subject: Small Business Merchant Services – The Big Solution for Small Businesses [print this page] Small Business Merchant Services The Big Solution for Small Businesses
Credit card processors employ strict standards when assessing merchant account applications. This does not bode well for small businesses and new business operations. These businesses are considered as high risk for account providers, and the difficulty of getting a merchant account doubles when the business is in a high risk industry for card processors, but there is still hope for small business owners. There aresmall business merchant servicesthat can provide card processing businesses that otherwise wouldn't be accepted by other financial institutions.
As the term already implies,small business merchant servicescater and are especially for small operations (for instance, those not owned by multi-million corporations but still need the ability to process credit cards). Newly established businesses are also considered here. Most providers ofsmall business merchant servicesare third party processors. This means that it is the processor that handles the merchant account of the business. Needless to say, this also means that the business needs to contend with the cons of a third party credit card processing service. The disadvantages include slower payment processing time and higher overall fees (which is only natural since the service is operated by someone else).
However,small business merchant servicesare not instantly synonymous to general third party processors as the former may offer some benefits due to the market of its service. For instance, since it caters to small businesses, it may have lower fees. This is because even the financial institutions that offer merchant accounts consider the size of a business. Some small business service providers have no recurring monthly and annual feesleaving only the transactional fees. The rates for the transactional fees here may or may not differ from the ones offered by the usual merchant services.
In any case,small business merchant servicesare necessary because of what these services can do for a business establishment. After all, even small businesses these daysespecially the smaller ones based onlineneed credit card processing services. The service allows for bigger online presence and more flexible payment termsall of which can benefit consumers and, in turn, sales.
