Businesses with tight margins are in a tough spot when it comes to accepting credit card payments.  The credit card processing fees may be too much for some businesses to handle, but not taking credit card payments can also put a dent in their business.  One way businesses with tight budgets can offset the processing feeds is with credit card surcharging.

Credit card surcharging is the practice of passing the cost of the fees to your customers.  A customer using a credit card for payment will have a small fee added to their total.  At First MCS, we offer point-of-sale (POS) solutions that allow for credit card surcharging in St. Charles, IL and nationwide.  Our POS systems for restaurants, retail, and service businesses will automatically factor in the fees to credit card payments, saving your business the cost.

You can implement and manage credit card surcharging with our following solutions:

• Point-of-sale systems
• Point-of-sale terminals
• Mobile payments
• Virtual terminals for online payments

Considering Credit Card Surcharging

Credit card surcharging can benefit businesses with tight margins by allowing them to allocate the money they would spend on credit card processing fees into other areas of the business.  However, there are some things to consider before implementing credit card surcharging:

• Works for credit, not debit: You cannot apply a surcharge to debit cards, but you can if a debit card is run as credit. If a high volume of your sales are paid for with credit cards instead of debit cards, surcharging makes more sense.
• Legality: There are ten states that prohibit credit card surcharges and convenience fees: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas. If your business is located within these ten states, or does business within these states, it is best to avoid credit card surcharging.
• Customer response: Implementing credit card surcharging may not be well received among your customers as they may not like paying the extra fee. If your customers are likely to respond poorly to the surcharge, it may not be worth it for your business as it can cause you to lose customers.

If you want to implement credit card surcharging for your business, First MCS can help with our POS solutions.  We customize our POS solutions to fit the needs of your business, including credit card surcharging in St. Charles, IL as well as nationwide.  You can call us at (866) 673-3099 to learn more.