From the national shooting sports foundation:

Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp. are refusing to process any credit card transactions between federally licensed firearms retailers, distributors and manufacturers — a move which will severely limit available inventory of firearms and ammunition to military, law enforcement and law-abiding Americans.

The first company to be affected by this decision appears to be firearms distributor CDNN Sports Inc.

I haven’t heard any news about this becoming industry standard, but since First Data Corp is a large processor, I have to imagine that this will have a sizable impact on online firearm sales.

Monthly minimum fees, aside from interchange rates (which Jason and I will cover soon) are an often misunderstood fee. In this article, my aim is to give merchants a little more understanding about what this fee is.

First, I’ll give you wikipedia’s definition of what monthly minimum is:

The monthly minimum fee is a way to ensure that merchants pay a minimum amount in fees each month to cover costs from the provider to maintain the account and to create minimal profits. If a merchant’s qualified fees do not equal or exceed the monthly minimum they will be charged up to the monthly minimum to satisfy their minimum fee requirements.

Example: A merchant has signed a contract with a $25.00 monthly minimum fee. If all the fees for the most recent month of processing total only $15.00, this merchant will be charged an additional $10.00 to meet their monthly minimum requirements. Sometimes there are fees that are charged that are not a part of the monthly minimum, such as statement fees. It is industry standard to charge a monthly minimum.

Here’s what’s interesting
One not-so-obvious thing to know about monthly minimum fees is this: if you are expecting to do very little processing for awhile (because your business is just getting started) or you just don’t process that much, you’ll want to choose a merchant account that has an extremely low, or non-existent monthly minimum fee. Why?

Let’s look at this scenario:

Let’s say you’re looking at a merchant account that has a $14.95 monthly minimum fee plus a $9.95 monthly service fee. Right off the bat, you will pay at least $24.90 per month. You’ll pay that amount even if you don’t process a single credit card payment!

If, on the other hand, you’re going to be processing payments that will put you above the monthly minimum fee, then you could just ignore it when comparing quotes. It won’t have any bearing on your overall cost.

In the long run, your interchange costs make up the lions share of your merchant account costs, but only if you’re actually processing. Many merchants will open an account just to get things started. Some of you might even do that before your business is up and running. We think that’s great and we salute you for your entrepreneurial spirit. If you’re one of those merchants, make sure you look for an account that won’t make you pay an outrageous monthly minimum!

Better yet, if you’re looking for a merchant account, check out our merchant account quote listing. We’ve got great prices AND great companies for you to choose from! Choose and compare merchant accounts today!

From: Brain Tree Payment Solution’s Blog

“The FTC is suing MPI, a provider of credit card processing services to businesses, for engaging in deceptive sales and marketing practices. In other words, they getting nailed for misrepresenting to business owners the true costs of using them for credit card processing.”

This is great news for merchants who might have otherwise been taken advantage of by MPI.

We are currently working on three new projects, all of which will help finding the right merchant account for you a bit easier.

• Site redesign - Let’s face it, the current site is a bit ugly. The new site will be a bit easier on the eye and will spotlight featured content and payment processors.
• New content - Speaking of featured content, we will soon have a free eBook for those of you that are new to merchant accounts. Think of it as Merchant Accounts 101.
• Rates calculator - Do you find yourself wondering how much you are really paying your payment processor? Or which of two quotes is actually cheaper? This tool will help.

Please stay tuned for the release of these great new projects and many more. If you have an idea for something else that would be helpful, please let us know. Your feedback is always welcome.

Update: John is embarrassed and hurt because I called his design “a bit ugly”. With that in mind, please pretend that the design is mine. I am not at all embarrassed or hurt that it is ugly.

In conjunction with perusing our articles here, you may find The Green Sheet interesting. It is a trade newsletter for the merchant account sales industry, serving Banks and Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs) and even though much of what we write on this blog is from a merchant perspective, it’s worthwhile to see things from the other side!

At it’s heart, QuoteSignal is here to help you find the best deal on a merchant account. The big question is, how does one figure what the best deal is? Is it the cost? If you read our series on What You Need to Know About Merchant Fees and Rates you’ll know that determining the cost is not all that straightforward.

