Traditional Card Terminals / Merchant Account vs Zettle/Stripe/Square/etc

[anonuk]

Looking for some opinions more than anything.

Ever since we started our business we have had traditional card terminals with a traditional merchant account. We've been pretty happy with these, and we've since moved to having our website payments through our merchant bank too.

As I've been looking for some POS software for our business, I'm seeing a lot about the likes of Square/Zettle/Stripe, all with their own card terminals that integrate with their own POS software (although I believe Stripes terminal integrates with third party software), and all at pretty good rates.

As such, I'm left wondering whether there's any real benefit to using a traditional merchant account/card terminal nowadays, other than half a percent lower on the fees.

Are there any of you here that use the likes of Zettle/Square on a larger scale and are happy with it?

Would be really interested to here peoples thoughts.

 

[ecommerce84]

We use our Zettle for our market stall and love it.

We use the POS software on our phone, and the reporting aspect of it is good.

It’s easy to charge and very reliable - we did 167 transactions on Sunday over a 3 hour period and it worked without issue for the duration. And ours has lasted us for nearly 5 years.

All that said if I was in a fixed location, I’d still look at a traditional terminal as they are traditionally cheaper and many of the popular brands such as Ingenico integrate well with a lot of POS.

I think you can set up an account with Zettle without purchasing anything so you could download the software and try it to see how you get in with that side of things.

As they are so cheap to buy (£20-£30) I do think they also make brilliant back up machines for retailers with a fixed terminal as you can still offer payments if that terminal goes down.

 

[anonuk]

All that said if I was in a fixed location, I’d still look at a traditional terminal as they are traditionally cheaper and many of the popular brands such as Ingenico integrate well with a lot of POS.

Thanks for your input. Interesting, I’d not considered whether the terminals we have would integrate with a POS. Our terminals are mobile so they have a SIM card. Not sure if we’d need WiFi or network terminals for integrating with a POS but will ask the question.

I also like your idea of having a Zettle (or similar) as a backup. There have been a few occasions where our terminal has refused to get signal so that would help in those situations.

 

[anonuk]

Just wondering if there any more thoughts on this before I take a leap either way.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

You should be paying a lot less for your merchant account than the other accounts - 1%+.

To make a merchant account cost effective, you should be taking over £1500+/- a month on it. If you are taking a few thousand a year, then not a great issue. If taking a £1m a year, that 1% is £10k!

The first thing to do is look for software/system that works with your current provider (they may even have one). Then, if you do not like the options.

In all cases, understand the costs:
Transaction
Terminals
Transaction
EPOS