[bonsaitree]

For the shop owner(s), making the economic case for having a card merchant account comes down to several factors:

- Size of typical transactions - Volume of transactions per billing cycle - % of charge-backs per billing cycle - Charge-back volume compared to revenue - Anticipated volume & revenue gains with the additional card buying channel - Comfort level with dependency on 3rd-party accounting - Comfort level with 3rd party data mining - Comfort level with necessary technologies - Additional management overhead due to accounting and card accouterments

Offhand, there are a variety of scenarios, esp. for boutique businesses in urban environments with ready access to ATMs, where a cash-only policy makes good business sense.

[karol_zielinski]

Sometimes it doesn't have a sense to install terminal for card payments. However it's a very rare exception.

In most cases not-only-cash policy makes good business sense. Especially when the competitors from the same street or at least competitors from the same industry have such terminals.

[zalew]

competitors from the same street or at least competitors from the same industry have such terminals.

Same street or same industry doesn't mean focusing on the same clients. If most of your clients come for milk, bread & butter, it doesn't make sense to install hardware just because 2 dudes want to pay card for a pack of cigs.

I have 2 shops like that near me and both run well. The one which has more products and card payment obviously earns more and you can see that, but it doesn't mean that it's not a win-win situation, nor that the main reason of one's bigger success is the presence of a terminal.

[someone_here]

In Canada, some shops are opting to put bulky ATM machines in their store instead.