Considerations to Ponder before Opening a Merchant Account

Although many businesses may think that having a merchant account is a straightforward procedure, in actual fact it can be a rather complex undertaking. There are many issues to think about before actually jumping right in and obtaining one of these accounts from the many companies or financial institutions out there that offer up these services. Irrespective of whether your business is an online endeavor or a bricks and mortar store or business, the following points are a few things for you to think over before jumping in.

The very first thing to consider is the type of business you run. Is it service based or is it product based? Typically, merchant accounts are acquired for those businesses that are product based and allow the owner to accept debit and credit cards. Bear in mind that the bank, financial institution or company that provide the merchant account will also charge a fee each time a credit or debit card payment is accepted by you or your business for payment, and this fee will more often than not have to be passed on to the paying customer.

If you have a new business or have a fairly bad credit rating either as an individual or a business, opening a bank merchant account can be very difficult to achieve. But quite often, to be more competitive in your chosen market it is almost imperative you have this type of merchant account on board. There are other companies that can provide a merchant account for you should you have a poor credit rating, for example, but more often than not the fees they charge are higher than those of a financial institution like a bank.

Another issue to think about when having a merchant account is customer satisfaction with the product you supply. If the customer is of the opinion that you have supplied an inferior, defective or otherwise unsatisfactory product to them, they could make a complaint to their debit or credit card company which could then result in a chargeback. This means the customer’s credit card company will issue them a refund followed by your merchant account provider issuing you with the chargeback. This means you will be paying more fees on top of what you already pay.

If obtaining or setting up a merchant account appears to be more hassle than it’s worth to you or your business, or indeed, you just cannot secure one, you could consider one of the many online payment processors. This option opens up a whole new avenue of accepting payments and could allow you to conceivably accept a whole manner of payment options from your customers.