My gut reaction is that 'small businesses' in the Valley might be ready to do financial payment transactions from customers with mobile devices, but from where I stand (in New Jersey) small businesses have barely accepted social media and digital communications in mass. A good number distrust technology and have artificial fears over privacy. WE all know education is the key to this but many lack the time or motivation to become educated. (The fact that New Jersey SMB's are woefully behind the curve with digital communications and is quickly slipping is an entirely different story…)
Heck, I know of more than a few small business retail locations in New Jersey that only accept cash or CHECK (no credit cards at all). WHAT? Try telling them they need a smart phone (a shocking number of small business owners that I have met don't even own cell phones) to accept a payment from a customer and they will laugh
While I personally (and professionally) love the ideas that this +ZDNet article talks about with the pivot of +WePay, I don't realistically see small businesses giving up their POS systems and inventory tracking to take mobile payments. Micro businesses (1-2 'employees') or service based professionals that don't keep a physical location to conduct business are who could benefit the most from mobile payment acceptance – myself included.
From the article:
"The small business space is a large space, especially with payments. We looked at the market and said, OK, the retail space is really competitive — Square, PayPal, Google Wallet, LevelUp. They're asking how you bring next-generation payments to the point-of-sale."
I myself owned a retail store. I just can't see using a mobile device to scan 50 SKU's and email off a receipt quicker than using a point of sale system. Customer experience must trump cool tech geekery.
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In strategic shift, WePay targets small businesses | ZDNet
Turns out that the “people who owe their friends money” market isn’t enough to sustain a company.
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Sometimes dedicated hardware is the way to go. And the more important the function, the more true that can be.
Well done
It's just hard to get over the fees. We have the ability to take electronic payments from our customers, but it's hard to give that money to the bank when our profit margin isn't that large to begin with and we're loathe to pass one more cost on to the customer.
+Andrea Chalk In the end, it comes down to what your customers want. Are they willing to pay the additional transaction cost in exchange for the convenience?
+James Karaganis half the time they aren't even willing to pay for the product – a number of our customers are (very nice but) elderly farmers who remember 1980's prices…the rest have been hemorrhaging money due to the drought and can barely afford what they're buying. They're comfortable with checks, and we've gotten several to use wire transfers, so we've been sticking with those. However, those methods tend to delay shipment until the funds verification process is complete.
+Andrea Chalk
However, those methods tend to delay shipment until the funds verification process is complete.
Yes … if you know that your customers are cash-strapped you pretty much have to wait 'til the check clears.
I worked as a contract programmer for many years: most of my customers were big corporations. They were often slow pays by my standards but they were like clockwork. Consequently I didn't worry to much about them. From the occasional small company or individual customer, on the other hand, I quickly learned to insist upon milestone payments before they got too far into me.
I got burned a few times. Had to take one company to court, because they just decided they weren't going to pay. I found out later they were in severe financial trouble.
Oh yes! I have developed mobile creatives (ads) with in-built payment features (using intents to convert the user towards their mobile payment app to complete the transactions). The conversion rates from mobile traffic are through the roof. People are definitely ready for mobile payments.