How to Accept Contactless Payments at Your Embroidery Store

Contactless payments are no longer a “nice to have” for U.S. retailers—they’re the default way many customers expect to pay. In 2025, contactless payments account for well over half of in-store digital transactions in the U.S., driven by the rise of NFC cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and tap-to-pay phones.

For an embroidery store, this shift is a huge opportunity. You’re often running a boutique retail location, taking special orders, setting up at craft fairs or bridal expos, or even selling from a small studio. 

Contactless payments help you ring up sales faster, look more professional, and offer a clean, modern checkout experience that matches the quality of your designs.

In this guide, we’ll walk through everything you need to know to accept contactless payments at your embroidery store—from the basics of how NFC and tap-to-pay work, to choosing hardware, setting up your system, staying secure, and using contactless payments to grow your business. The goal is a practical, U.S.-focused roadmap you can follow even if you’re not “techy” at all.

Understanding Contactless Payments (What They Are and How They Work)

Contactless payments let your customers pay by simply tapping or holding a card, phone, watch, or wearable near a reader—no swipe, chip insert, or physical signature required. 

Instead of reading the card through a magnetic stripe, the terminal uses Near Field Communication (NFC) or similar radio-frequency technology to securely exchange payment data.

Most contactless payments in the U.S. today happen in three ways: contactless credit/debit cards with the “wave” symbol, mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Wallet, and tap-to-pay through phones used as payment terminals. 

Digital wallets use tokenization, which means they never share the actual card number with your embroidery store. Instead, a unique, device-specific token and a one-time cryptogram are used to authorize each transaction. If a hacker intercepted the data, it would be useless for future purchases.

For you as an embroidery shop owner, contactless payments work almost the same way as chip cards at a high level. Your point-of-sale (POS) or terminal sends an encrypted payment request to your payment processor. 

The processor routes it through the card network (like Visa or Mastercard), gets approval from the customer’s bank, and returns an approved or declined status. The difference is speed and convenience: studies show contactless payments can cut transaction time by roughly 15 seconds per purchase compared with traditional methods.

You’ll often hear terms like “tap-to-pay,” “NFC payments,” “tap-to-mobile,” and “digital wallets.” These are all types of contactless payments. NFC is the underlying technology; tap-to-pay is the consumer behavior; digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Wallet, etc.) are apps that store and protect card data. 

As long as you have a contactless-enabled terminal or smartphone and the right merchant account or payment app, you can accept all of them with very little extra effort.

Why Contactless Payments Are Essential for Embroidery Stores in the U.S.

Contactless payments matter for every small retailer today, but embroidery stores feel the impact even more. You’re selling personalized items—monogrammed towels, custom hats, bridal robes, team jackets—that are often emotional, gift-driven purchases. 

Customers care about the experience as much as the product. A smooth, quick, modern checkout using contactless payments reinforces the perception that your shop is professional and trustworthy.

U.S. consumers have moved rapidly toward contactless payments since the pandemic, and that trend has only strengthened. Research shows contactless payments in the U.S. grew by around 150% between 2020 and 2022 and now represent a majority share of in-store card transactions.

On Mastercard’s network alone, more than two-thirds of in-person transactions are contactless, meaning that “tap” is now the default behavior for millions of cardholders.

For an embroidery shop, that means:

• Customers expect to tap. If your store doesn’t support contactless payments, you risk feeling outdated, especially to younger buyers and busy parents.
  
• You’ll move lines faster. Busy Saturdays, pre-holiday rushes, and bridal party pickups are less stressful when each transaction is seconds faster.
  
• You can sell anywhere. Pop-up events, craft fairs, flea markets, and in-office corporate embroidery demos become easier when you can take contactless payments from a compact terminal or directly from your phone.
  
• You reduce cash handling. Less cash means less time counting drawers, fewer trips to the bank, and lower risk of loss or theft.

Contactless payments also dovetail nicely with online orders for custom embroidery. Many modern systems let you issue pay-by-link invoices, accept digital wallet payments online, and then collect final balances in-store using contactless cards or phones. 

That unified experience helps customers feel like your brand is consistent and modern, no matter where they meet you.

