What Are The Best Card Machines For Small Businesses

These days there so many card terminals available, from typical chip and pin right though to mobile card terminals that many find to be really handy.

So no matter what your card transactions volume is, there's a card machine for you. In fact when it comes to card machines there are three simple types - regular card machines and mobile card machines.

There are the regular card machines which are used for taking payments at the till or at the table. These tend to have contracts attached for fixed terms with charges adjusted to suit your business.

Now there are mobile card readers which can work with, or without an app. They're more useful as they tend not to need contracts and can work, just about, anywhere.

There's a number of things to look for, from how easy it is to use, whether the customer support is any good, how quickly the payments are settled and how expensive it is.

Well, there are quite a few benefits - such as the ability to take payments without being tied to a till or desk. Think taxi drivers, mobile professionals, etc. Other benefits include the ability to send the customer a payment receipt via text or email - nice. Of course, battery life is something to think about so we recommend always having the battery fully charged.

In terms of snags, well it depends which kind of mobile card reader you buy. This is because, some rely on being connected to a mobile phone. Whilst this sounds simple enough, it transpires that this isn't as painless as it could be. For example, if your mobile phone can't get a GPRS connection, has no charge or even drops the bluetooth connection intermittently then this can really mess things up.

So what's the takeway here? Well largely speaking, mobile card machines are becoming increasingly popular but it the popularity should be balanced against potential connectivity issues.

There are many benefits, such as flexible ways for the card machine to connect to the bank. Simply put, different models can connect in different ways. For example, via bluetooth, wifi, telephone line and via the wired network. Additional features include to have more than one regular card machine in the premises. Plus, some card machines can accept one, some or even all of the above ways to connect.

For snags, the only things are fees and contract duration. As different providers can charge different fees for different services - such as accepting AMEX cards for example. Contract durations tend to be fixed but maybe adjustable, this depends on your provider. It's worth mentioning that contracts and fees also apply to mobile card readers.