Choosing the right payment method for your business is essential for improving the customer experience and increasing turnover. In this article, we show you how to adapt payment solutions to consumer preferences and the reality of your business.
Today's consumers, marked by the speed, convenience and personalisation they find in online shopping, are more demanding and are looking for the same kind of experience in physical shops as in e-commerce shopping.
If marketing, o customer serviceWhile the price and quality of the products/services offered are important factors, the truth is that the checkout (finalisation of the purchase with payment), continues to be the one that ends up having the most weight in the invoicing of physical businesses and, therefore, its choice deserves to be treated with tweezers by retailers.
The importance of offering multiple payment methods
According to the "Banco de Portugal Payment Systems"In 2023, more than 11 million payments were recorded, of which 10.3 million originated from credit and debit cards, and of these, 53% were completed with the help of the contactless technology.
In addition to cards, the growth of payments by bank transfer stands out, an area in which MB WAY is included, and of digital wallets.
As we can see from this portrait of the Portuguese payment ecosystem, although the majority of consumers prefer the contactless payments with card and PIN, there are those who bet more on the MB WAY or digital wallets, which ultimately reveals the most important factor in offering multiple payment methods: adapting your offer to your customers' payment habits.
This brings familiarity and, above all, comfort and trust, thus ensuring that the customer identifies more easily with your business and chooses you when making new purchases.
What are the main payment methods available?
As you can see from the previous point, the main payment solutions for companies include TPA - automatic payment terminals that allow you to accept contactless payments by credit/debit card, MB WAY and digital wallets such as Apple Pay or Google Pay.
These are the main means of payment available at payment terminals in Portugal, but it is still possible to find alternative forms such as: PIX payments.
This Brazilian-born payment system has just arrived in our country by the hand of UNICRE and Braza BankIn this way, Brazilian immigrants and the approximately 1 million tourists from the sister country that Portugal receives each year have a payment method that is familiar to them and enables them to make instant transactions.
However, as already mentioned, in order for your business to be able to accept all these types of transactions, it is essential that you choose the best payment methods according to the nature of your activity.
How do you assess the best payment method for your business?
To begin your assessment of the best of the payment methods for businesses on the market, the first thing to bear in mind is the nature of your business, i.e. whether you sell face-to-face, online or both at the same time.
In the first case, the solution will go through a TPAthe second by online payment solutions and the third a mixture of the two.
To this, you should add an assessment of the payment methods favoured by your customers and an analysis of the size of your business's turnover, since if your activity is seasonal or has a low daily turnover, the payment terminal to be adopted won't have to be as robust as it would be for larger companies.
You also have to consider the additional services that the terminal can offer you, such as making reservations or monitoring business invoicing, security and POS costs.
Let's analyse these last two factors in more detail below.
Security and fees: essential factors when choosing a TPA
Payment security should be completely non-negotiable when choosing which payment terminal or online payment solution to install in your business.
As this news from Jornal de NotíciasHowever, there are economic agents who sell altered payment terminals which, once used, jeopardise the security of their customers' payment data and can even take the money from sales.
Similarly, online payment solutions that do not comply with European directives on data protection and double authentication, which is mandatory, can represent significant reputational and economic losses for your business given the growing number of scams and frauds registered.
In short, cheap can be very expensive and some of the existing payment solutions for businesses are expensive, as they come with membership and contract cancellation fees, minimum revenue, commissions and a loyalty period, which is why you should pay attention to this dimension when choosing which payment method to install in your business.
If you are interested: Online Payment Security: how to avoid fraud?
Tips for optimising the customer payment experience
Optimising your customers' payment experience starts with choosing and TPA membership e secure online payment solutionsREDUNIQ is a low-cost payment method with the most popular payment methods used by Portuguese consumers, such as in-person and online REDUNIQ payment methods.
What's more, it's essential that you give your customer the opportunity to continue buying, even when they don't have the amount needed to make the purchase.
No, we're not talking about selling on credit, but betting on service Parcela Já com UNICRE which can be installed on REDUNIQ Smart TPA and which, in practice, will give your customers the chance to pay for their purchases in 2 to 6 interest-free instalments without having to wait for the money.
This type of offer will give your better customer payment experiencebut you can also add other types of services, such as DCC- Currency Conversion which, as the name suggests, allows those who buy from your business to do so quickly and securely in their home currency, or PIX payments in Portugal which will give Brazilian immigrants and tourists the opportunity to pay in your shop with a familiar payment system.
Finally, if your customer can't get to the shop or has simply forgotten their wallet, this shouldn't mean that they can't take a payment.
That's right, through the REDUNIQ Soft App, you can turn your smartphone or tablet into a professional payment terminalIt can accept contactless, NFC or QR Code payments anywhere and at any time of the day with no associated monthly fees.
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