Discount for Coffeeforums Members

[davidsbiscotti]

Hey Alun, here's my story..... Over ten years ago, I worked for a bakery that shipped biscotti by the pallet to Japan. A client of ours there often claimed credit for 20% to 30% of the orders due to damage during shipment. Years later, I thought I should have asked for pictures of the damaged goods, but that would not have been professional, I know. After their average 25% credit claims for broken biscotti and other miscellaneous costs associated with shipping overseas, we made next to no profit and decided to not ship overseas anymore. Since we bought this new bakery, I've been disinclined to ship product outside of the US, at least not biscotti. If only I was in the coffee bean business.

I guess if I had the right connections, someone on the other side to work with, things could be different. :wink:

JohnB, 3% is about right for PayPal. Amex is only 2% to 3%, but like I said, we have to wait longer for the deposited funds. Visa and MC are between 3% and 4%, but they get deposited the next day. Even where I worked before for 14 years, Discover transactions were never more than 10% of the over all CC transactions. Amex was a long third to Visa & MC. I think AmEx is offering better travel rewards nowadays so people are using it more. This is the first time I've ever dealt with PayPal. Apparently online shoppers are quick to the draw with it. I'm expecting a monthly statement from them will be better than a pile of CC receipts and daily summaries.

 

[JohnB]

[

JohnB, 3% is about right for PayPal. Amex is only 2% to 3%, but like I said, we have to wait longer for the deposited funds. Visa and MC are between 3% and 4%, but they get deposited the next day.

Shop for a better deal on your CC discounts. I do mainly mail order so I'm on the higher side of my CC companies discount rates & only pay 1.98%. My funds are also deposited the next business day.

 

[Alun_evans]

Haha, lets see how we go with our planned expansion into 1 of the forementioned countries. We have had some problems here, in Indonesia, with the local cafe partner we had. So Singpore looks quite a possibility for expansion.

 

[Alun_evans]

Whoops...did I say Singapore?

 

[davidsbiscotti]

JohnB, I use Northeast Merchant Services, who do you use?
I just picked out a month at random and found the following:

Visa & MC 4.23%
AmEx 3.25%
PayPal 3.24%

These are total monthly percentages and vary month to month, depending on total transaction amounts for the month, due to set processing fees and such. A monthly processing fee for example with MC & Visa is $7.50, whether I process $100 or $2,000 in any given month. AmEx & PayPal seem to have a built in processing fee per settlement.

Then, there are the following “discounts” applied to monthly service:

Qual Discount
Nonqual Discount
Mqual
Nqual
Auths & Avs
POS-WATS?

I’m not sure what those are, but I think if you enter the customer’s address then zip code during the transaction, you get a certain type of discount. I stopped entering those years ago because it didn’t seem to make much of a difference in the final bill. When the merchant service explained that part to me, it seemed I’d only save a few pennies per month and figured it wasn’t worth the extra time and effort to save such a small amount. Do you enter those? I just press enter to bypass them.

Anyway, I find that CC transactions are much more reliable than checks or cash. With CC’s, I don’t have a folder full of unpaid invoices, waiting for a payment to come in, sometimes having to call the customer repeatedly to get payment. You know what that’s like, “He’s not here today, can you call back tomorrow?” and so on. Not to mention bounced checks and fees associated with that. The merchant service and PayPal do my collections and deposits for me and they’re always clean, no rubber just plastic. So whether their cost is 2%, 3% or 4%, I think its well worth it. I don’t understand why so many companies are recently dropping their credit card option and resorting to cash only.

Alun_evans, why (or why not) Singapore???

 

[JohnB]

4.23% for MC/Visa is way out of the ballpark. I used to pay 2.98% & thought that was high. Get yourself a Sam's Club business membership for $35 a year. They contracted with the largest CC supplier in the country to offer services to their business customers. You will get the same rate as a much larger company & they offer all the cards you carry. The fixed monthly fee is a little lower then what you are paying also.

http://www.samsclubmemberservices.com/F ... CreditCard

 

[davidsbiscotti]

Dude, why didn't you just tell me this before? Hahaha, Sams Club is sending me some info to sign up, I'll check back in on this topic, once I have more details. PS - check your inbox.

Thanks for the advice!!!