With tight margins, tough competition, higher labour costs and higher tenancy costs, it is no wonder more retailers are charging a fee for some, maybe all, card use by customers.
Some cards, the premium cards, are especially expensive for retailers to take. These cards typically offer their customers benefits, which are paid for through higher fees for the participating retailers.
More and more retailers are applying a surcharge automatically to each card paid transaction to help defray the costs of taking the cards.
Retailers using the POS software from Tower Systems have the tools in their software today to auto charge a surcharge for card use.
Our view as a software company is to serve the needs of our customers. They asked us some time ago for the auto surcharge facility and we delivered – giving our customers the flexibility to charge if they wished. There is no pressure from us, no requirement, no mandate. Rather, we have delivered through the software tools that make charging a credit card surcharge through the POS software easy.
We are grateful to our customers for their guidance as the the flexibility needed to serve their credit card surcharge needs, to ensure that the POS software levies the charge how and when they want, in a way that does not disrupt or challenge the sales counter experience.
Setting up any surcharge in the POS software, as opposed too on asn EFTPOS terminal, allows the sale total, including the surcharge, to appear on your Retailer receipts as well as your EFTPOS merchant copies. This is a better outcome for the business as well as for the shoppers.
Tower Systems customers have flexibility and ease of implementation, to enable them to use this in a way that minimises the risk or challenge for any retail business. It offers transparency, tracking and management oversight to enable a business to assess the use of and income from the surcharge and to also determine the positive or negative impact of the credit card surcharge on the broader business.
Credit card surcharges by retailers are common as they look at the costs in their businesses. By charging customers based on a cost of a specific service they can guide customers to make other decisions, which may cost less.