Ultimately, accepting contactless payments is no longer just about being “tech forward.” It’s about meeting normal customer expectations, maximizing sales at every touchpoint, and staying competitive with larger retailers and national chains that already lean heavily on tap-to-pay technology.

Choosing the Right Contactless Payment Setup for Your Embroidery Shop

Selecting how you accept contactless payments is one of the most important decisions you’ll make. The right setup should match the way your embroidery store operates: in-store, on-site at events, or a mix of both. 

Your choices range from simple NFC countertop terminals to tap-to-pay solutions that run entirely on your smartphone. Each option has different costs, workflows, and benefits.

At a high level, most U.S. embroidery shops will choose between:

• Traditional EMV/NFC card terminals connected to a POS system
  
• Mobile card readers paired with tablets or smartphones
  
• Tap-to-pay on iPhone or Android (no extra hardware, just your phone)
  
• Online invoices, payment links, and QR codes for remote or custom orders

The “best” contactless payments setup depends on your ticket sizes, sales channels, and budget. If you run a full retail store with inventory tracking, you’ll gravitate toward a POS system with built-in NFC. 

If you mainly sell at markets or onsite corporate events, tap-to-pay on your phone might be ideal. If you do a lot of custom work with deposits and balances, you’ll want strong support for contactless payments plus invoicing and recurring billing.

As you compare providers, pay attention to:

• Supported networks and wallets (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Wallet, etc.)
  
• Pricing structure (flat rate vs. interchange-plus, card-present vs. keyed-in)
  
• Contract terms (month-to-month vs. multi-year, early termination fees)
  
• Chargeback support and risk tools
  
• Reporting, inventory, and customer data features

The sections below break down the main contactless payments options your embroidery store can consider and how each one fits into a typical embroidery workflow.

Traditional Countertop and Mobile NFC Terminals

Traditional countertop terminals are still the workhorses of U.S. retail—and almost all new terminals now support EMV chip and NFC contactless payments by default. These devices show the familiar contactless wave symbol and can accept taps from contactless cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other wallets.

For an embroidery store, a countertop NFC terminal works well if you have:

• A fixed checkout counter or cash wrap area
  
• Steady foot traffic throughout the week
  
• A POS system that tracks inventory (thread, blanks, apparel) and custom jobs

Your terminal can be connected via Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or sometimes cellular. Many systems also offer wireless handheld terminals that run over Wi-Fi or 4G/5G. 

These are great for walking around the shop, taking payments at a fitting area, or handling line-busting during busy periods. They’re also handy if your embroidery store doubles as a small workshop with limited counter space.

Key advantages of traditional contactless payments terminals for embroidery stores include reliability, fast transaction times, and broad compatibility with U.S. card networks. They support both standard contactless cards and wallets like Apple Pay, which your customers may prefer for added security and convenience.

However, these terminals can come with equipment costs or long-term leases. Make sure you understand whether you’re renting or buying, whether you’ll own the hardware at the end of your contract, and how easy it is to add or replace terminals as your embroidery business grows.

Tap-to-Pay on iPhone or Android (No Extra Hardware)

One of the biggest shifts in contactless payments for small businesses is tap-to-pay on smartphones. Solutions like Tap to Pay on iPhone let you accept contactless payments directly on a compatible iPhone—no extra reader or dongle required. 

The customer taps their contactless card or phone on your iPhone, and the transaction is processed securely through your payment app.

This is ideal for embroidery store owners who:

• Sell at craft fairs, pop-ups, school events, and markets
  
• Offer on-site embroidery at corporate events or fundraisers
  
• Want a backup contactless payments method if the main terminal goes down
  
• Prefer not to manage extra hardware or cables

To use tap-to-pay on iPhone, you’ll need:

• A compatible iPhone running the required iOS version (often iOS 17.4+ in 2025 for many apps)
  
• A supported payment app or POS app that has enabled Tap to Pay on iPhone
  
• A merchant account with that provider

Android tap-to-mobile solutions are also growing quickly. Visa’s Tap to Phone and similar services allow Android phones to act as contactless payment terminals using NFC, again with no separate card reader.

For embroidery stores, tap-to-pay on phones means you can turn every sales associate into a mobile checkout point. Imagine helping a customer build a custom design on the showroom floor and taking the deposit on the spot from your phone via contactless payments. That immediacy can close more sales and eliminate the friction of walking to a register.

