I just read an online article compliments of The Business Journal. Although the article was talking about restaurants in particular, such as small diners, that choose to accept cash only, it made me think immediately of numerous independent massage therapists, nail technicians, estheticians, hair stylists, personal trainers, yoga instructors and even chiropractors that are losing business every day due to this same "money saving" strategy. A quote from the article: "Paying a transaction fee for a card service may help to generate a lot more business then requiring customers to pay cash....If you're not accepting credit or debit cards then you could be throwing away money. " 

If you are not accepting credit and debit cards, your business is probably not the best it could be. The reality in an individual practice is that if you got just one extra appointment per month because you accepted credit cards, the costs of taking the cards would be more than covered. In a full service spa, it may take an appointment or two to cover the expense, but I think the investment is still worth it and will absolutely pay off for you, especially around the holidays. Think gift certificate sales.

If you are ready to make the plunge, I suggest you contact one of these two companies: MindBody Online www.mindbodyonline.com who also provides easy affordable web-based client tracking software with online appointment booking and has online gift certificate sales available. Or for credit card processing with no contract and free equipment, visit www.tmsralleigh.com or email John Gibbs at JGibbs@tmsraleigh.com. And please be sure to tell them I sent you 

To read the whole article, follow the link below:
http://www.bizjournals.com/extraedge/consultants/penny_pinchers_almanac/2007/07/16/column8.html?ana=e_sol