After facing terminal issues and an increase in costs, Claire Fletcher decided to switch payment providers.
Claire runs two branches of The Lemon Tree, in Dorking and Reigate. Open for over ten years, the shops stock unique products from top quality brands. From handbags and jewellery to children’s toys and stationery, the company provide high levels of service to make finding the perfect gift simple.
Claire was happy to discover that she could save money and receive a better service by switching payment provider.
“We were with our previous payment provider for five years. We started to experience problems with our terminal every December, as they would refuse to accept various payments.
The build up to Christmas is our busiest period, and we turn over four times as much revenue in December as in any other month. The problems always seemed to happen at the worst times, leaving us out of pocket and affecting our customer service.
With Christmas 2017 in mind, I decided to look online for alternative payment providers. The revenue we stand to lose by having an unreliable machine could really damage our business, so it’s important that I found a payment provider I can depend on.
I was intrigued by Handepay’s rates, as they were much lower than other payment providers I spoke to. Card terminals are really important to our business, so it’s essential that we pay the best rates possible.
A few years ago, we used to take an equal number of card and cash payments. This has risen over the years, and now around 85% goes through our card terminals. Our shops were amongst the first to start accepting contactless payments in the local area, and a lot of our customers choose to pay this way.
Due to our early adoption of contactless, our previous payment provider offered us good rates on contactless transactions. However, in October 2017, the price of accepting contactless payments increased, due to changes in the way the payments were authorised. Our provider took this opportunity to add a 2p authorisation fee to each contactless transaction, which lowered the return on each sale.
The majority of the contactless payments we accept are quite low value, so these added fees were starting to eat away at our profits. I was thrilled to discover that Handepay don’t add a charge for authorising a transaction, meaning we keep as much of our payments as possible.
I was annoyed when I realised that my previous payment provider had locked me into a long and expensive contract. I didn’t feel that they had explained it properly, and was disappointed to find out that they would charge me exit fees. However, I was happy to discover that Handepay make changing payment providers simple by offering to cover the switching fees!
I was thrilled to save 24% on my card terminal fees, but in the end my decision to switch was based more on Handepay’s service provided than the savings we made. By switching to Handepay, I receive the more reliable service that I wanted, and saved money too!”
