I Can't Be Right All of the Time!
In 2010, I said I was tired of leaving money on the table and was going to start using a credit card that earned reward points to pay manufacturers. This has worked out really well for us. While not all manufacturers accept credit card payments, there are enough to make this very worthwhile. In fact, it worked so well that a representative from American Express called me last week to encourage me to use it with other suppliers. He suggested a few areas I might not have thought about and here is what I found.
1. We can pay for all of our television advertising with AmEx. We don’t do print advertising. If you do, see if they will accept a credit card.
2. We can pay for our property, liability, and flood insurance with the card. We can’t pay our hospitalization premiums, though. Maybe yours accepts cards. Worth a try.
3. AT&T accepts credit card payments. I didn’t realize how big this would be until my office manager reminded me that we are billed for our yellow pages advertising on that bill.
4. We can pay many of our taxes by card. This includes property taxes and we are looking into sales taxes.
Paying with credit cards hasn't been all milk and honeyI didn’t realize, when we first started doing this, how hard it would be to reconcile our payments and invoices with my AmEx statement. Some payments and charges were made in different AmEx cycles even though we made them within a 30 day period. Finally decided to make sure all charges and payments were made before the end of one cycle. Much easier to reconcile, now.
I also said this would add a few days or weeks to whatever terms the vendor gave us. We decided that was a slippery slope and don’t take advantage of that. We pay AmEx the week we use the card to pay a supplier.
In 2010 and 2011 I told you that we were incorporating iPads into our daily business. In 2010, we took baby steps by loading PDF versions of catalogs and price lists on our iPads. Honestly, this has been a mixed bag. We went to a lot of trouble getting PDF versions of catalogs and price lists only to find that many vendors were putting their catalogs on their web sites. Since we can use an iPad to connect to their web site, we were duplicating efforts. It does help to have price lists on iPads, though.
In 2011, I told you we upgraded our POS system so that we can check inventory on our iPads while talking to a customer. This has been the best thing since sliced bread. In addition, vendors like Summer Classics and Lane Venture have enabled live inventory on their web sites. Not only can we tell a consumer what we have in stock, we can tell them how long it would take to get merchandise from those two vendors.
We tried to get to the point where we could write invoices and orders on our iPads. That hasn’t worked out well. The software developer has never gotten a satisfactory system up and running for us. In addition, writing an order or invoice requires a lot of data input. While the iPad touch screen keyboard is good for a little data entry, it doesn’t lend itself to that much typing. However, the part of the system that allow us to look up previous customer purchases on our iPad works and has also become indispensable.
In several past blogs, I have talked about what is selling and what isn’t. I don’t think anyone will be surprised that infrared patio heaters didn’t work out for me this year. Wouldn’t you know it; as soon as I decided to get into the category, we had the warmest winter on record! How’s that for luck? On the other hand, I was right about sectionals. Can’t keep them in stock. Contemporary and traditional outdoor wicker sell best. Finally, I may not have been the first to predict it; but, Driftwood has become the new Forest Green.
Yours in confused retailing, Bruce
Irma commented:
It depends if its a cleooctilns account. Collection account report on your credit for 7 years from the date of last activity. So if you have a cleooctilns with $10k and you did not make any type of payments to them, when your reach the 7 year mark it needs to come off of your credit. Now lets say you had it for 6 years and you make a payment to the collection company even for 1 dollar, your 7 years starts from the day you sent in the payment. I hope I made it clear for you.
Louie commented:
you have a bcaanle of $2000 and you pay back $1999 1 day before it is due then the credit card company will charge you interest on the FULL $2000 despite there only being $1 bcaanle the day it was due..the reason is because you didnt pay your full bcaanle of $2000 so they are going to charge you for ALL of it ..greedy sonsbyatches but that is how it works.If you were charged interest in one month because you didnt pay your full bcaanle and then you start paying your bcaanle in full the following month then you are likely to see "residual itnerest" charge since it is interest carried over from the previous month..so it actually takes 2-months of paying your bcaanle in full before you stop seeing interest being charged.Oh, and dont try to be eager to pay your bcaanle in full so fast .remember you have a grace period yuo could be using your money somewhere else like earning high-interest For me, i never pay back my statement bcaanle until the day before but of course, i have automated withdrawals set up online for my credit card to auto take out the money from my bank on the day before it is due .this maximizes the amount of time i can use my money on other things if i did an online payment to my credit card it is possible it could take up to 3-business days to get to my credit card which is not efficient .i use to do it that way .Hope these tips help.And btw, don't listen to the responder above about destroying credit cards As long as you are responsible it is a strong benefit to have them. If you keep up your responsibility of paying back and using you build a credit history and improve your credit score which helps for other things in life like buying a house or a car .its like a report card of how responsible you are with money for the rest of the world .the more responsible the more trustworthy you become when you attempt to get credit in other things in life. It's important when you get older. I'm still young but have a killa credit score!
Enny commented:
Everyone. Here's how you fix itTake that ciedrt card and cut it up.CALL THEM and cancel the account.Don't just stop using it because they are currently working on a new penalty charge for NOT USING your card.They WILL get the message when 40 million people call them up and say NO.They wont have a choice but to fix it.When your? money stops flowing into their pockets. They will hear you.No violence. No weapons. No lawyers.Just stop using the card and they WILL FOLDEasy as that.
Keith Guidry commented:
Bruce,
You are the right person for writing blogs! Your ideas and ingenuity are refreshing and profound! Keep up the good work!!!
