SOURCE: Transparent Financial Services

November 06, 2008 09:49 ET

Small Businesses Put Price First When Choosing Credit Card Processors

CHICAGO, IL--(Marketwire - November 6, 2008) - A survey recently conducted by Transparent Financial Services (TransFS), shows that small businesses put price first when choosing a credit card processing company, also known as a merchant account provider. Major findings of the survey include:

--  72% of survey respondents rated Price as either the "Most Important"
    or "Important" factor in choosing a credit card processor
--  40% would require less than $50 / month savings to switch to another
    processor / merchant account provider
--  60% rated promotional offers, such as free terminals, as "Least
    Important" or "Unimportant"
--  Reputation of the processor was most frequently cited as the second
    most important factor
--  Existing relationships with the salesperson or broker was rated as the
    second least important factor
    

Quote attributable to Sean Harper, Co-Founder, Transparent Financial Services:

"Currently credit card processing services are usually sold by a broker and often the primary selling point is a new free terminal. Given that both those factors are relatively unimportant decision factors for many small businesses, the industry should consider changing the sales model to better reflect the needs of customers: aggressive pricing and top-notch customer service."

The survey was drawn from a MarketTools / Zoomerang random sample of small business owners and was completed by 283 respondents. Respondents included a wide sample of small businesses, including those ranging in size from 1 to 40 employees, those focused on selling to consumers as well as those selling to other businesses, and those providing products and services on the internet as well as those providing products and services in person and multi-channel businesses.

About Transparent Financial Services

Transparent Financial Services (TransFS) is a Financial Services Comparison Shopping business that uses technology to help business owners select the best credit card processing, business insurance, business credit cards and business banking providers. TransFS evens the playing field for small business owners using instant reverse auctions to quickly negotiate better deals, automated bill analysis software to identify unnecessary or undisclosed fees, and an online ratings and reputation system to determine the highest quality service providers. Based in Chicago IL, TransFS can be found at http://transfs.com and the free credit card processing calculator is available at http://transfs.com/credit-card-processing-calculator.