Merchant Services for Grocery Stores
Your grocery store is a high-volume business that sees countless debit and credit card transactions each day. With profit margins razor thin in most grocery stores to begin with, and competition from big chains fierce, it’s important for you to make sure that you’re paying as little as possible in card processing fees.
Start by researching credit card processors. Most grocery stores do most of their business in one location, so it’s not necessary to pay for fancy services such as mobile processing. To make things more complicated, however, there are a number of payment schemes available, and choosing the wrong one can make your processing charges eat through your profits.
Comparing services between merchant account providers can be tricky, however. A merchant account processing service can charge varying fees for many different types of services. In addition, there are several different payment formulas that each company uses that can determine how much a grocery store will pay. For example, here at Payment Depot, we offer three different plans to choose from, each of which is suited to different average sales volumes and transaction sizes. You can switch between plans at any time.
To start, many services will charge some sort of flat rate to get services started. With some processors, these fees can cost thousands of dollars (this is especially true if there will be multiple units in a store accepting credit cards). Payment Depot doesn’t charge start-up fees, and can reprogram your existing credit card terminals at no cost. If you wish to buy new credit card terminals, Payment Depot will sell them to you at cost. Next, there is a transaction fee that is charged every time a card is swiped. This fee can be a flat rate, a percentage of the total amount charged, or a combination of both, but it always includes the True Cost which is charged by VISA/American Express/Mastercard/Discover.
Deciding which schedule of terms and fees is the best choice for your grocery store will usually be dependent on the total number and average amount of your sales. Many grocery stores have a very high number of transactions but a relatively low price amount that the store processes each time a card is swiped. Because of this, it typically makes sense for most grocery stores to look for a merchant account processor who charges a small flat amount for each transaction. Payment Depot’s “Best Value” plan, for example, charges just 10 cents per transaction, with no percentage-based processor markup, along with a $60/mo. subscription fee. That’s the kind of bargain plan that can help transform your grocery store into a lean, mean, profit-making machine!