[thelist] Merchant account

[Luther, Ron]

Hi Gang,

This is definitely *not* an area where I have a whole lot of expertise
... but I wanted to bring up an additional option that I hadn't seen
mentioned yet.

It's my understanding that some of the cc processing discount rates are
volume based - which makes sense - if you do (or guarantee) more
business for them, then they can afford to cut you a better rate.

Because of that an 'account aggregator' market has sprung up -- a third
party company will cut a deal with Visa (for example) guaranteeing $x M
a month in transactions ... in order to get a lower discount rate --
then they create that traffic by aggregating numerous smaller business
accounts.  That seems to allow the aggregator to offer better rates to
small businesses than the small businesses would get by themselves
dealing directly with the banker types.

Just another option to consider.

RonL.
(I interviewed with one of these 'cc processing aggregator' firms about
18 months ago. They offered me the job - but I decided it wasn't where I
wanted to be.)


-----Original Message-----
From: Keith [mailto:cache at dowebs.com]
Subject: Re: [thelist] Merchant account

Tamara's post on this subject was right on target. 2.9+.30 can be 
more than reasonable for a smaller business by the time you 
amortize all the other charges that can come with a merchant 
account. She left out two important gotchas that are particular to 
web accounts.

<snip> more good sensible stuff </snip>