As PCI standards have become more stringent, there’s been some hesitation from retailers and restaurant owners. Ensuring your business is compliant can be expensive, and the standards have been a relatively mobile target over the years. One of the big ones on the horizon is table-side payment, which can be a tremendous cost, including mobile computers and software to take payment.

But the upside is your customers can be certain that their card isn’t being compromised, like in this KIRO article of a Red Robin employee skimming cards and then making major purchases with the card data. If you don’t feel like checking out the nitty gritty of the article, the employee had a secondary card reader, probably something that paired with her phone or maybe a custom built device to batch store card data. When she’d ring up the customers, she’d also swipe the card in the device and have all the info needed to perform online purchases.

This is usually the portion of the post where I talk about the great products that make it easy to have table-side payment. And there are some options available, such as the Motorola MC40, or mobile card readers for iOS & Android devices. But the big thing is that these kind of situations can cause problems for business owners, such as an increase in liability insurance, or increased processing fees. So while meeting PCI standards can have a steep initial investment, in the long term you are definitely going to save money and provide a safer and better experience for your customers.

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