Online Invoicing, Pay-by-Link, and QR Codes for Custom Orders

Contactless payments aren’t just about tapping a card in front of you. Modern systems blur the lines between in-person and remote payments, letting you send payment links or invoices that your customers can pay from their phones using digital wallets or cards.

For embroidery businesses that do a lot of custom work, this is huge. You can:

• Collect deposits before starting a large job
  
• Take final balance payments before pickup
  
• Allow customers to approve proofs and pay from anywhere
  
• Use QR codes on invoices, signs, or samples so customers can scan and pay instantly

Many payment platforms now allow links and invoices that support digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, which are technically still “contactless payments” in a broader sense because the customer doesn’t hand you a card or cash.

When paired with in-store contactless payments, pay-by-link and QR tools create a seamless experience: your customer can discover you on social media, pay a deposit online, then tap their phone to pay the balance in your embroidery shop. 

This blended approach is particularly effective for bridal parties, corporate logo orders, and sports teams ordering embroidered uniforms or spirit wear.

Setting Up Contactless Payments Step by Step

Getting started with contactless payments at your embroidery store doesn’t need to be overwhelming. You can break it into clear stages: choosing a provider, setting up the merchant account, configuring hardware/software, and training your team. Done right, you’ll be ready to accept tap-to-pay transactions in a matter of days, not weeks.

The exact steps will vary by provider, but most embroidery shops will follow a similar flow. First, you’ll decide whether to use a traditional merchant account (often through a payments specialist) or an all-in-one payment service provider (PSP) that bundles hardware, contactless payments software, and processing into one package. 

Then you’ll activate contactless features on your terminal or smartphone app, run test transactions, and set up procedures for refunds, tips, and receipts.

You’ll also need to think about how contactless payments fit into your embroidery workflow: when you collect deposits, how you handle balance payments, whether you accept partial payments, and how you record everything in your accounting system. 

The next subsections outline the steps in more detail so you can set up contactless payments in a structured, confident way.

Get a Merchant Account or Payment Service Provider

Your first major decision is choosing who processes your contactless payments. In the U.S., you normally have two main paths:

1. Traditional merchant account through a payments provider or ISO/MSP
   
2. All-in-one PSP (like many POS apps or small-business payment platforms)

A merchant account is a dedicated account that temporarily holds your card transaction funds before they settle to your business bank account. Traditional merchant accounts often give you more control over pricing (especially interchange-plus pricing) and may offer better support for specialized industries or higher-volume embroidery operations. 

In many cases, they work seamlessly with NFC terminals and tap-to-pay solutions, so you can handle contactless payments without switching providers.

PSPs typically provide:

• Out-of-the-box contactless payments via terminals or phones
  
• A bundled flat-rate processing fee (e.g., a fixed % + cents per transaction)
  
• A branded POS app for inventory, receipts, and customer tracking

For a typical embroidery store, here’s how to choose:

• If you’re just starting or have low volume, a PSP might be the simplest and fastest way to start accepting contactless payments in your shop.
  
• If you’re already doing solid monthly volume or expect to grow, a merchant account with a more customizable pricing structure can keep your payment costs lower as you scale.
  
• Always compare card-present vs. card-not-present pricing, since contactless in-person payments are card-present, while pay-by-link and keyed-in orders are card-not-present and often cost more.

Whichever path you choose, make sure the provider supports the key contactless features your embroidery business needs: NFC for tap-to-pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay acceptance, and ideally tap-to-mobile if you want to accept contactless payments on your phone.

Configure Your POS for Contactless Credit Cards and Digital Wallets

Once your account is approved, your next step is to turn on contactless payments features in your POS or payment app and configure your hardware. Most modern systems ship with contactless enabled by default, but it’s worth confirming.

Typical configuration steps for an embroidery store include:

• Activating NFC in terminal settings so your device will accept tap from cards and phones.
  
• Pairing terminals with your POS tablet or computer via Ethernet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
  
• Enabling digital wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay in your merchant portal if they require an opt-in.
  
• Setting up receipts and tip prompts, which matter if you do embroidery on garments while customers wait or offer related services like alterations.
  
