Emerging Industries for Card Payment Acceptance
In this week’s blog, we are taking a quick look at just a few of the emerging industries where card payment acceptance is being adopted.
Nowadays, we automatically expect all businesses to accept card payments to pay for our goods and services. But in fact, there are still many types of businesses whereby cash is still king.
For many small business owners, the unknown is the primary reason for not looking into using card machines. However, with the emergence of new technologies and companies such as ourselves making the whole process of renting a card machine so much easier. Then there really is no reason to carry on limiting yourself and your business potential by only accepting cash.
Market Stalls
When we think of a market stall, we think about our childhood, don’t we? When we went to town with our parents and grandparents and looked around the local markets. We remember haggling for the price of the goods to get the best value we can for our weekly shopping needs.
In recent years the humble Market Stall has not only grown in popularity with us shoppers but has become a staple part of our weekly shop. Many small businesses are adopting the use of pop up shop style environments to spread the word at various markets and events across the country.
With the surge in market shopping at an all-time high, more and more stall holders are adopting card payment technology to widen their customer reach.
Parking
For many Car Parks, the strategy of a customer paying on exit for their car parking is a standard practice. Whereby 5 years ago it was still heavily reliant on cash payments seems to have been overtaken by the availability of paying by card at the machine or even being able to pre-purchase car parking hours from an e-commerce platform prior to your visit.
The same, however, for on-street parking is not being adopted, in fact, many local authorities are now abolishing pre-payment or card payment options on the street.
For any business situated in a local town centre whereby parking has to be paid for, the ability for visitors to pay by card is a great way of avoiding potential customers from visiting out of town shopping centres instead and is one that should be adopted in the future to maintain town centre shopping and the support of local businesses.
Taxis
In October 2016, Transport for London brought in a requirement that all black cabs operating in the London area needed to make card payments available for users. This has also begun to be adopted in other parts of the UK over the last 12 months.
Opinions on the move to take taxi fares into the 21st century are mixed. While some users looked at it as a logical step towards keeping up with customer demand and begin ahead of competitors. Others say that the move away from cash would mean that taxi drivers would earn less as tips could be taken away.
For the majority of taxi users, the ability to pay online via a pre-setup account with a taxi firm is appealing, there are those who simply like the idea of having to worry less about carrying cash around with them.
Did you know – that as a Card Cutters Customer, if you rent one of our Ingenico Card Machines, you can access a wealth of payment options via the Ingenico Marketplace including taxes?
Public Transport – Bus
In recent years, many public transport operators across the UK have implemented the use of new card payment technology for customers to pay for their travel. For years, the daily bugbear of many commuters is waiting in line to board a bus whilst the person in front is asking for a weekly pass with the change from a £20 note on a Monday morning.
Whilst in London this has been available for a while, operators such as Stagecoach, First and Arriva have begun to implement card payments on board buses elsewhere in the country.
The Future
For many of us, operating within a cashless society would make life a whole lot easier. Many countries around the world such as Sweden have already adopted this approach in paying for everyday items.
The UK is now adopting contactless payments more readily and we look to our local businesses to offer this option.
For Financial Companies like Visa and Mastercard, pushing the boundaries of payment technology and the availability of it around the world is forever being adopted.
By 2020, these companies expect the minimum spend on a card of £5 used by certain businesses will not exist, as they move to businesses to begin accepting payments by card for smaller, everyday transactions.
This opens up new possibilities for businesses such as newsagents and convenience shops in being able to grow their local marketplace and increase customer spending.
You can guarantee that whatever new payments technology emerges, Card Cutters will know about it.
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