Offer interest-free months on your business

One of the biggest questions for businesses about interest-free months is; How do I offer it to my customers? Well, it is not that difficult, the only thing you need is a terminal to charge with a credit card. Yes, that is all you need.

But, not every bank offers this option with all cards and it is not always available, so you should check with the banking institution about these limitations. However, with card readers such as Clip, the only thing you need to do is to activate this feature in the application and that's it, you will be able to charge a certain amount in installments.

Perhaps it sounds obvious, but credit cards is the only ones you can accept when you want to charge in interest-free months, what doesn't sound so obvious is how you will receive the money for that purchase, in months or the total amount? Then, the answer is that you will receive the total amount of your purchase ( less commissions) the next day. Now that got your attention, didn't it?

How do monthly purchases work?

When a customer buys from you in interest-free months, the bank card is responsible for collecting the monthly payments from the cardholder and you as a business will receive the full payment (less commissions) to your business bank account. So you will not become a debt collector who will have to go to your customers every month.

If a customer does not cover his monthly payment, you will not have to worry about it, since this is the responsibility that the card owner acquires with his bank. Because of that, the commissions for this kind of transactions are higher than what you are used to, as the institutions acquire a risk.

Maybe you are doubting this is an advantage because you see it as costly, but think about the transactions you make with this method are not small amounts. But think about the transactions you make with this method, they are not small numbers. So look at it as an advantage: you sell articles with higher costs in installments and with the certainty that your money will be deposited immediately to your account. So, income will increase even if you don't have thousands of transactions, so you can use it as a strategy to reach your sales goals.

Offer interest-free months with products that have a high price and are difficult to pay in a single payment.

In order to help you in your strategy, you can select the minimum purchase amount and the number of months to offer; this way, while the months are less, the commission is lower and you can make it apply only with products or services with a price high enough for a single payment.

How commissions for Interest-Free Months work

The previous paragraph we talked about a very important point, the commissions. Firstly, for each payment you make through your Clip terminal, a commission of 3.6% + VAT is charged (in this article we explain a little more about this subject).  It is important to clarify that this fee applies to payments made in a single exhibition. 

For interest-free monthly payments, an additional percentage is added, known as "bank surcharge", which is an amount received by the bank that issued your client's card. The reason for this is that, as we mentioned in the previous section, the bank is taking the risk that your client will not pay a monthly payment. 

As a result, the percentage charged by the bank increases in proportion to the number of monthly payments to be made. To clarify everything more clearly, we share with you the following table of fees for Interest-Free Monthly Payments with Clip:

commissions-months-without-interest-clip-min

When in doubt about the net amount you will receive, you can visit this Clip page. You will find here a calculator that will be very useful for you to decide the minimum amount for Interest-Free Months.

Your business wins if you offer Interest-Free Months with Clip

You need to know that according to the National Banking and Securities Commission, the credit cards of the banks BBVA Bancomer, CitiBanamex, Santander, Banorte, Inbursa, HSBC and Scotiabank are the ones most used by Mexicans.

To offer interest-free months to all your customers, you would have to have at least 7 bank terminals, 8 if you want to include American Express. This does not happen with Clip because you can offer this opportunity with more than 17 banks in Mexico.

Increase your sales by up to 100%

Clients that prefer to pay by card buy more, since they are not limited to the cash they bring with them, and they are also more recurrent. Think how many customers a day have asked you if you accept cards?

A quantitative study conducted on 2,152 Clip users during December 2018, indicates that 9 out of 10 of our users increased their sales by more than 100%.

Making your business more competitive

When you receive card payments, you will not be at a disadvantage compared to businesses that already have this same service. It will help you sell more of the same product or service every day.

Likewise, being able to avoid having to pay in cash, you and your customers will not have to worry about having the exact amount or waste time getting change or having to go to the ATM to withdraw money.

Satisfied and more loyal customers

When you give your customers the option to pay by credit card, it helps you build trust with them and motivates them to buy more frequently.

Combining this with interest-free monthly payment options, your customers can make larger purchases than they are used to,  increasing the possibility of selling more products in a single purchase or products that are more expensive and that no one would usually buy because they have to pay in cash.

So, having a mobile terminal and accepting interest-free months can help your business. In case you still can't make up your mind, we have listed the type of terminal that can work for your business.

‍