Why should small businesses adopt digital payments?

There were times when small businesses only offered cash payments but as time passed, these businesses introduced card payments as well. However, COVID-19 has pushed people to go cashless and faceless for the past few years.

According to the reports by Statista, digital payments in India have touched 53 billion INR in the FY 2020-21. Also, UPI transactions have topped, while card payments have remained stable since 2019. This indicates that Indian customers are preferring new payment methods. It indicates how UPI has been the major mode of digital payments in India.

Small enterprises are unable to grow because they have bad debts and a working capital crisis. It takes only a few seconds to get the payment credited to your bank account with these fast technological and secured payment methods. This article will help you to understand why you should go for digital payment methods and have an India payment gateway for your business, that too with economical payment gateway charges.

What is the digital payment?

Digital payment means paying in modes other than cash. It supports payment methods such as UPI, QR, net banking, digital wallets, Debit/Credit cards, ApplePay, GooglePay, and also includes cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The customer is stepping into these payment methods rather than paying with cash. Due to this behavior, even small businesses need to adopt digital payment methods. Let us look at some reasons which support the emergence of digital payments. 

• Customer Preference– At present, 60% of the Indian population does not want to pay cash. Their payment preference depends upon age group, the product they are paying for, the market of the product, etc. Some of them want to pay via digital wallets and others through a Unified Payment Interface. The tech-savvy generation does not want to face paper currency and wants to pay for their transaction through digitized methods. Even for a small purchase, nobody is carrying cash in the pocket. Hence it becomes very important for a small business to adopt digital payment methods to get money instantly credited in banks.
• Secure and no chances of physical cash theft– There are high chances of robbery if you carry cash at your store. Not only through criminals, but you also cannot trust your staff and rely upon them. Adopting a digital payment gateway is secure as you do not need to worry about theft at the premises. There were times when small shopkeepers used to have the locker system in their premises to maintain cash. But since the past few years, the trend has been changing and these Indian merchants are maintaining every payment transaction online with an all-in-one India payment gateway. Zaakpay’s payment gateway complies with PCI DSS and SSL security standards due to which small enterprises are benefitting from it all over India.
• Reduction in costs and efforts– If a small business is maintaining a physical cash system, then it has to maintain staff to count every rupee and that too will have no assurance whether your payments are up to date. This whole process takes a large amount of time and effort. However, with a smart digital payment gateway, your bank accounts will not only be managed effectively but every transaction will also be automatically recorded and tracked. There are also no chances of lost data because everything is paperless and you don’t need to maintain records.
• Faster business results in faster revenue generation – Physical billing takes a lot of the time of the customer and nobody wants to wait for a longer time to get the items billed. Once you enable the digital methods to pay, it will take seconds to process a payment. Zaakpay offers your customers a variety of 100+ options to choose from and pay according to their preferences. It is a 3-step-process where the user can easily select the method, authorize and verify the payment within 2-3 seconds. If you provide your customers with a faster option, it will also be a boost to your revenue generation.
• The accounting part is also simplified– If you are maintaining a cash system in your business, then it comes with the responsibility of reconciling each day of business. Doing this task can be a big challenge and there are more chances of human errors. It sometimes becomes frustrating for a merchant to get the accounting done in time. In addition to this, navigating payments from customers to suppliers is a stressful job at times, resulting in focusing less on the products and customers. In cashless methods, since every transaction is automated, it becomes very easy to maintain online records and reconcile them in a shorter period.
• Lower operational costs– Maintaining cash and depositing into the bank requires high costs depending upon distance because you need to transport the cash via transport services if the amount of transactions is huge. Banks may also charge a significant amount of fees to process the deposit. On the other hand, you need to spend money on these operating expenses, and as a result, you can increase revenues and reduce overall business operating costs.

Via digital payment methods, you can track and evaluate your revenue statistics. Even a small business needs to be managed effectively to grow its revenue, and digital payments are one of the tools where you can boost your transactions and have a competitive edge in the market. The popularity of cash and Credit Cards are declining over the past years as we can see UPI transactions have overtaken the card payment system. Payment partners, like Zaakpay, are offering no payment gateway charges and no setup and maintenance fees on the same. For that reason, you must trust it like all other budding entrepreneurs who are in their initial stages of business.