EFT and Cost savings - Goodbye to Customer service? By Jonathan Owen
From Market Matters Nov 09
Running any sort of retail business isn’t that difficult - buy something cheap, add value by tarting it up, then sell it on as expensively as you can whilst keeping your costs down. What is difficult is to increase sales turnover i.e. attract more customers and stop your existing ones from drifting off to the competition. So it amazes me that so few market businesses have kept up with high street retailers and adopted EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer - i.e. accepting debit and credit cards). Most markets continue to rely on a cash economy, which strangles their turnover.
I know there are plenty of problems associated with EFT – setting-up a merchant account with the card companies and agreeing the percentage charge etc, but credit cards can’t be uninvented and customers expect to pay by plastic. Several companies advertise ‘Chip and PIN’ solutions by mobile phone so even casuals can now offer EFT. Although there might be a charge per transaction and connection speeds are slow, the technology is improving. Not offering to take plastic deselects plenty of customers. How many times have you had to say: “Sorry love but I don’t take cards – the cashpoint is just round the corner” and never seen them again? Once lost – always lost.
