Contactless Payment is on the up here in the UK. With more and more businesses allowing their customers to take advantage of contactless payment (32.5 million cards in use), it seems as though the technology is going to be ubiquitous in only a few years’ time. So the question is, does your business need to start considering the payment method, and if you do, how do you get hold of it?
What Is Contactless Payment?
Contactless payment is a new technology that has been emerging in the UK over the past couple of years. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s essentially a new way to use your Visa debit card which means you don’t actually need to enter your card into a chip and pin machine. Instead, a customer simply swipes their card along the top of the card reader, and the chip from your card connects to the wireless signal from the card reader. For security reasons, payments for a value over £20 are not capable of being processed. It’s all well and good knowing what contactless payment is, but how will it add value to your store? How will it increase your profit and be good ROI?
The Benefits of Contactless Payment
There a number of reasons why facilitating contactless payment could bring more profit into your business. For a start, it simplifies the payment process, meaning that at peak hours when there is high foot flow, you can get the highest number of people through your tills in the least amount of time.
Secondly, on a psychological note, easier payment means more people will be likely to convert from passive to active, purchasing traffic, increasing the number of products through the tills, just because actually paying for the goods will take less time.
Finally, contactless payment is associated with large, well-established brands, so offering the payment method means you will be placing your business on that same playing field.
Capitalising on a Bourgeoning Market
The market potential of this new sort of payment method is increasing every year. With 32.5 million contactless payment-enabled cards in circulation, it’s not difficult to see how facilitating this technology could increase your business’s profitability. It’s very simple to start offering contactless payment, too. All you need to do is upgrade your current card terminals to some that facilitate contactless payment using a company like Card-Cutters, and then you’re all set to take contactless payments.