Accept Cards for your Mobile Catering Business
Many mobile catering businesses are associated with cash payments only and sometimes customers ordering large amounts of food for work colleagues might pay by cheque. However, this is rapidly changing as customers are becoming used
to more modern forms of payment and the cheque guarantee scheme is set to be discontinued in 2018.
Accepting cheques can be risky as a mobile business owner since you might have trouble tracking down the customer if the cheque was to bounce. To minimize fraud you should upgrade to accepting card payments as statistics show almost 94% of adults in the UK own a credit or debit card.
You might be concerned about losing customers if you stop accepting cheque payments but you need not stop completely. Instead, you could inform customers that they can still use this option but that cheques are being phased out by banks and they have the option of paying with credit or debit card.
Imagine your catering vehicle is booked to serve customers at a busy festival or at a charity event and you have to keep track of hundreds or even thousands of people’s payments. There'll be less chance of being short changed if you have a mobile card terminal at hand and a secure merchant account. It's more convenient to process many card transactions with a mobile PDQ machine since you'll be paid on a scheduled date and it's also a lot safer than carrying large amounts of cash off the site of the event.
There is one particular card terminal which you will need in order to take payments when on the move and this is a mobile GPRS model. This is required because unlike other retail stores and restaurants you'll not have a landline to plug in a countertop terminal.
Seymour Direct have a wide range of Ingenico mobile machines (a widely trusted brand) which you can view by navigating to the link ‘card machines’ in the blue header menu above. Here you'll be able to download PDF documents with the full
specifications and you'll also be able to view a choice of mobile network providers.
The great thing about mobile PDQ machines is that you'll actually increase your sales because customers who haven’t had time to visit an ATM or who are simply short on cash can still buy your food as long as they've brought their card with them.
To find out more about accepting payments on the move, you can call us on 0800 980 4007
