[jeff1966]

Hi, been in the business now for 5 years now.Thinking of taking payments by credit/debit cards, anyone out their already doing it,is worth set up and running cost's.
             Jeff

[calmore]

One cheaper method is to offer people the optio to pay with credit card on the internet, via paypal.

[AquaMagic]

We have been asked only 3 times if we accept payment by card, and like calmore we offer the paypal option nobody has ever taken me up on the offer but if they did id oversee them process the payment before i left.  Other than that i couldnt justify the fees involved, setup-monthly-mecrhant fee.

Dene

[rs_cleancare]

I also do window cleaning and most of my customers pay online via their bank account by transfering the money to my account.

I would think you would have to be turning over a lot of work to justify the cost of the machine.
On the up side your money is instantly in your account none of that waiting for cheques to clear.

Rob.

[Kev Loomes]

It is a bit of a pain especially if you lose 3.99% of every sale to the bank for processing each payment. If you do £5,000.00 - £6,000.00 a month and endeavour to get most of them to pay by card, you end up losing hundreds!

The other option is to charge the custy the extra to cover yourself (like most industries), either by telling them the handling fee involved or incorporating it into your quotations. The last I heard, the best deal for processing payments was with the Bank of Ireland who only charge 1.5%  so forget Natwest, Barclays, HSBC etc.

To be honest you could do without it, just by informing them initially that cheque (or cash) is required on the day. The theory behind CC payments is that they would be willing to spend more with you - but we never found that 

[Glynn]

If you get the right deal off the merchant account services it will save you money. I only pay 22p per transaction on debit cards and its debit cards that most of them pay with.

[Shaun_Ashmore]

When you go out to survey you could take the payment or a deposit, you'll find

a. no cancellations
b. you can get a high price
c. monthly maintenance programme would be easy to sell.

Shaun