• Configuring sales tax based on your U.S. state and local rules so all contactless payments are taxed correctly.

If you’re using tap-to-pay on iPhone or Android, you’ll activate that feature inside the app. Tap-to-pay flows usually look like this:

1. Open your payment or POS app.
   
2. Add items or enter the amount.
   
3. Tap “Charge” or “Card.”
   
4. Select the tap-to-pay option.
   
5. Present your phone so the customer can tap their card or device.

Once your POS is configured, run a few test contactless transactions (with low amounts) using your own card or a staff member’s card. Confirm that the receipts show the right business name, tax breakdown, and line items. 

This step is especially important before a busy sales weekend or major local event where you’ll rely heavily on contactless payments.

Testing, Staff Training, and Creating a Smooth Checkout Flow

Even the best contactless payments system can feel clunky if your staff isn’t comfortable using it. Training is critical in an embroidery store, where employees may juggle sales, design consultations, and production tasks.

Start by teaching your team the basics of contactless payments:

• How to recognize the contactless symbol on cards and terminals
  
• How to initiate a tap-to-pay transaction
  
• How to prompt customers politely: “You can tap your card or phone right here.”
  
• What to do if contactless doesn’t work (e.g., ask the customer to insert the chip)

Then layer in embroidery-specific workflows:

• How to take non-refundable deposits for custom jobs with contactless payments
  
• How to apply partial payments and track balances in your POS
  
• How to process refunds and re-runs if a stitch-out doesn’t meet expectations
  
• How to handle tips if you offer on-the-spot personalization or creative services

Simulate real scenarios during training: a bridal party placing a large monogram order, a parent ordering team jackets, or a walk-in customer having a name added to a robe while they wait. Run through how each transaction works using contactless payments so staff can practice.

Finally, think about the physical flow in your shop. Place your terminal or phone so customers can easily reach it to tap their card or wallet. If you use a counter, angle the screen or display to avoid awkward stretching. 

Clear signage such as “We Accept Contactless Payments, Apple Pay, and Google Pay” reassures customers and encourages them to tap instead of pulling out cash.

Security, Compliance, and Risk Management for Contactless Payments

Security is one of the biggest questions small businesses have about contactless payments. The good news is that properly configured contactless payments are generally as secure or more secure than traditional chip transactions, thanks to tokenization, strong encryption, and biometric authentication in phones and watches.

For an embroidery store, the main risks are less about the technology itself and more about how you manage your environment. You’ll need to keep terminals updated, follow PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) guidelines, and have clear procedures for handling disputes and chargebacks. 

Because you sell customized items, chargebacks can be particularly painful; a good process can help you avoid losing money on jobs you’ve already stitched.

The key things to focus on are:

• Ensuring your payment provider and hardware are PCI-compliant
  
• Using tokenization and encryption for contactless payments
  
• Protecting access to your POS system and merchant portal
  
• Training staff to spot suspicious behavior and potential fraud
  
• Keeping thorough records (proofs, order forms, signed approvals) for custom orders

By pairing the inherent security of contactless payments with good store policies, you can significantly reduce your risk while still offering a frictionless checkout experience.

PCI Compliance, Tokenization, and Encryption Basics

PCI DSS is the industry standard that defines how businesses must handle cardholder data. The good news is that if you use a modern contactless payments solution that keeps card data out of your local systems, your PCI scope can be relatively small. 

Your terminals or tap-to-pay phones encrypt sensitive data and send it directly to the processor, so your embroidery shop never stores raw card numbers.

Tokenization is especially important for digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. When a customer adds their card to a wallet, the issuer replaces the real card number with a token. 

Each contactless payment uses that token plus a unique, one-time cryptogram, making it nearly impossible for thieves to reuse intercepted data.

For your embroidery store, here’s what this means in practice:

• Choose a payments provider that handles PCI responsibilities, offers PCI-validated devices, and guides you through any required self-assessment questionnaires.
  
• Avoid writing down or storing card numbers anywhere in your shop. If a customer wants to keep a card “on file,” use your provider’s secure vault feature instead of a manual workaround.
  
• Keep all contactless payments devices updated with the latest firmware and security patches.
  