The cost of a merchant account is important, but it’s not everything. If you’re thinking about accepting credit card payments we urge you to look for the following things:

A company that is open with you. Ask questions about any fees or rates you don’t understand and gauge their response. Do they care if you understand their explanations? They should.

A company that has a free technical support line. All things being equal, the merchant account provider that gives you a toll-free technical support number is a company that will be around to help you when your terminals don’t work and you’ve got large orders to process.

A company that doesn’t mind helping you understand your billing statement. It’s your money and your business! Your merchant account provider shares in your success and they should help you be successful.

In the future, we’ll be adding features to QuoteSignal.com to help you see the bigger picture beyond just price. When you’re looking at a particular quote, we’ll help you get a good feel for what kind of company it is, too. Stay tuned.

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Are you looking for a merchant account? Check out our merchant account quote listing today. We’ve got great prices AND great companies for you to choose from!

The team at 37signals recently wrote about their experience accepting credit cards. Particular focus is given to

• Applying for an account
• Payment gateways
• Recurring billing

Be sure to check out the comments for a discussion of credit card security requirements.

Here are two helpful downloads, the Visa and MasterCard merchant rules:

• Rules for Visa Merchants
• MasterCard Merchant Rules

If you accept credit cards or plan on accepting credit cards then please review these rules. Understanding them is an important part of keeping your merchant account in good standing.

Both guides have loads of helpful information such as:

• Signatures and identification
• Suspicious behavior
• Preventing chargebacks
• Helpful defintions

I recommend reading both guides from start to finish. Your business will be better off for it!

This is the third and final installment in a three part series. The first installment described how to divide fees and rates into two categories. The second installment described how to use those categories to calculate your projected merchant account costs. This installment will provide quotes from three fictional companies and finish with step by step instructions on how to determine which account is actually the best deal.

Fictional Quotes

Let’s pretend that we’re shopping around for a merchant account. We receive three quotes from three different companies. Here’s what the offerings are:

ACME Merchant Services

Qualified Rate	2.0%
Mid Rate	2.5%
Non Qualified Rate	3.0%
Per Item Fee	$0.20
Monthly Service Charge	$9.95
Annual Fee	$49.95

American Merchant Services

Qualified Rate	1.90%
Mid Rate	2.60%
Non Qualified Rate	3.15%
Per Item Fee	$0.23
Monthly Service Charge	$14.95
Annual Fee	$49.95

United Merchant Services

Qualified Rate	1.85%
Mid Rate	2.85%
Non Qualified Rate	3.40%
Per Item Fee	$0.30
Monthly Service Charge	$7.95
Annual Fee	$49.95

How do we determine which quote will probably be the best deal for us? At first glance, we might assume that United Merchant Services is the best deal. Quite often, merchant account providers will quote the qualified rate. If that’s all you look at, then it will certainly seem to be a great deal. If all three only quoted you the qualified rate, you’d probably choose United Merchant Services (because they offer a qualified rate lower than everyone else). But, the question is, is it really the best deal?

Let’s continue to use our example of $10,000 in sales with an average sale of $50.00.

Running the Numbers

Using the formula from part 2, let’s run the numbers and see how the quotes stack up.

Acme Merchant Services: $271.61

American Merchant Services: $278.86

United Merchant Services: $289.86

It looks like Acme Merchant Services is a clear winner and United Merchant Services isn’t as cheap as they claim to be.

Before I end this series on merchant fees and rates I’d like to mention something very important.

It’s not just about the price!

What happens if your business explodes and you start doing $50,000 in sales with an average sale of $200? How will that effect your account costs? You have to be careful when projecting your costs because they will end up being quite different in the real world.

Since all of our three quotes are so close in costs what you should look for is a great company. Make some phone calls. Trust your gut feeling. How are you being treated on the phone? Don’t try to pinch pennies by signing up with a shady merchant account processor, or worse, a merchant account processor who doesn’t care about your business!

If you’re not sure where to look, check out our free merchant quote service at http://www.quotesignal.com

Real-time quotes are available within seconds. You won’t have to wait for someone to call you back. Check it out now and find the perfect merchant account!