Being able to accept credit cards for home-based businesses makes the business more attractive to customers, who appreciate the convenience of charging their purchases. The ability to accept credit cards may also result in increased sales, because customers are better able to make impulse purchases, since they can pay for them instantly. Another benefit of accepting credit cards is that the payments don’t bounce as checks do when there are insufficient funds. You’ll know at the moment when you process the payment if your customer has a balance that can cover the cost of the transaction. Finally, justly or unjustly, the ability to accept credit cards for home-based businesses gives the entrepreneur more credibility and the appearance of being more established than those businesses that accept only cash and checks.
Some home-based business owners are intimidated by the process of accepting credit cards and/or worried about the associated fees. Indeed, fees used to be outrageous, but the growing popularity of e-commerce and the power of the Internet have created a variety of new options for home-based business owners. Today, accepting credit cards isn’t all that difficult, and the increased sales volume and other benefits almost always outweigh the fees that business owners have to pay for this capability.
Advantages of Accepting Credit Cards
The Popularity of Credit Cards
Credit cards were first promoted to traveling salesmen (more common in that era) for use on the road. By the early 1960s, more companies offered credit cards, advertising them as a time-saving device rather than a form of credit. American Express and MasterCard became huge successes overnight.
By the mid-'70s, the U.S. Congress begin regulating the credit card industry by banning such practices as the mass mailing of active credit cards to those who had not requested them. However, not all regulations have been as consumer friendly. In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court in Smiley vs. Citibank lifted restrictions on the amount of late penalty fees a credit card company could charge. Deregulation has also allowed very high interest rates to be charged.
The Shape Of The VISA Card
Credit cards were not always been made of plastic. There have been credit tokens made from metal coins, metal plates, and celluloid, metal, fiber, paper, and now mostly plastic cards.
What Is VISA Card ??
Credit is a method of selling goods or services without the buyer having cash in hand. A credit card is only an automatic way of offering credit to a consumer. Today, every credit card carries an identifying number that speeds shopping transactions. Imagine what a credit purchase would be like without it, the sales person would have to record your identity, billing address, and terms of repayment.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "the use of credit cards originated in the United States during the 1920s, when individual firms, such as oil companies and hotel chains, began issuing them to customers." However, references to credit cards have been made as far back as 1890 in Europe. Early credit cards involved sales directly between the merchant offering the credit and credit card, and that merchant's customer. Around 1938, companies started to accept each other's cards. Today, credit cards allow you to make purchases with countless
VISA Card History..
IN THE LATE 1950s, a Bank of America executive, Joseph P. Williams, created the BankAmericard, the first card to combine the attributes of other national credit cards and bank cards of the time. The new card was not limited to a local area and allowed users to pay only part of the balance outstanding on the cards in exchange for interest being added - creating an instant loan for customers.
If the balance was paid in full each month no charges were added. Sound familiar? It should. In the late '70s the card became known as Visa. Joseph Williams died November 8,2003.
