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Tagged with: creating ebooks • customer service • info product creation • make money • merchant account • shopping carts
Filed under: Free Content • General Online Business • Online Mistakes • Product Creation • Working From Home
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Why You Don’t Have To Have A Merchant Account: When you start a new online business and sell a product or .. http://tinyurl.com/p9pkc9
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Why You Don’t Have To Have A Merchant Account: When you start a new online business and sell a product or .. http://tinyurl.com/p9pkc9
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
You are right, you don’t need a merchant account if you are starting out, are a 1st time business owner and you are not sure what your sales will be. Third parties like paypal are good for that. But once you do over $3k/mth in credit cards, then you do need a merchant account.
Third parties are simple to deal with, but no way cheaper or flexible. You also will have no control of your funds if disputes happen.
You say that there are “tons” of payment processors and they charge a “small fee”, but don’t name any and don’t give any examples.
It seems like your main concerns are set up fees, payment gateways and shopping cart. Shopping carts are part of building & designing a site.
1 You pay $2000+ for a proper ECommerce website and getting a shopping cart is an issue? Set Up fees can be negotiated, but they are just one time fees.
2 Your customer’s cards will be charged (fee wise) to you in multiple tiers/baskets/buckets. With third parties, it’s usual an average of the buckets, so you always pay more in the long run. But no set up fees- YEEHAHH!
3 Payment Gateways are usually taken care of with reputable processors. One stop.
Here are two third party/ non-merchant accounts, not “small fees”. I got these online in Jan2009.
Not sure what the monthly for google, but paypal is $35/mth.
Monthly Sales Google Checkout
fee per transaction
Less than $3,000 2.9% + $0.30
$3,000 – $9,999.99 2.5% + $0.30
$10,000 – $99,999.99 2.2% + $0.30
$100,000 or more 1.9% + $0.30
Monthly Sales PayPal fee
per transaction
$0.00 – $3,000 2.9% + $0.30
$3,000.01 – $10,000 2.5% + $0.30
$10,000.01 – $100,000 2.2% + $0.30
> $100,000
I want to clarify that I am talking about companies that sell physical products online. I don’t know what companies that only sell information products do in regards to payment processing for their websites.
Thanks for your detailed comments!
Overall, I agree with you and that’s why I said:
You mentioned disputes only being a problem with third parties… that’s not true. I’ve heard many horror stories about merchants who have merchant accounts having all their funds held up for months because they had a sudden influx of cash and didn’t let the bank know ahead of time.
I still think that going through third parties is ideal for beginners until get their feet under them.