• Restrict access to your POS and merchant portal with unique logins and strong passwords for each employee, not shared credentials.

When you rely on a secure, modern contactless payments platform, you benefit from their investment in encryption, fraud monitoring, and compliance. This lets you focus on what you do best—creating beautiful embroidery—without becoming a cybersecurity expert.

Preventing Chargebacks and Fraud in a Custom-Order Business

Custom embroidery stores face a unique twist on payment risk: once you’ve personalized an item, it’s often not resellable. If a customer disputes a contactless payment after you’ve finished stitching, you can lose both the product and the money. 

That’s why chargeback prevention should be part of your contactless payments strategy from day one.

Here are practical steps tailored to embroidery:

• Always capture detailed order information in your POS: colors, fonts, placement, spelling, and any special instructions. Attach photos or digital mockups when possible.
  
• Have customers approve proofs—digitally or on paper—before you start stitching. Save those approvals in your system and link them to the contactless payment.
  
• Make your refund and remake policy very clear at checkout and on receipts: for example, no refunds on personalized items, but reasonable remakes if the mistake is yours.
  
• Use clear, consistent business descriptors so customers recognize your store name when they see contactless payments on their bank statements; confusing descriptors are a common chargeback trigger.
  
• If you ship embroidered items, always use tracking and delivery confirmation.

On the technology side, many contactless payments providers offer built-in fraud tools and dispute support. Some combine AI-based monitoring and behavioral analysis to flag unusual patterns and reduce false declines while still blocking suspicious activity.

By combining strong documentation with the security features of contactless payments, you put yourself in a much better position to win disputes and avoid costly losses on customized embroidery orders.

Using Contactless Payments to Grow Your Embroidery Business

Contactless payments aren’t just about how customers pay—they can directly help you sell more, move lines faster, and create more memorable experiences. 

When you no longer worry about fumbling with cash or waiting on slow chip readers, you can focus on what actually drives embroidery sales: personal service, creative ideas, and thoughtful upsells.

A modern contactless payments setup gives you:

• Faster checkouts, which reduce walk-aways and abandoned baskets
  
• More opportunities to upsell and cross-sell at the counter
  
• New channels like mobile events, pop-up shops, and trunk shows
  
• Better customer data and loyalty opportunities through digital receipts and wallet passes

The following subsections dive into specific ways you can use contactless payments to grow revenue in your embroidery store, not just accept money more conveniently.

Faster Checkout, Upsells, and In-Store Experience

Every second counts at checkout—especially when customers are on lunch breaks, wrangling kids, or juggling other errands. Studies show that contactless payments can significantly reduce transaction time compared with cash or traditional chip cards, which makes customers feel like your store respects their time.

For an embroidery shop, a faster checkout powered by contactless payments creates opportunities:

• Upsell blanks and add-ons. While your customer taps to pay, your associate can suggest matching items: “Since we’re embroidering this towel, did you want a matching washcloth set?”
  
• Offer rush fees or premium upgrades. Contactless payments make it easy to add small extra charges for rush orders, metallic thread, or specialty patches on the fly.
  
• Capture email or SMS consent for order updates and promotions on the receipt screen. This builds your marketing list every time you accept contactless payments.

You can also use contactless to enhance the overall vibe of your embroidery shop. Sleek terminals or tap-to-pay phones look modern and professional, which reassures customers they’re dealing with a serious business—important when they’re trusting you with wedding robes, baby blankets, or heirloom items.

Shorter lines and smoother payments also reduce staff stress. When your team isn’t fighting with finicky chip readers or making changes, they’re freer to answer questions about fonts, placements, and color combinations, which directly influences how much customers spend.

Selling at Events, Pop-Ups, and Mobile Locations

Many embroidery businesses expand revenue by selling at events: craft fairs, school fundraisers, company parties, local festivals, and sports tournaments. Contactless payments are critical in these environments because customers don’t want to hold up the line while digging for exact change or signing paper receipts.

Tap-to-pay on phones or lightweight NFC terminals let you accept contactless payments almost anywhere you have a decent cellular signal. You can:

• Take on-site orders for later pickup, collecting a deposit via contactless payments and emailing an invoice for the balance.
  
