3 ms·
Actually, just being able to keep more of the transaction should be incentive enough for merchants. All that's really needed is a high enough consumer buy-in to
by dminor 18y ago
Actually, just being able to keep more of the transaction should be incentive enough for merchants. All that's really needed is a high enough consumer buy-in to make it worthwhile to deploy.
Credit card processing fees are ridiculously high given how much of the risk is offloaded onto merchants and other parties.
- ShabbyDoo 18y agoGetting merchants to sign up should be really easy. But, how do you get them to pull the plug on Visa/MC? They'd have to be sure that they wouldn't lose too much revenue, and that would require a significant portion of the card-holding population to have a revolution card. And, you'd have to deal with corporations that only have one of Visa/MC/AmEx for corp purchases. I suppose merchants could feature Revolution prominently to increase its use, but they can't make it too hard to use other cards or they'll lose out. And, given my 1%-2% bribe for using my Visa/MC, why wouldn't I look for the little button down in the corner? Discover (Sears) was able to introduce a new card, but they too the opposite route -- they bribed consumers to use it. So, even though it has basically the same fees as the others (IIRC), consumers could see an effectively lower price through its use.
- dminor 18y agoThe bribe in this case is free consumer to consumer transfers (and I don't think this bribe should be underestimated), but you're right, savvy consumers will still just use their rewards cards and continue to be subsidized by those who don't have rewards cards. I don't think anyone will pull the plug on Visa/MC any time soon, but more competition would be nice.