Credit card processing has increased in recent years, placing a financial burden on many small businesses. Dual Pricing is a merchant processing program that allows merchant businesses to significantly reduce or eliminate the cost of processing their credit card. The merchant presents the customer with cash and credit card pricing, allowing them to decide their preferred method of payment. Dual Pricing is a program previously introduced in the credit card processing industry. Many U.S. gas stations have offered both cash and credit pricing for more than a decade.
Other types of companies have not offered this program until now. Dual Pricing was not suitable for most retailers and restaurants because their POS system needed to support differentiation and dual pricing calculations. In addition, the payment processing cost of each transaction required a lot of work to calculate. As technology has evolved and processing costs have become more transparent, so has the availability of Dual Pricing for businesses.
What types of businesses can offer dual pricing?
Dual pricing is a pricing program that works best for traditional retailers and restaurants that see a large majority of face-to-face transactions where the consumer can pay cash.
Benefits of dual pricing
Benefits for businesses
The main benefit of a dual pricing program for business owners is that they don’t need to worry about the rising costs of accepting payments. When a business offers Dual Pricing, it keeps 100% of the price of every product it sells.
You no longer have to worry about the rising costs of accepting payments. Your profit is the same as if all transactions were made in cash. Your POS system distinguishes and calculates the total between cash and credit card transactions and redirects that difference to the credit card payment processor, eliminating monthly processing fees for merchants.
Customer Benefits
When your small business offers customers cash and credit pricing, it allows you to continue to offer low prices while keeping your overhead low. The alternative would be to raise prices across the board, which means that even cash customers would pay the higher price, which would seem unfair. With Dual Pricing, your customers will love that you give them the option to pay cash and receive a lower cash price. You no longer need to raise your prices and bury the cost of credit card processing in that price. You are fully disclosing both pricing options to customers and allowing them to choose how they want to pay.
How does dual-price credit card processing work?
As a business owner, you determine how much your cash price will be for each item or SKU on your menu or price list. Add 4% to your cash price and that will be your credit price. The POS software can do the calculation for you. For example: Suppose a retailer wants to make $20.00 on the sale of a shirt. The cash price would be $20.00. If they chose to pay by credit card, the price would be $20.00 x 1.04, or $20.80.
The difference between the credit and cash price pays the business owner’s the processing and program costs. When your customers pay, your POS will keep a running total of the cash price and the credit. Once the customer chooses their payment method, the POS prints the itemized ticket with the corresponding prices.
What does it take to offer dual pricing in your business?
- A merchant service provider that offers a flat percentage rate that aligns with the Dual Pricing Program difference between regular and cash pricing without charging additional fees.
- A POS system that can support a dual pricing model with a credit and cash price for every product or SKU in a business while providing the accurate reporting needed to support business operations.
- Clear signage on each of the merchant’s POS terminals that notify customers of cash and credit card pricing and their savings if they choose to pay cash.
- Employee training on the dual pricing model so that each employee conveys the same message to customers to promote the program.
Your POS must support a dual pricing model and many POS solutions today have yet to be upgraded to support a dual pricing model. Our expert staff can evaluate your current system and recommend a POS hardware and software system to handle your current operational needs, fit your budget, and support dual pricing.
Opening a merchant account with a trusted merchant solutions payment processor is a smart investment.
- TowerPay’s mobile payment solutions accept signature credit and debit cards from a smartphone or tablet.
- Our card reader terminals allow you to process EMV chip cards and mobile wallet payments such as Apple Pay and Google Wallet.
- TowersPay provides innovative credit card security (EMV) technology, offering PCI-compliant end-to-end encryption to protect your customer’s credit card data.
- Fast payment funding to your merchant account.
- No long-term contract.
- 2/7 World-class customer service and support
TowersPay offers a variety of credit card and merchant account processing solutions for your small business, including dual pricing and no-fee credit card processing. Our solutions will enable you to accept payments from your customers quickly, securely, and efficiently.
Why switch to dual pricing?
With Financial Business Solutions Group, businesses can now significantly reduce or eliminate their merchant processing costs. Our fully supported program displays dual pricing on a terminal or through a virtual gateway, giving the consumer a clear choice for their payment method. The card price displayed includes the cost of payment acceptance.
Program benefits include
- Empower consumers with the option to select cash or card.
- Eliminate or reduce processing costs.
- Choose to pass some or all of the acceptance cost to the consumer.
- 1 monthly program fee.
- Available for billing, PayNow, and virtual terminal transactions.
- Low cost to accept ACH transactions with ACheck21.
Eliminate processing fees with TowersPay as your partner!
Until now, true dual pricing was not available to most retailers and restaurants due to the limitations of POS software to support dual pricing and the unpredictability of the exact payment processing cost on each transaction. Therefore, business owners with many different items or SKUs could not know exactly how to price merchandise under a dual pricing model. More importantly, business owners could not offer dual pricing while providing a beautifully transparent and enjoyable customer experience to their valued customers. All that has changed!
There are a couple of things it takes for a business to execute a true, honest, and transparent dual pricing program.
- A business owner is willing to take the time and care to present a beautiful customer experience to all of their valued customers. Your customer deserves to know how much each product will cost when they decide to purchase it.
- A business service provider that offers a flat rate percentage that aligns with the difference between regular and cash prices with no additional charges. You need to know the cost of each item in order to quote it correctly.
- A POS system capable of supporting a dual pricing model with a regular price and a cash price for each product or SKU in a company, while providing the accurate reports needed to support business operations.