If you own a nightclub, tiny or huge, you must know how hard it is to manage the payment channels. These days, most customers pay through credit cards and transfers, while a minority use cash.
Owners have to pay heavy taxes on credit card payments, which shrinks their profit margins. The nightclub owner incurs the expense of handling credit card transactions and keeping a payment gateway or payment system functional.
To make matters worse, accepting credit card payments from your clients is now more costly than ever. This is because of the massively rising interchange fees. Due to this, several small nightclub owners are looking for strategies to reduce the cost of handling credit card transactions.
Passing some of these expenses to customers who opt to use credit cards is one way to accomplish this objective. Another is to incentivize customers to make cash payments instead of using credit or debit cards.
In this article, we’re going to be exploring the second strategy. This is a guide to the cash discount program for night clubs. We’ll discuss the advantages of cash discounting programs for nightclubs and determine whether such a strategy is appropriate for your nightclub.
What Is a Cash Discount Program for a Night Club?
In general, nightclubs employing a cash discount program provide a discount to consumers who pay with cash or a cheque. A discount can be offered in several ways. For example, you can impose a discount on the nightclub’s advertised membership price. Or you can offer to take off a certain percentage of drinks for customers willing to pay in hard currency. This will encourage people to pay with cash or cheque rather than credit or debit.
But let’s say the customer insists on paying with a debit or credit card anyway. In that case, you can include service charges in their bill which will go towards reducing the nightclub’s standard payment processing costs and securing profit.
Benefits of Cash Discount Programs for Nightclubs
Here are all the benefits you could reap by joining a cash discount program:
Save Credit Card Processing Fees
The primary factor motivating nightclubs to adopt a cash discount program is the ability to remove many of their credit card processing costs altogether.
Clients who use credit cards to make purchases also cover credit card processing costs. Small nightclubs may use these significant financial savings to increase operations, ramp up marketing initiatives, or increase their savings.
Gives More Choices to Your Club Members
You effectively give your consumers two special pricing when you use a cash discount scheme. The “cash discount” refers to the lower price that customers who pay in cash will receive.
Clients who want to use a credit card to pay will experience a modest price increase to compensate for the processing fees. In the end, your clients will have more choices.
Use It as a Marketing Tool
Using your cash discount program as a marketing tactic is a great way to pull in an entirely new set of customers: the bargain hunters. You can do this by publicizing your club’s cash discount program as much as possible through social media and signage.
There are many brands that have made the word “discount” almost synonymous with their brand name. Best Buy is one of them and your club can be, too. If you make your place seem like one where you can have fun without nuking your wallet, you’ll be certain to draw in the crowds.
Keep Your Profit Margins Constant
Every transaction is subject to a percentage-based processing fee in the traditional model. For nightclub owners trying to budget or make long-term plans, this leads to a lot of instability and uncertainty.
Cash discount solutions solve this problem, giving you a more reliable picture of your profit margins.
Simplifies the Payment Process
Programs that offer cash discounts simplify the payment procedure for all involved parties. You’ll considerably minimize the possibility of refunds, price conflicts, data leaks, theft, and other issues when you encourage consumers to pay by cash.
More Cash
The range of payment options has grown because of the latest technologies, including contactless and smartphone payments.
However, there are certain advantages to keeping your hard-earned money on hand. When consumers pay with cash, you immediately get the money. There is no need to wait long hours for the payment to arrive if there’s an error in processing or a system issue.
The cash discount program is the best option for all sides since you should always allow your consumers to pay with credit.
Challenges Facing Night Clubs
As a nightclub owner, you are likely familiar with the following issues:
Staffing Problems
To run a successful nightclub, you need to hire the right people. Maintaining a successful show throughout the evening requires reliable, energetic, and enthusiastic staff. If you don’t, you could lose money to dishonest employees, slacking off, and general indifference.
Inventory Management
Since you typically need a lot of ingredients to make the drinks your patrons want, like cocktails, this is a significant problem for nightclubs. Similarly, it’s not ideal to have an abundance of beverages that no one wants to buy.
Does Your Nightclub Need a Cash Discount Program?
Although the resulting profit for your company is the same, the apparent differences between a “2 percent discount for cash” and a “2 percent fee for cards” might soften the blow of adverse criticism from your customers.
The reason why so many nightclub owners choose a cash discount program is that the cash discount acts as a reward and the credit card fees as a punishment. Since cash discounts are less controlled than the other types of payments, they also provide greater freedom.
