In the world of business, of course merchants are familiar. Merchant is something that has a strong relationship with trade where the merchant is very closely related to business processes in the field of trade.
Even merchants are people who carry out trade or in short merchants are merchants themselves. Traders are a very basic thing where traders themselves are a mandatory condition for trading.
Without a trader or merchant, there will not be any trade transactions because the conditions for the occurrence of the trade itself are traders, customers and goods being traded.
But merchants themselves have a lot of understanding and quite a lot of divisions which you need to understand if you want to open a business. The following will explain about merchants or merchants. Read on to find out more.
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What are Merchants?
Maybe some of you, especially those of you who are beginners and unfamiliar with terms in the world of trade and business, still don’t understand what a merchant is.
Even though the merchant is a very important component that is needed in the trading process and the business process itself. And this is also mandatory for beginners to learn because it is a basic thing.
Merchant is an individual or group that becomes a business actor as a seller of goods or services from a business. And usually many define that line as business actors who have physical shops or shops in the form of online shops. The difference between the two merchants is the payment system or transactions that take place in the buying and selling process.
Merchant Category
Merchants or merchants have several categories. There are two types of merchant categories, namely:
1. Individual Merchants
Individual merchants are merchants whose traders buy and sell without any regulation from a legal entity in it. So that the nature of merchants is free and more controllable by each, because they have no connection in the field of law.
And when a violation occurs, the resolution of the violation can only be resolved alone and not brought to court. So that if you experience a loss or fraud, it is very unlikely to get it back.
2. Legal Entity Merchants
In contrast to legal entity merchants where these merchants have strong ties to the law.
The form of legal connection with merchants is that there are many regulations in the buying and selling process or the ongoing trading process. Merchants with legal entities will bring the problem to court if there is a violation of the law.
So it can be concluded from the two categories above that individual merchants and legal entity merchants have their respective advantages and disadvantages.
By using individual merchants, the trades that occur will be easier and more practical compared to legal entity merchants. Individual merchants can do this freely according to their own will and it is easier and more practical to use because they are not bound by quite complicated laws.
However, by using these individual merchants, if there is a violation in the form of fraud or something else, it will be borne by themselves and it will be more difficult to bring it to legal circles so that if a loss occurs it will be more difficult to get the money back.
Unlike the case with legal entity merchants which are indeed quite complicated to do because they have a lot of requirements in the trading and buying and selling process. Everything in this legal entity merchant has a strong connection with the law so that any matters will be anticipated in a legal way which requires conditions that are actually easy but quite complicated to do.
Besides that, by using this type of merchant, it will be easy to attract problems to court if violations occur in the buying and selling process. So that this will minimize quite a lot of losses that occur because of a matter related to the law, it will be safer and more secure.
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How Merchants Work
After knowing what a merchant is and the merchant category you need to know how merchants work.
Merchant’s way of working is the same as other shops where the merchant’s way of working is selling or serving consumers by using systems and rules that are in accordance with the rules or regulations set by the bank used by the seller or the merchant himself.
As for more details, how the merchant works is as follows.
1. Business License Registration
The first thing that must be done is that a seller or merchant must register himself or register his business with obligated parties by using the necessary data such as identification cards, licenses, and so on which will later be stored in the official company database. .
Then after registering, the seller must agree to all the terms and conditions that apply at the merchant itself. By agreeing to all applicable terms and conditions, the business actor will state that he is willing to cooperate with the merchant.
2. List of Online Stores
Create an online store where the store is useful as a medium in promoting and marketing products online by including discounts and using virtual currency or commonly known as e-money or non-cash payment instruments .
You can also use the online shop business application to manage sales transactions for all marketplaces in one application with complete features, from managing customers, recording sales, financial reports, and inventory.
3. Transaction Process
The third stage of the merchant’s way of working is to process transactions between sellers and buyers by sending products that match the items desired and purchased by the customer or customer.
The type of item, color, quantity desired or purchased, and shipping costs are mutually agreed upon by both parties. Both from the seller and from the buyer. That way, both of them will feel comfortable and satisfied in making buying and selling transactions by mutually benefiting.
Sellers get benefits in the form of money while buyers get benefits in the form of getting the goods needed or desired.
