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Regardless of what holiday you choose to celebrate, two things are for certain:

1. Venturing out to the mall during the month of December is a serious sport
2. Retailers are going to be bringing in a ton of revenue before the new year

If you’re a retailer, you’ve probably spent plenty of time getting ready for the holidays. You’ve ordered your inventory, thought about promos and gift sets, and carefully curated your displays (after all, those festive socks aren’t going to sell themselves). One important thing you may not have considered is upgrading your payment terminals before the hordes of holiday shoppers arrive.

Here are 7 reasons you need to upgrade your payment solution:

1. Mobile wallets are on the rise.

Cash, gift card, credit, debit, chip, tap, mobile payments on smart phones and smart watches — there’s no shortage of ways to pay. Customers are increasingly going cashless, and even cardless, opting instead for their mobile wallets, so it’s important you get a terminal that accepts these forms of payments.

Upgrading your payment solution to something more versatile will make shopping a smoother experience for everyone. With that said, if your customers are making large purchases, they’ll likely still need their physical card to complete the transaction.

2. Flexible and faster checkouts are better for business.

Whether you want to help your customers bypass the line and checkout in-aisle or sell at holiday bazaars and markets, you’ll want a payment solution that you can take anywhere. Smart payment terminals, like Poynt or the pocket-sized Poynt 5, are the ideal companions to accept payments on-the-go.

3. You’ll get happier customers.

The most painful part of shopping is having to actually pay for all of your holiday gifts. Slow and difficult checkout experiences make this part so much worse.

As much as we’d all like to think of ourselves as happy holiday elves, the reality is that many shoppers are stressed, rushed, and not happy about venturing out to crowded stores. Being able to pay on a simple, quick, and sleek payment terminal (with helpful and well-trained staff) helps alleviate some of the shopping anxiety.

4. You can reduce your chargeback risk.

The holidays are a busy time for retailers. In fact, most retailers process around 30% of their annual sales in the months leading up to it. After the holidays are over and your customers have checked their credit card statements, the last thing you want is a ton of chargebacks.

To avoid chargebacks or fraudulent transactions, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using a payment solution with all the latest security features and updates. Encryption, tokenization, and PCI compliance are all things that should be familiar to you.

5. POS devices can save you time on administrative tasks.

When your team is busy and overwhelmed with the holiday crowds, you’ll be glad you decided to upgrade to a smart payment terminal. Smart terminals are capable of running a variety of apps that can make your life easier.

Here are a few features that businesses love:

• Accounting integrations, which make it quick, simple, and paperless to stay organized and sync to your accounting software
• Scheduling apps, like Homebase, which make employee scheduling effortless (employees can even receive shift reminders via text message)
• Inventory management apps, like talech and Lightning Register, which help you understand your product performance and turnover so you can ensure your top-sellers are never out of stock

6. Digital receipting is extremely beneficial for retail businesses.

You might think receipt flexibility is a low priority. However, upgrading to a payment solution with receipt flexibility is a great choice for a few reasons:

• You can collect customer feedback through your text and email receipts. This is important to resolve any complaints and continuously improve your customers’ experiences.
• It’s more environmentally friendly to offer digital receipts to your customers. Did you know that thermal receipt paper isn’t recyclable in a lot of cities?
• Your customers are less likely to lose email or text receipts. Trust us, you’ll definitely care about this when it comes time for holiday returns and exchanges.
• You won’t go through rolls of receipt paper as quickly. When you have an endless line of impatient customers, an interruption to change your receipt paper can be frustrating.

7. You might score a better payment processor.

Finally, if you are thinking about upgrading your payment terminal or point-of-sale, you may want to consider switching to a new partner in payment processing. Aside from products and prices, you should evaluate the company’s reputation for customer service and their value-added solutions like gift card and loyalty programs. 

During the busiest time of the year, a reliable payment processor and the right payment solution should be at the top of your wishlist. Make sure you check out signs that it’s time to break up with your payment processor and questions to ask when shopping for a merchant services provider.