WePay's Small Business Payments Survey Data Suggests the Death of Checks
Results Provide Wake Up Call to Small Businesses to Start Embracing Credit Cards or Risk Losing Customers, Especially Millennials
PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwired - Jun 20, 2013) - WePay, the surprisingly simple way for small businesses to accept credit cards, today announced the results of its first-annual Small Business Payments Survey. In partnership with Harris Interactive and Ipsos, WePay sought to understand the payment preferences of consumers and small business owners and found a quickly growing divide. The results demonstrate the increasing decline of checks, with 52% of the millennial generation of 18-34 year olds indicating that they never use checks as a form of payment. By contrast, WePay found that 72% of small business owners prefer to accept cash or checks as a form of payment over credit cards.
Not only do these results concisely demonstrate the divergent attitudes of millennial consumers and small business owners, but as credit cards become the predominant form of payment in the U.S., it's clear that checks will soon become obsolete. In addition to the striking decline of checks, WePay's survey also found:
WePay Small Business Payment Survey 2013 Results:
Overall, 64% of consumers write fewer than three checks per month, up from 35% three years ago.
On a regular basis, 58% of small businesses are asked by their customers to accept credit cards.
On average, 27% of small business owners are receiving fewer checks today than compared to three years ago.
Consumers that will only shop at businesses that take multiple forms of payment (categorized by age) are as follows:
69% of consumers 18-34
58% of consumers 35-44
52% of consumers 45-54
48% of consumers 55+
These statistics show a growing trend, from consumers of all ages, that checks are dying. With the rise of online and mobile banking, automated bill pay and online payment providers, the process of carrying around a checkbook and hand writing a check seems provincial. In particular, the trend amongst millennials is a strong signal to small businesses to pay attention to new consumer demands, especially around accepting credit cards.
"I hear daily from small businesses that they see the need to accept credit cards, but have felt that traditional payment providers are difficult to use and don't get them their money fast enough," said Bill Clerico, CEO of WePay. "We wanted to show them that the time to start accepting credit cards is now; it's our ultimate goal at WePay to ensure that small businesses never lose a customer again because their payment options are limited."
To conduct these surveys, WePay worked with third-party market research companies, Ipsos and Harris Interactive, to survey more than 1,000 small business owners and 2,000 consumers.
WePay's easy-to-use online payment tools for small businesses include a mobile application, online invoices, on-site checkout buttons, virtual terminal for processing credit cards, as well as an application programming interface (API) for partners. WePay's Veda fraud engine uses social data to assess risk and enables customers to begin processing credit cards in under a minute.
About WePay
WePay is the surprisingly simple way for small businesses to accept credit cards. WePay was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. For more information visit https://www.wepay.com/ or follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
WePay is a registered trademark of WePay, Inc. Other trademarks used belong to their respective owners.
Abbreviated Survey Methodology
This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive and on behalf of WePay from April 15-17, 2013 among 2,114 adults ages 18 and older. This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.
For the Ipsos survey, a national sample of 1,044 small business owners from Ipsos' U.S. online panel was interviewed online. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics and ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the U.S. adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. A survey with an unweighted probability sample of 1,044 and a 100% response rate would have an estimated margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points 19 times out of 20 of what the results would have been had the entire adult population of adults in the United States had been polled. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.
For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables, please contact Samantha Grant.