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Merchant’s Purpose
The purpose of a merchant is to increase profits and also the value of a business by expanding the market reach of the products being sold. By expanding the market reach, customers will also increase and in this way, more transactions will occur.
The main goal of the merchant is indeed to seek as much profit as possible by expanding market reach. Because if the market reach is wider, the number of requests will also increase and thus the goods or products from the business will sell more and more because of the large number of requests.
Because a large number of requests will be more profitable for the seller than the large number of offers. Because with a large number of requests it can trigger an increase in the amount of production which with more production and more goods sold, the profits obtained by a company will also be even greater.
Advantages of Being a Merchant
Being a merchant is something to be proud of because it has advantages that are not owned by ordinary sellers or traders.
They have a wider market reach, so the percentage of profits that merchants get will be greater than the profits that normal sellers get.
By becoming a merchant, the advantages you will get will be greater and your business will also be more secure in terms of quality, security and other aspects. Becoming a merchant is not something that is very easy, but it is also not something that is difficult to do if you intend to become a merchant frequently.
The advantages of being a merchant are as follows.
1. Accepts credit cards
Merchants are people who are oriented towards making use of technology, namely the online buying and selling method. The advantage of being a merchant is having and accepting debit cards or credit cards.
Because many buying and selling transactions themselves use e-money, credit cards and debit cards are the main things that a merchant must have.
The right of a merchant is to accept credit cards. Which is by registering yourself as a merchant, you will receive a credit card that can be used for your business capital.
In addition, you can use this credit card to process buying and selling transactions from the business itself. That way for those of you who don’t want to have a debit card, you can use the credit card as a means of transaction.
Because a merchant is a technique that aims to facilitate and bring together sellers and buyers to carry out the buying and selling process and make transactions in it easily.
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2. Increase sales of a product
The advantage of a merchant is that it can increase the percentage of sales of a product. Because the ex itself has a market network that is wide enough so that it can attract more customers compared to selling with the usual techniques. In addition, a merchant is a sales technique that uses a credit card or debit card as a transaction in buying and selling.
We know that sales using transactions in the form of credit cards or debit cards have more opportunities than transactions using cash. Because in this day and age people are more likely to like using credit cards and debit cards because they are considered more practical than using cash.
So, what you get from the merchant technique is that the chances of selling several products will be greater than using the usual buying and selling technique.
3. Money management just got easier
As previously explained, a merchant is a buying and selling technique where transactions use a credit card or debit card. This merchant technique is to avoid potential errors in calculating turnover or other finances in the buying and selling business.
Merchant is an easy buying and selling technique based on online or in person using a transaction system in the form of a debit card or credit card. By using e-money, it is very unlikely that a calculation error will occur. Money will also be safer if it is in the savings. So we can know that the merchant is a very profitable buying and selling technique.
Business financial management can also be monitored directly using accounting software , a complete and integrated financial transaction management solution.
4. Avoid counterfeit money
As explained above, merchants are buying and selling techniques based on online or in person payment methods that use transactions in the form of credit cards or debit cards. By using transactions in the form of credit cards or debit cards, transactions will be safer and there will be no fraud behind this merchant transaction.
Because the transactions used by merchants are transactions through banks, so there will be no counterfeit money that will become an income turnover from buying and selling. Where counterfeit money is definitely very detrimental because it is one of the frauds that is prone to occur if the transactions used by merchants are cash transactions.
5. Merchant is a solution for customer convenience
Merchant is a solution for the convenience of customers where merchant buying and selling techniques are buying and selling techniques that are online or face-to-face based.
Merchants are the only technique that can make customer complaints comfortable because they can transact with the flexibility of using various payment methods using a credit card or debit card.
Merchants are buying and selling techniques that can make customers feel easy in the buying and selling process. Actually, it’s not only customers who find it easy, merchants also make it easier for sellers to market and promote their products as well as make it easier for sellers to process transactions.
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Because the merchant is a buying and selling technique that makes it easy for both parties to carry out the buying and selling process, especially in the transaction.
In addition, the advantages obtained from merchants are greater profits, getting credit cards, customers feel comfortable, wider market reach, increasing product sales, and so on.
Merchant is a buying and selling technique that might be difficult for beginners to do. But for those of you who want to try it, you can use a trusted payment management system to create and manage merchants.