Customers are noticing additional fees or a cash option on their checks. This is so businesses can offset credit card swipe fees.
Swipe fees, or interchange fees, are how much Visa, Mastercard, and other card networks charge a merchant when a customer uses a credit card to make a purchase.
“Three to 4 percent of the sale is part of our processing fees,” said Julianne Sullivan, CEO and owner of Bella’s Liquors in Annapolis, Md. “These fees are my second highest operating expense. My first highest is, obviously, payroll with all my people, and my second highest is my credit card fees that total almost $100,000 a year.”
And in the last several years, Sullivan said these fees have gone up. “Fees went up 13.5 percent and my sales went up 3 percent."
She’s trying to find ways to stay profitable without passing along these costs to customers, but it’s become more difficult.
“You know, everything is getting more and more expensive, so it's not easy, we understand that, and we're trying to, you know, toe the line. But at some point, it's going to be either we increase our margins, or we pass it back to the customer,” said Sullivan.
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23 июл 2024