• Offer live personalization where customers choose a name or phrase and watch you embroider it; you can accept payment up front with tap-to-pay so you’re not chasing people later.
  
• Sell ready-made embroidered items—like hats or tote bags—with prices that encourage impulse buys. Contactless payments make those impulse decisions easier to act on.

Because contactless payments are now widely adopted in U.S. cities and tourist areas, event shoppers often assume vendors will accept tap-to-pay. If you’re one of the few embroidery booths that doesn’t, you risk losing sales to competitors who do.

Always test your contactless payments setup before an event. Make sure your devices are charged, your cellular or Wi-Fi plan is solid, and you have a backup (like a second phone or a battery pack) in case something goes wrong. 

With good preparation, you can treat each event as a mobile extension of your embroidery store, powered by the same secure contactless payments tools you use every day.

Loyalty, Email Capture, and Marketing Tied to Digital Payments

One of the biggest under-used advantages of contactless payments is the data they unlock. When customers pay through modern contactless systems, you can often tie each transaction to a profile, a visit history, and—if they consent—an email or SMS contact.

For an embroidery store, this unlocks powerful marketing opportunities:

• Loyalty programs that track spend and reward frequent buyers, sports teams, or corporate clients
  
• Special offers delivered via email to customers who recently paid for embroidery, such as discounts on matching items or seasonal designs
  
• Digital wallets pass or loyalty cards stored in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, reminding customers of your brand every time they open their phone.

Because contactless payments already feel modern and tech-forward, customers are often more open to digital receipts and loyalty sign-ups at the same time. A simple script like “Would you like your receipt by email and occasional embroidery promos?” can turn each tap into a future marketing touchpoint.

Over time, you can segment your contactless payments data to see trends—what’s popular for baby showers vs. corporate gifts, which monogram styles are most profitable, and which events generate the highest average order value. That insight makes your next marketing campaign smarter, not just louder.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q.1: Do I Really Need Contactless Payments if My Embroidery Shop Is Small?

Answer: Even if your embroidery store is small—or home-based—contactless payments are still worth implementing. In 2025, contactless transactions are mainstream across the U.S., with more than half of in-store digital transactions being tap-based in many markets. 

Customers who regularly tap to pay at grocery stores, coffee shops, and big-box retailers expect the same convenience from boutique businesses like yours.

From a practical standpoint, contactless payments give your small embroidery shop several advantages: faster checkouts, less cash handling, and a more professional image. 

You don’t need a huge budget to benefit; inexpensive NFC terminals or tap-to-pay on phones make it easy for even one-person embroidery studios to accept contactless payments at a cutting-edge standard. Many providers offer simple, no-monthly-fee plans where you only pay when you process a transaction.

Contactless payments are also about future-proofing your business. As younger generations age into your target market, they’re bringing their mobile-first habits with them. 

Studies show that millennials and Gen Z strongly prefer contactless payments over cash. If you don’t offer tap-to-pay, you risk feeling out of touch with the very customers most likely to buy trendy, personalized embroidery.

Finally, contactless payments give you more flexibility to grow. Once you’ve set them up, you can easily sell at events, pop-ups, or in shared retail spaces without reinventing your checkout process. 

That agility can make the difference between staying small and discovering profitable new revenue streams for your embroidery brand.

Q.2: How Much Do Contactless Payments Cost Compared with Swiped or Keyed Cards?

Answer: The cost of accepting contactless payments depends on your provider and pricing model, but in most cases, in-person contactless transactions are priced similarly to EMV chip transactions—and cheaper than keyed or manually entered cards. 

Processors and card networks treat contactless card taps as “card-present” transactions, which generally carry lower risk and therefore lower interchange fees than card-not-present payments.

If you’re using a flat-rate PSP, you’ll often see the same published rate for all card-present payments, whether they’re chip or contactless. Keyed-in and online payments usually cost more. 

If you have a traditional merchant account with interchange-plus pricing, you’ll typically pay a small markup over the underlying card network interchange, which is similar for EMV chip and contactless card-present transactions.

The biggest hidden cost is often not contactless payments themselves but sticking with inefficient methods. Slow chip readers can create longer lines, causing walk-aways during busy times. 

