Ever wonder about Surcharge fees and the Future of Payment Processing?
Ask yourself what a surcharge is?
Wonder what Zero Fee Processing is?
Ever question how to implement zero cost credit card processing?
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It is estimated that by 2024, 16.6 million mobile POS (mPOS) terminals will exist. That is because of the influx of mobile payment methods and the use of them by millennials and Gen Z’ers and will push for them. For retailers, these payment methods come with processing fees and some of them can be quite hefty.
In order for merchants to accept credit and debit cards, they must sign an agreement with the payment processing company. This company will then provide the merchant with the tools needed to process payments. When a consumer makes a purchase, uses the equipment to make a card purchase, the payment processor subtracts their service fees from the payment and then the net sale proceeds will be sent to the merchant’s account.
On a daily basis, customers will swipe, insert or tap their cards for purchases (or use a mobile device), and for each of these transactions the average processing fee is between 2% and 4%. Some credit card processors use an interchange-plus pricing model. This is where the processor separates the bank and credit card issues fees from the processor’s markup rates.
Card processors know that they are disliked due to their fees for credit card processing. As a result, some payment processors offer Zero Processing fees. Zero Cost Processing enables you to pass most of the transactional costs to your customers.
Another route some merchants go is offering Zero Fee Processing vs Surcharges.
Surcharges are oftentimes called checkout fees. They are an additional fee that the merchants add to a bill or total when they use a card for payments. It is an extra fee, charge or tax that is added on to the cost of a good or service beyond the initial price of the item(s). This fee is in place due to the fact that each time a credit card is used, a percentage or fixed rate is tacked on to the merchants bill from their payment processor.
Example: Items cost with tax is $100 and the surcharge is 3% of that total, then the new total would be $103.00 including the new fee. However, if the customer is paying with a Debit Check card, then we would not be able to apply the 3% for the Surcharge program.
Zero Fee Processing is the opposite of a surcharge. In this method, all items in the store will reflect a higher credit card price vs a cash price.
Example: Items cost with tax is $100 and the surcharge is 3% of that total, then the new total would be $103.00 including the new fee.