level of speed, convenience, flexibility, and security when it came to how they paid for products and services. Now, in an era when the buyer experience is more essential than ever before, businesses of all sizes are confronting an inescapable reality: Mobile payments are here to stay and should become a part of retailers’ daily operations.

Faster checkout.

No one, including your cashiers or customers, enjoys long lines at the checkout counter. We’ve all stood in an impossibly long queue waiting in torment as shoppers tortuously fumble for cash or a credit card in preparation for making a purchase. Luckily, today’s contactless payments employ a specially equipped mobile card reader that communicates effortlessly with the customer’s wearable or smartphone, resulting in a completed payment in just a few seconds. In other words, that long line can become a thing of the past.

Harness the power of mobile solutions.

These days, few people leave home without their smartphones or wearable fitness devices, which perform numerous functions in addition to facilitating calls. Perhaps one of the most exciting is the built-in digital wallet that consumers can fill with payment information from their most frequently used cards. Without ever needing to reach for cash or a physical piece of plastic, buyers can make convenient payments and can even have a receipt instantaneously sent to their email address.

Accept payments from anywhere.

One of the most compelling advantages of accepting payments via a mobile card reader or mobile point of sale (mPOS) solution is the flexibility they afford. No longer are you or your staff bound to a cash register behind a checkout counter. Instead, both you and your associates are free to roam and assist customers, whether that is around your store or across the country. 

This freedom opens a new world for today’s businesses. With ease, you can meet your customers where they are, safely taking their payments without physical contact. This allows you to expand how and where you sell your products, with trade shows, local expos, and pop-up stores just the beginning of the options available to you.

Provide a safer payment experience.

As the frequency of headlines related to data breaches underscore, cybercriminals are constantly on the prowl for sensitive and valuable customer data. If a physical store or website does not practice and demonstrate strong safety procedures, like the latest in certified, point-to-point encryption and tokenization, both they and their customers are in danger of getting hacked.

Fortunately, the POS systems that accept mobile payments are just as safe as their stationary counterparts. This is because they must also comply with the data security standards that have been written by the payment card industry. Abbreviated as PCI DSS or simply PCI compliance, these standards provide specific benchmarks that must be met during a compliance audit, providing customers and other stakeholders with proof that the retailer or other vendor handling their data is doing so in the most secure way possible.

If you run a small business, you already recognize the importance of each and every customer you serve. When you offer those customers multiple ways to pay that are fast, convenient, and secure, you can provide them with the buying experience they have come to expect. That, in turn, will result in bigger profits and greater levels of customer retention. In short, everyone wins.