Credit Card Acceptance
Until recently, the process to accept credit-card payments was complicated and confusing and required involving several people/companies -
- Establish a Merchant Account - What's wrong with merchant accounts?
- Enlist a credit-card processing company (a 'gateway') for $20/month or more to process credit-cards
- Buy a point of sale terminal (card swiper) and maybe a 'pin pad' for manual entry
- Have a checking account to which funds are transferred from the merchant account
While a terminal and checking account are still needed, with eBay's purchase of a company called PayPal, there's now a much easier and perhaps less costly way of accepting credit-card payment, with a few added bonuses to boot -
- No software integration with your PC required
- No merchant account or credit-card processor
- No annual commitment or fees
- No startup or cancellation fees
- No lengthy credit application
- No gimmicks like bait/switch fees, broken agreements
- One source for records, easy reports and administration
- Owned by reputable eBay (financial stability, no games)
- Create unique log-ins for your employees
- Email receipt to customers
- Excellent fraud protection
- Optionally accept phone, fax, mail payments (monthly fee)
- Process transactions for customers without PayPal accounts
- Reasonable processing fees (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction)
- Shipping and tax provisions
- Shipping to non-billing addresses
- Generate custom packing slips
- Visa, American Express, MasterCard and Discover
PayPal's fees are reasonable - about the same in total as paying a merchant banker and processor - 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction, or less. (Merchant bankers promote processing fees in the range of 2-3%, but very few merchants qualify for the lowest fees, and bankers have plenty of hidden fees buried in sub-documents, like up to $50 per chargeback.) Our bank says we are paying 2+% but adding in all fees not included in that rate, our actual credit-card cost is 4.5%, so, yes, there's a fair amount of deception in dealing with traditional merchant accounts, but perhaps not with PayPal/eBay.
eBay has a reputation to protect, so they are much less likely to exploit, and because of their tremendous financial strength and early foothold in online processing, it's unlikely that PayPal will be sold. Merchant banks are routinely sold and resold and each new owner does not feel obligated to uphold the agreements of the previous owner.
Combining a merchant account and credit-card processing with PayPal simplifies matters - fewer companies to deal with, concise, consolidated records from one source, and online access to transactions and statements (not available with many merchant banks).
Click here to go to PayPal's Credit-Card Processing or close this window to return to the previous page.
Wireless Credit Card Processing
With PayPal it is now possible to accept credit cards remotely from anywhere with a hand-held terminal.
As a matter of disclosure, BCSS will be compensated by PayPal should you chose to process credit-card transactions through them.
