I like the look of Small Business Saturday, a promotional campaign being run by American Express and supported by many corporations in support of small businesses in the US. Amex claims that last year one hundred million people shopped in their local communities in support of the event. Check out the website and see the support materials available.
This reads like a terrific event, one I’d like to see one of our banks in Australia get behind. Plenty of media outlets are supporting the event including local outlets like the Hampshire Review.
If only Amex supported small business by not charging exorbitant merchant fees.
I agree Jarryd.
Do any newsagents say “no” to AMEX or
do you all just cop the fees?
A lot of my customers ask “do you take
AMEX” which makes me suspect that lots
of businesses won’t accept it.
We don’t accept it and I know that I can’t use it at many places other than Woolies and Shell.
If you use it to pay bills or hotels they hit you with a fee, so don’t accept it or put a fee on top of the purchase. Our margins are too small to have this extra cost.
Totally agree Jenny
AMEX is an opt-in setup where you have a separate merchant agreement with them not your terminal provider. Like most merchant I haven’t taken it up due too the ludicrous fees and can’t think of a single case where not having it was a problem.
We don’t accept it in my stores. Used to. Expensive. Frustrating to deal with. That aside, the initiative in the US is good.
Same here, we don’t accept it. We only get one customer ask every week or so if we accept it.
Have never lost a sale because of it. I’m yet to meet a single person that uses an Amex and doesn’t carry another card.
I don’t know many small businesses that do accept Amex (especially given their low market penetration in Australia). The exception may be those businesses that get a number of international customers (eg. online, CBD based retail, accomodation, etc).