Cash handling adds labor for reconciliations and bank runs. Manual, keyed-in transactions for phone orders are both slower and more expensive. By moving more of your embroidery store’s volume to contactless payments, you can reduce these indirect costs while giving customers the payment experience they already prefer.

To keep costs as low as possible:

• Ask providers for transparent pricing on card-present vs. card-not-present transactions.
  
• Avoid unnecessary monthly minimums or long-term terminal leases where possible.
  
• Route as many sales as you can through in-person contactless payments rather than over-the-phone or manual entries.

Over time, you’ll likely find that the efficiency and sales boost from contactless payments far outweigh the modest processing fees.

Q.3: Are Apple Pay and Google Pay Safe for My Customers and My Business?

Answer: Yes—when implemented correctly with a reputable provider, Apple Pay and Google Pay are among the safest ways to accept contactless payments at your embroidery store. These wallets use multiple security layers to protect both your customers and your business.

On the customer side, Apple Pay and Google Pay:

• Replace the card number with a token that’s useless if stolen.
  
• Generate a unique, one-time cryptogram for each contactless payment.
  
• Require device-level security like Face ID, Touch ID, or PIN to authorize payments.

On your side as the merchant, this means:

• You never see or store the actual card number when accepting these contactless payments.
  
• If a phone is lost or stolen, the user can remotely disable the wallet, and their bank doesn’t need to reissue the physical card in many cases.
  
• Fraud rates for tokenized wallets are typically lower than for magnetic stripe or manually keyed transactions.

To keep everything safe, make sure your contactless payments setup is fully supported and certified by your provider, and that your staff never tries to “work around” the system (for example, by manually storing card data). 

As long as you use approved terminals or tap-to-pay solutions, Apple Pay and Google Pay will plug into the same secure processing rails as your other card transactions—with some extra security benefits thanks to tokenization and biometric checks.

Q.4: What If My Internet Goes Down—Can I Still Take Contactless Payments?

Answer: Internet dependence is a valid concern for any small retailer, including embroidery shops. Many contactless payments solutions do require a live connection to process transactions in real time. 

However, there are ways to mitigate outages and keep your business running even when Wi-Fi or broadband has issues.

Some terminals and mobile contactless payments apps support “offline mode” or store-and-forward. In this setup, the terminal temporarily stores approved transactions locally when the connection is down and then submits them once connectivity returns. 

There’s still some risk—if a card is declined later, you may not find out until after the fact—but for small, low-risk purchases, this can be a useful safety net.

For embroidery stores where orders can be large and personalized, you might choose a more cautious approach:

• Use dual connectivity (Ethernet plus Wi-Fi, or Wi-Fi plus 4G/5G backup) where possible.
  
• Have a mobile hotspot ready so you can switch your POS or terminal to a backup connection if your primary internet fails.
  
• In rare cases where you must proceed without connectivity, consider accepting deposits only via offline contactless payments and finalizing the rest when you’re back online.

The key is to talk with your payment provider about how their contactless payments devices behave in outage scenarios. With good planning, you can minimize downtime and avoid turning away customers just because of a temporary network issue.

Conclusion

Contactless payments have moved from “emerging trend” to everyday reality in U.S. retail, and embroidery stores are perfectly positioned to benefit. 

With tap-to-pay cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and tap-to-mobile smartphone solutions now widely available, it’s easier than ever to accept secure, fast, and convenient contactless payments from your customers—whether they’re buying a single monogrammed towel or outfitting an entire bridal party.

By choosing the right setup for your embroidery business, configuring your POS and devices, training your staff, and building solid security and chargeback practices, you can turn contactless payments into a strategic advantage. 

You’ll reduce friction at checkout, unlock new sales channels like events and pop-ups, and create a modern, polished experience that matches the craftsmanship of your embroidery work.

Most importantly, contactless payments help you stay aligned with how customers already prefer to pay. As tap-to-pay becomes the default across more and more transactions, embroidery stores that embrace contactless payments will feel current, convenient, and trustworthy—while those that cling to older methods risk being left behind.

If you start now—one terminal, one tap-to-pay phone, one event at a time—you’ll build a payment experience that’s as impressive as the designs you stitch, and set your embroidery brand up for long-term growth in a contactless, digital-first world.