In many ways, small businesses have never had more power. Twenty years ago a small business had trouble being found on the fledgling Internet, couldn’t afford to shoot a video and couldn’t get their message out in any consistent manner. Now it is just a matter of rolling out your Word Press Blog, setting up your Facebook Business Page, creating your Twitter account, and developing your YouTube channel. A new business can create plenty of buzz and get plenty of exposure just by being creative and inspired in the realm of Social Media. But there were still a few tough hurdles and one was establishing a merchant account.
You had to start with a business account at a bank and add a dollop of good credit. Then you had to explain to a merchant services provider what type of payments you were going to take and from whom you wanted to take them. When you were done explaining how big the payments had been and what the payments were paying for you got to sign a two-year contract agreeing to pay the merchant services provider a percentage fee plus a transaction fee and perhaps an additional monthly fee to process the cards.
Then the merchant services provider would think about it. And based on their opinion of the risk they were taking they would tell you what you were going to pay. If you did not like how they handled things, the two-year contract was often built with plenty of penalties to make sure you didn’t leave.
Many small businesses took cash or checks or asked customers to pay them via PayPal. Until Square.
Now we have merchant services for the masses. The same little business that Tweets about their new client can swipe the new client’s payment on their smart phone. Reasonable rates, NO long-term contract, happy little business.
What a game changer!