LOW! LOW! LOW! PRICES!An attention getter if there ever was one. But is the cheapest price what you really need? All too often in order to offer the cheapest price the service provider has to cut out a lot of the service in order to afford the cheapest prices. In reality the "Lowest Price Strategy" also usually gets you the lowest quality. When you are shopping around it is important to look for the best value as opposed to the lowest price. In the Merchant Services industry you can find all sorts of offers that "Won't be undersold." In doing research for a presentation recently I even found one company offering a "5% guarantee" saying they would beat any price by 5%. WOW. OF course while it sounds good, what they are talking about is 5% of a tenth of a percent, or somewhere in that neighborhood, which would be 5 thousandths of a percent. So how much of a sale is it?
When you are making decisions, look long term and judge by the relationship. Is the company/agent trustworthy? Are they open with information before you sign up? How did you find them? Through a trusted contact, or through a faceless connection on the internet? These are the kinds of questions that lead to a good merchant services decision.You are making a decision which hopefully will lead to a long and mutually beneficial business relationship.
