With the onset of the festive season in the country, discount offers from banks and brands to attract customers are almost everywhere. While some of these offers aim to boost the credit growth of banks, others help big brands achieve their annual sales target. Amidst the availability of offers and new launches on marketplaces around the festive season, millennials and other age groups can be found to be on a shopping spree. This can be the reason behind the expected surge in online shoppers from 180-190 million in 2021 to 450 million by 2027 (Source).
But what if you are an offline retailer? How will you benefit from the festive cheer and happy spending spirit of customers near you?
If you want to bet big on fulfilling the festive demand by offering tempting deals to your customers, it is obvious that you cannot do it alone. You need backing from bank or brand offers similar to what’s quite popular in the online selling space.
Does that mean you need to make alliances with different brands/banks and set up a big store for the offerings? In case you proceed in this manner, it would require a dedicated team to make connections with brands and banks, several rounds of negotiations, and an ample amount of time. All of this is not necessarily needed if you have an empowering weapon with you – an EDC machine from a renowned offline payment solution provider.
Wondering how an EDC/POS machine can make wonders happen for your business? You will get to know the details here.
Features and benefits of an EDC machine for your business
An Electronic Data Capture (EDC) machine, also known as a card swipe machine or POS (Point of Sale) machine is basically a payment terminal that allows merchants to accept payments via cards (both credit and debit).
It requires the customers to either swipe or tap their cards to ensure seamless payment transfer. Internally, the machine captures the essential information linked to the card (card number, transaction amount, etc.), authenticates the same, and processes the payment. Given below are some of the primary features of an EDC machine:
Multiple payment options for your customers
With most EDC machines, you can start accepting payments via different types of credit and debit cards – VISA, Mastercard, RuPay, and others. This way, you won’t have to worry about customers leaving your store without buying, irrespective of the card type they possess.
Timely settlements
The amount paid by your customers for every transaction processed via the EDC machine will be settled into your bank account within the specified period. This ensures the financing needs of your business are well taken care of.
Easy billing and reconciliation
The use of EDC machines for payment acceptance also benefits your business with streamlined billing and reconciliation. You can check the transaction details during any specific period through the linked merchant account or dashboard.
Bank/brand offers and EDC machine usage – the interconnection
To better understand this connection, you need to look at what matters for both brands and banks –
- In the banking industry, the strength of a bank is determined by the transaction volume it processes along with providing credit facilities to creditworthy customers. The more transactions and loans (referring to short-term credit here in particular) a bank processes, the bigger and better it becomes.
- On the other hand, brands grow with higher sales and increased profitability over time. They look for multiple ways that can channel their products or services to potential customers. The bigger their reach, the higher will be the sales and profits of any small or big brand.
In relation to the festive season, you, as an offline merchant having an EDC machine, can act as an epicenter, for both banks and brands to channelise their propositions to your customers. In other words, through your online store, you give multiple banks and brands in your niche the facility to sell more. This will, in turn, grow the average order value of your store alongside. Ultimately, it turns out to be a win-win situation for all the parties involved.
You might have thought – What’s the role of an EDC machine in all these business cycles?
Depending on the offline payment solution provider you have selected to obtain an EDC machine, you will get to know of and extend different bank and brand offers.
For example, if your payment solution provider is capable of extending an XYZ bank offer of a 10% discount on a transaction of value above Rs. 25,000, you can process the same through your EDC machine. This way, when a customer buys a product of value higher than the minimum threshold defined in the offer, you can extend the bank offer to him/her.
Here, there is a 10% discount for the customer, a 90% of order value in your sales records, and the corresponding transaction volume being recorded at the bank side.
Sounds interesting? There are two more aspects you should know about first:
Are bank/brand offers suitable for all types of businesses?
Indeed, they are suitable for almost every type of business – small, medium, or large-scale enterprises. Think of it from another angle –
You can extend bank or brand offers to the customers if your business involves dealing with customers who prefer paying via credit and debit cards. This way, the following businesses can extend these offers forward:
- Local restaurants or restaurant chains
- Retail stores – apparel, mobile phones, machinery, furniture, home accessories, essentials, and others
- Service providers – salon, cable operators, WiFi providers, etc.
- Logistics service providers
- Entertainment service providers, and more
Can you benefit from brand or bank offers using any EDC machine?
It depends on the payment solution provider through which you procure EDC machines. As detailed above, the EDC machine stands as a medium that connects brands, banks, and customers through payment technology. You can only benefit from extending different types of offers if your EDC machine provider allows you to.
This leads us to the question –
Which EDC or POS machine should you select to avail maximum benefits?
The simplest answer – Paytm POS.
What makes Paytm POS/EDC Machines suitable for businesses like yours?
Paytm EDC Machines are more popularly known as Paytm All-In-One POS solutions that bring to the merchants a feature-rich payment ecosystem to cater to diverse business needs.
With Paytm All-In-One POS solutions, you can:
- Accept payments via credit cards, debit cards, international cards, UPI, and even Paytm Wallet
- Say goodbye to the liquidity crunches by getting instant settlement whenever you need
- Extend EMI offers from brand partners and bank network
- Simplify payment reconciliation and cash flow management
- Get business loans easily
All the Paytm POS machines are GST-compliant and have an inbuilt printer and scanner to enable faster processing of card payments. They are also designed to integrate well with third-party billing software.
