For many small-business owners in the US, a necessary shift to digital payments

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Comma Bookstore and Social Hub, three years ago in Flint, Michigan, the pandemic was full blown. But her neighbors welcomed the literature and art she sold in her store that celebrated people of color, as well as the community programs she hosted. Despite the warm reception, Otis quickly found that she had a sales problem: Her customers wanted to pay with their cellphones.

“I realized that people were hardly keeping a wallet or a physical card, which limited my ability to sell and make money,” Otis said. So she upgraded her transactions platform to include tap-and-go purchases on mobile devices. “People are not carrying cash,” she said.

“It’s becoming obsolete.” The number of Americans who say they are “cashless” has jumped in the last five years; 41% of Americans said they did not use cash for their purchases in a typical week in 2022, up from 29% in 2018, according to a Pew Research Center survey released last October. Small-business owners increasingly are making the switch to cashless payments for several reasons, including rising consumer demand, faster checkout, lower labor costs and increased security. Those who wait risk losing revenue, experts say.

But there are drawbacks to going cash-free, including a learning curve for entrepreneurs who may not understand how to set up digital payments, a lack of accessibility to credit cards for low-income consumers, and privacy concerns.Juanny Romero was an early adopter of digital payments for her small business. Fifteen years ago, when she founded Mothership Coffee Roasters, a chain of coffee shops in Las Vegas, she began using Square, a low-cost digital payments system for small businesses. “I was a young businesswoman and not astute,” she said.