Additionally, depending on your profits, you can change the listed price of the services to change the size of the discount. For example, if you’re selling a premium package for $200 and you don’t want to accept less than that for it, you may easily offset the difference by adding a few pennies to the stated price.
However, a cash discount is said to be adaptable, simple to produce, and has a more favorable view than most other fee recovery techniques. In the end, clients don’t appreciate paying extra, regardless of the method they choose.
So, a cash discount will always work out for your nightclub.
How to Implement a Cash Discount for Your Night Club
Going from typical credit card processing, where the nightclub is responsible for covering all transaction expenses and maintaining a payment gateway, to a cash discounting program is a substantial move.
There are a few details that you have to note before starting the program. Knowing these details can help you make better decisions when creating a cash discount program and ensure that the process is a seamless adjustment.
Assess Your Business Thoroughly
There is no doubt that some nightclub sectors benefit from cash discounting more than others. Nightclubs with low credit card usage rates most benefit from cash discounts. Remember that cash discounts will only help you save so much money if your consumers already have a habit of not using their credit cards.
Although the nightclub sector is well-suited for cash discount programs, we advise you to carefully examine your present credit card usage rate when deciding whether or not it is an intelligent choice for your business at present.
You might also want to seek a second opinion before making a decision. However, ensure that you steer clear of vendors who try to pressure you into programs that require steep monthly fees.
Be Careful With Your Discount Service Provider
Any commercial service provider may put you on a discounted program. Even if they may not publicize it, payment services sell cash discounting schemes. Your existing provider probably already has one that they’ll offer as soon as you establish an interest.
Moving to cash discounting with your present service will be much simpler than dealing with all the equipment, programming, and contract complications that come with changing to a new supplier entirely.
However, the hidden danger of this is that they might not necessarily provide the best services for your business. You should know all your options before selecting a provider. The simplicity of transferring processes from credit to a cash discount program with your current provider might not outweigh the provider’s problems.
Three simple stages make up the actual procedure for establishing your cash discounting program:
- Register your nightclub with the cash discounting program
- Reconfigure your processing equipment and, if necessary, your payment gateway. It will help your nightclub to handle cash discounts instantly.
- Place the necessary announcements and signs online and in your nightclub.
That is all you should do! Based on how quickly your operator can configure or update your present hardware, moving to cash discounting should take, at most, a few days.
Alternatives to the Cash Discount Program
While cash discounts do have their benefits, there are other strategies you can employ in your nightclub.
Setting a minimum card limit: If you want to avoid paying transaction fees on even the smallest purchases made by your customers, you could set a minimum amount that must be spent to use a card when they enter your nightclub.
Increasing the prices: It’s a simple way to try to make more money, but you risk losing regulars and newcomers if you raise your nightclub’s prices. Consider your options carefully..
How Does Cash Discounting Work?
Consider that you have two consumers that want to spend some money in your nightclub. One client wants to pay with a credit card, while the other wants to pay with cash.
They can learn about your cash discount offer via the obvious signage you have around. Customers will pay an extra money processing charge if they pay with a card.
The first client uses their credit card to complete the transaction. They are requested by the machine to accept the sum after the X% charge has been added.
The processing charge is added once the transaction is completed. Your processing fees for the purchase are eliminated as a result.
The second consumer then completes their cash payment. The machine automatically deducts what would’ve been their credit processing fee from their bill. This is their cash discount.
What Do Customers Think About the Cash Discount Program?
Many buyers value the cash discount program because it allows them to save money when making product purchases. You can expect your patrons to spend more money on drinks and stay at your nightclub longer. It’s reasonable to conclude that the cash discount program is well-liked by its clientele.
Conclusion
Ideally, it is now apparent what a cash discount is and what it may signify for your nightclub.
You may decide whether or not a cash discount program is suitable for you by carefully weighing each of these aspects. Nevertheless, if you believe it to be the best option for your company and want to move forward, be sure to pick a good payment processing company. The best company will assist you in adequately implementing it and make the process as easy as possible.
If you are new to the subject, there are lots more articles in our payments media library.
Paul Martinez is the founder of EcomSidekick.com. He is an expert in the areas of finance, real estate, eCommerce, traffic and conversion.
Join him on EcomSidekick.com to learn how to improve your financial life and excel in these areas. Before starting this media site, Paul built from scratch and managed two multi-million dollar companies. One in the real estate sector and one in the eCommerce sector.