Turn your iPhone and Blackberry into a credit card terminal
Innovative wireless technologies from GoMobile Commerce allows clients a convenient and cost saving approach to accepting credit card payments on the go
- (1888PressRelease) July 26, 2010 - For years, small business owner Matthew Gonzales struggled to find an affordable way to let customers pay for heating and air conditioning repairs with their credit cards at home.
The owner of Hometown Video Systems in Kent, WA, once tried out a credit card processing service from Nextel, but her technicians hated the bulky phones it required. Then she looked into options from AirCharge and United Bank Card, but those services were pricey: up to $250 for portable credit card machines and $25 per month, per truck for wireless service.
Eventually, he asked her 27 technicians to simply write down customer credit card numbers. Payments would get processed in her office. But that led to errors and higher credit card fees. Plus, customers didn't like it.
"It was frustrating," says Gonzales. "We pride ourselves on good customer service, and that meant we weren't giving it."
But in May, Gonzales received a flyer telling him about a new service from GoMobile Commerce. For $20 per month, Gonzales's technicians can use their existing cell phones and text messaging services to process payments. Instead of waiting weeks to get paid, Hometown Video Systems gets its money on the spot.
Paying with plastic has been the norm for years, but for many small businesses like Gonzales's that operate remotely, it has been an elusive benefit. Out on the road, options were limited: buy cumbersome machines for hundreds of dollars, call the office with credit card numbers, or simply miss a sale by refusing to take credit cards.
Now, photographers, contractors, limo drivers and dog trainers -- any business that operates remotely -- can find a wealth of new software to process credit cards on mobile phones.
Apple's (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone has been a big driver, with a slew of new applications popping up in the last year. Users type a credit card number and expiration date into the phone, and have the customer "sign" on the phone's screen.
Gonzales decided to spend an extra $1,000 extra to buy 10 pocket-sized Bluetooth credit card swipers that work in conjunction with the cell phones. He reserves them for when she rings up bigger sales. Using a swiper lowers the credit card fees -- it's an anti-fraud measure adopted by the processing companies.
Gonzales estimates that the swipers save him $600 a month in fees. For his company, which has annual sales of $3.2 million, the entire investment in mobile credit card processing paid off within a couple of months.
"It saves us a bunch of money at a time when business costs are increasing," he says. "The customers like it, and the technicians like it -- and they never like any kind of changes."
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