Avoid Profit Loss By Using Payment Gateway

Running a business is not a one-man show. You alone cannot run a business every day with 100% maximum profit. There is always this lingering risk that someday, somehow, there will be profit loss due to human error. That’s why a system is needed to help your day-to-day business operations and mitigate any potential profit loss.

Enter payment gateway, one platform that automatically authorises all business transactions, cash in and cash out. For years, I’ve worked together with small businesses to mega enterprises that are planning to go online. I can speak from my experience that the one true hassle of running a business is none other than reconciliation.

Reconciliation can lead to profit loss?

Yes, it actually can. Let’s picture this scenario. You’re running a small business on Instagram with the pre-order system. You’ve listed 100 orders today, but only 57 of them are paid. So you manually have to check one by one which order has been paid. But then, there are customers who are still waiting for order confirmation. New problems arise, more than one possibility may happen:

a) Customers still buy, but that would be the last time.

b) Potential customers are choosing another brand that provides faster service.

c) Customers who have ordered but not yet paid are canceling their orders.

d) You are overwhelmed by checking each transaction one by one and messaging each customer for confirmation. This will lead to lower productivity and higher room for error.

All of these possibilities lead to the same ending: profit loss. What a hassle, right? Sooner or later, your business will start to run dry if this issue is ignored. One solution for this problem is a payment gateway.

How can a payment gateway help businesses avoid profit loss?

With a payment gateway, everything is automatic. Gone are the days where you have to stay online checking every single order and transaction. You can set the payment deadline directly using the payment gateway.

For example, you’ve set the payment deadline to 6 hours. If a customer fails to pay the item in 6 hours, the order will be automatically canceled and it will become available for purchase. Congratulations, you’ve succeeded in avoiding profit loss and in return, accept profit gain!

Moreover, payment gateways like Midtrans have become more advanced. Payment gateway can protect the merchant from fraudery, thanks to its expansive user data compiled from numerous e-commerce sites. Whenever there’s a report of stolen credit cards, payment gateways like Midtrans will immediately block all transactions that use the stolen credit card numbers. The same also applies to avoid fraudsters. Payment gateway can and will automatically reject any suspicious transaction in order to help merchants eliminate profit loss.

One of the best things about using a payment gateway like Midtrans is its enhanced integration. Midtrans has a promo engine feature that lets merchants join promotions from payment partners and helps merchants to limit any abuse to their ongoing promotions. With the addition to Payouts (previously known as IRIS) from Midtrans that allows users to transfer money to multiple accounts at once, the cash out process can also be less tedious.

Why you shouldn’t hesitate to use a payment gateway

From vegetable vendors on Instagram to big retail companies, Midtrans has assisted their business transactions daily. Retail companies like MAP Group, AEON Indonesia, and Uniqlo Indonesia are utilising Midtrans to mitigate profit loss as well as maximise profit gain during the pandemic since many of their offline stores are closed. One particular product of ours that has become “the crown jewel” is Payment Link, a very quick solution where merchants only need to send one link via chat and buyers can pay in just a few clicks using various payment methods.

I’ve heard many excuses when it comes to not using a payment gateway. Most commonly, people complain about the transaction fee, which for the record amounts to IDR4,000/transaction. In the old days, businesses chose to hire admins rather than paying for the transaction fees. However, if we calculate it for the long run, the costs and efforts for hiring admins are far greater than using a payment gateway. It sure is a profit loss instead of an investment!

What Midtrans, as a payment gateway gives, is a peace of mind, knowing that your business can run optimally and much faster, which will add to your business’s reputation. You’ll have more time to gain profits with less time to interact.