Credit Cards - Methods to accept them

[harryn]

Hi,

I have two main clients. One pays via a wire transfer (international) and the other pays by check. This works fine so far.

A third (new) client wishes to pay by credit card, and there are very good reasons for them to pay this way and for me to accept the payment using this method.

Question - What are your experiences with credit card processors ?

If I go through this process, it makes sense to just setup my web site to accept CC payments and be done with it.

The merchant bank / processing firms all seem to want about $ 25 + / month for gateway fees, another $ 25 + / month minimum transaction fees, and another 10 + / month for a "statement" fee, plus some other extras tacked on + 2 - 3 %.

The good news is that they are professional about it, and I am highly likely to actually get my money.

The other options I found so far are
- Paypal - no (obvious) monthly fees, but lots of transaction fees, and I have some not pleasant experiences wtih them, so they are a definite - second place to anything else reasonable.

- Amazon payments - Fees similar to paypal, but the customer MUST register with amazon and they only process domestic credit cards. Seems like this is just silly as it means I would have to turn down someone in Canada or similar who might want to buy something from me.

Anyone have any other suggestions ?

Thanks

Harry

[HuFlungDung]

Don't know about down in the US, but in Canada, if you are a member of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, you can get somewhat better rates on setting up merchant accounts with a bank. Guess you could look up the NFIB down in the US and see what they say. Typically, they ask for a couple of hundred dollars a year for a membership fee, so you'd have to factor that into the cost of doing business.

[LaserImage]

Get a membership at Costco and try their service. I don't take cc's but I know of a few people who use Costco and the are happy.

Gary

[harryn]

Hi - Thank you both for the advice.

I am already a costco member, so that is an interesting lead I had not thought of.

NFIB - I will also look at that one.

Once I figure it out, I will report back.

Take care

Harry

[raynjer]

Do check out the Costco Credit Card service - I believe you have to be an Executive member to do this, but the fees are about the best you are going to get anywhere.
Also their website service has fantastic rates. I'm an executive member just for their website service as it saves so much money and I convinced a friend to do the same just for the credit card services that he makes use of.

[jcoats]

For a low $$ volume business, paypal is not good, but not bad either. In my experience their fees are about 5%. Not a bad way to start.

You should check with your local banks (especially ones that specialize in supporting small businesses), your businesses bank, and any local groups you are members of (Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis, other networking groups, etc) and see who others in your area use. Even make friends with some competitors. We all like to lower our overhead while getting reasonable service. We are customers too.

Once set up, figure you are going to stay with them a while. Every couple of years checking the 'temperature of the market', like shopping for insurance, is a good thing. I don't suggest jumping unless you have a reason (economic, service, etc) that you can't work out.

Let us know what you find out.

[Dr Pete]

If your volume is low and not involving much money paypal is probably the least expensive and easiest to set up.
I use paypal for my business, they charge me $30.00/month and 2.9%
No contract, no minimum, you can cancel and start up again very easy.
I looked into Costco and the contract was for 2 years, percentage was 3.2% for "web portal" card processing. Plus they do have a minimum fee of $25.00/month.
This was last year so might have changed but would cost more money.
If you only have the 1 client you might work something out so it's cheaper by canceling paypal and starting up when you need to process their card.
I process about $10k yearly from about 5 to 7 different clients so with that low volume makes more sense for paypal.
If you find a cheaper route please let us all know.

[LaserImage]

I use paypal for my business, they charge me $30.00/month and 2.9%
No contract, no minimum, you can cancel and start up again very easy.

You can also accept cc's through PayPal using Quickbooks or Outlook - no monthly charge but you pay 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

Gary

[tokmik]

I sell on ebay and have a business account with PayPal....I can accept checks and credit cards. Merchant Account Services

[CountZero]

Google checkout could perhaps be an alternative: http://checkout.google.com/support/s...420&topic=8664

[mactec54]

Hi harryn

I did not see anybody say to use online banking this is by far the best & most of the time there are no fees at all next thing I would use is PayPal (I use both) thay charge just under 5% per charge (so you add 5% to your bill) To have a credit card machine is to much money for a small business unless you are going to use it a lot like more than 160 times per month

[harryn]

Hi, I am just updating this thread with what I have found as I go along.

The interesting aspect is how important it is to the credit card company "what is your business like, typical transaction, etc".

In my case, my business is Business Development Consulting, so when I bill a customer, the service is usually already rendered, they have received an invoice, and they are just paying the invoice. In this case, the odds of a "reversal" are very small, since the customer just would not pay at all if they were unhappy.

They also are very sensitive to loosing business to paypal, so if you tell them you are just comparing them to paypal, they tend to be a bit more flexible - at least that has been my experience so far.

My clients in the EU mostly pay via wire transfer, which costs me a flat $ 50 for the wire transfer + $ 10 of bank fees. My client ensures that I am paid at the invoiced rate in US dollars. (If I were a little smarter, I would have done the deal in Euro when the exchange rate was $ 0.90 per Euro)