Credit card merchant accounts

Some vendors, maybe many, don't realize they aren't necessarily held to their processing company's fees forever. We get most of our internet sales revenue in credit card payments so just a small change in fees can mean a sizeable change in annual revenue. We call our c/c processor every 6 mos. for a "rate review. And each time they've reduced our fee rate 0.2 percent. So now we're down to about 3 1/2 percent plus $0.29 per transaction. I'd rather not give our processor's name but many of them have similar rates and practices. If you've had an account for a while and have never asked for a rate review, might be worth your time to do so.

 

My Merchant Association is always calling me to offer a 1.9 % rate, but the fee to join is what they're really after !!!

 

Think they all use the same marketing come-one- most have three rate tiers that all operate simultaneously depending on what type of card the customer uses. 1.9% is the bottom tier but at least in our case very few customers use that category of card, most all fall into the top tier. We watch the average effective rate by just dividing total fees by total revenue for the period of interest. We take visa, discover, and Master but not Amex. Shop around-many services have no sign-up fee. And with many the enrollment process takes a few minutes online.