amyfitch.com

This morning as I read through the industry news, I started thinking about how tragic it is that most consumers have no idea how much their favorite businesses pay to credit card companies and credit card processors every time they choose to pay by debit or credit card. Even more tragic is the fact that few merchants really know what they are paying.

But what if there was a way merchants and consumers were able to see this data, right on the bottom of their receipt? I’m at Brueggers this morning. I’ve watched 30 people go through the busy line, paying mostly with debit cards. The last patron paid with a business credit card, he bought bagels and coffee for the office staff (I overheard him talking to the manager). His total was $63.08. I don’t like math, so I’m going to round that to the whole number $63. He used a corporate card, which comes with the highest interchange rate. A conservative estimate would be that Brueggers paid a total of 4% of that purchase to Visa and their merchant processor just to accept the card. This sets up an easy equation: 63 x .04= 2.52. Brueggers essentially “ate” $2.52 of that patron’s purchase. But neither the patron, nor the Brueggers manager, has any way of seeing that cost in real time.

I made some phone calls, and because I’m rather persistent, I can now offer this service to the businesses who process with Swipe-Rite. But I want to challenge the other processors who read my blog to do the same thing. So here it goes: If you are a processor and you want to offer this service, let me know. I’ll tell you what I did to get this service added to our capabilities, just because I’m so passionate about interchange education. Keep in mind, I am essentially giving away a service that our sales staff will use to negotiate new business. All in the name of good business.

If you are a business who wants this service but doesn’t want to switch merchant processing companies yet, I’ll help you too. I’m starting a revolution. Join me?

I am FULL of big ideas. I struggle with finding the time to develop each one to fruition. I want to hear your big ideas. Tell me about them here: @AmySwipeRite And if you like bagels, follow Brueggers on Twitter. Tell ‘em Amy sent you.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 8:53 am and is filed under Merchant Processing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.