Payment Processing

Reading/Researching, Selling Add comments

One of the things I have been doing some research into over the past several weeks is payment processing options. As long as I am doing on-line sales, what I’ve currently got set up through PayPal works just fine. But I’m also going to be doing some off-line sales and need a working solution for those who would want to pay via credit or debit card.

I had heard of a Christian company called Cornerstone Payment Systems that sounded promising, but after a week of failed attempts to submit their on-line form, and having two e-mails returned as undeliverable I gave up on that option. So today I started investigating the options through PayPal. The Virtual Terminal was looking like a viable option until I saw the pricing chart – $30/mo. fee + a per transaction fee of 3.1% + $0.30. Eek! Perhaps I will find that the pricing is competitive with what I would have to pay to use a credit card processing company, but I still have no idea. I can’t imagine making enough in book sales at this point for that to be a cost-effective solution!

Still need to do some more research, but I would love to know if anyone has any recommendations for credit card processing companies. Also, I’d love to get some input on whether you think it would mean a significant loss in sales if I opted not to accept credit/debit cards at this point for offline sales. I just have a single book, priced at $14.99. Is it unreasonable in this day and age to limit people to paying with only cash or check? Any advice or opinions?

7 Responses to “Payment Processing”

  1. Abigail Fox Says:

    Hey Natalie, I’ve never commented before but I’ve followed your “journey” with interest. I’m in the UK so things might look slightly different but when releasing our first DVD we faced the same question and I have no regrets about opting for Paypal / cash / cheque. The few sales we have lost by not having off-line credit / debit facility would not have covered the cost of set-up and monthly fees. In my limited experience, if people want to buy, they will find a way and those are the best customers anyway : ) Greetings in Christ, Abigail

  2. Bryce Says:

    That is a little high for a transactional fee, but paypal is a generally easy to set up. With a merchant account, you’re pretty much always going to have some kind of monthly fee.

    Another big name in online payment processing is authorize.net. It’s a full merchant account, and also has a virtual terminal. I know that at least through some of authorize.net’s resellers, you can get better rates than you can at paypal.

    You may also want to look at SagePayments.com

    We use http://www.heartlandpaymentsystems.com/ at the motels we manage in my real job, and I believe they have a virtual terminal. We get a good rate, but we also have a lot of movement of money. I don’t know how good rates they give a small business.

  3. Margaret Says:

    We belong to Costco and use their services. The monthly fee for online processing if $12.95. I forget the per charge fee but the total comes to less than 3% for our monthly payments. We pay a little extra to take American Express.

  4. Margaret Says:

    oops. I forgot there is also a minimum charge – something like $25 a month so if you don’t process enough sales they’ll hit you with that.

  5. Natalie Wickham Says:

    Thanks all for the very helpful information! I really appreciate it!

  6. Margaret Says:

    Just wondering how it’s going. Been almost a month since your last post. Hope it’s because you’re so busy with interviews, marketing and sales.

  7. Natalie Says:

    Hi Margaret!

    Thanks for asking! It’s going well. I can’t believe it’s been a month again since my last post – I have so many things I need to post and catch up on here! I’m mainly into the marketing and distribution side of things now – not my favorite, but I’m learning a lot. 🙂 Sales are slow, but steady. I’ve got a convention next weekend, though, so I think that will help boost sales a bit. Hoping to catch up and get some more posts up here soon. Thanks for checking in!

Leave a Reply

copyright 2008-2024 Natalie Wickham . original site theme by Natty WP