But wait….. there’s more – how to implement payment plans for your product
We get enquiries from many different business owners about our payment solutions. They suspect that we might be able to help them but don’t really know where to start and what the adoption of a payment plan type set-up might look like. The truth is, payment plans have been around for years. From placing a surfboard on lay-by when I was young to buying a set of steak knives from Tim Shaw, payment plans have been a simple and easy to implement strategy to make products more affordable. PeopleHub’s direct debit system can make payment plans a real option for your business. Below I’ll tackle some of the regular question.
How do I make sure I get paid?
You will note from a previous post on avoiding the pitfalls of direct debit that there are some risks of providing direct debit to your clients. There are a couple of strategies that you implement as part of your payment plan or lay-by system.
1 – Don’t provide the product until you have received full payment. This is obvious I know, but with the proliferation of rent to own products, many products are provided upfront with payment collected over a period
Customer Relationships – what are “terms of trade?”
There are a multitude of small business transactions carried out daily without a piece of paper being signed. These are small exchanges where the goods or services are provided and payment is made at the same time. In most cases, these transactions pass without event. There may be instances where the product has a fault or the consumer believes the product does not meet its advertised standard. The Trade Practices Act provides the legislative tool to manage these instances when they arise.
At PeopleHub, most of our clientele are either providing a service at a discounted price in return for the consumer guaranteeing their custom for an extended period of time (for example a gym membership) or alternatively they have provided a physical product and are collecting payment for this product over time (for instance a coffee machine). These long term customer relationships, while also covered by the Trade Practices Act, generally involve some form of contract or terms of trade.
What are terms of trade you might ask? It is simply a contract between you and your customer which sets out the rules for the purchase of the goods or services. It spells out the obligations of each party