Comments on: Merchant Processing 101

By: Dat To

Dat To — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:54:24 +0000

Great article Erin! Business owners must take payment processing/acceptance more seriously. If you don’t ask the right questions, then any answer you get will do and won’t matter. Once you find out the right questions to ask, start avoiding Sales Reps/Companies who give you no answer, evasive answers, or ’smart’ sounding answers that further confuse you. If the beginning of the business relationship does not fit, then it won’t get better by adding time and especially being locked up in multi-year contracts.
Also, don’t get bullied by high pressure sales tactics because a good deal today will be a good deal next week.
Also, do they have any happy customers? Dozens and dozens of Customer Reviews/ Tesitmonials?

By: Jackie

Jackie — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:59:48 +0000

Merchant Service Provider is a great new alternative to Paypal and Google Checkout.

By: gun store software

gun store software — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 19:29:04 +0000

Fantastic. care to share your sources :) ?

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:07:59 +0000

One of the biggest things i find, is that you will set up your merchant account, but your American Express account still isn’t set up.

Every time you create a Merchant Account for any new business you run, make sure you sign up for American Express. So many businesses we set up don’t accept Amex for the first couple of days.

Also, some retail style stores accept tips. If you are in retail and accept tips, make sure you use the correct processor.

All in all, if you think you are getting a good rate, look again and force the competing businesses to offer you more. Besides rates you won’t get much in service past the beginning, so you have to get your benefits up front.

By: Brian Armstrong

Brian Armstrong — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:32:04 +0000

Great article Erin.

The only thing I’d add to it is that several merchants don’t know that their qualified transactions can be reduced and should be, especially if they are small ticket merchants with a majority of those transactions going through Visa / MC branded check cards.

The retail rates for Check cards should be lower than for “regular” credit cards and if merchants know they’re accepting mostly check cards, they can reduce their credit card expenses signficantly.

Again, great article.

Brian