Low volume of credit card transactions without huge monthly fees?

December 21, 2006 3:28 PM

I'm handling a lot of the financial aspects for a small organization that would like to process credit card transactions. It's a non-profit with a small, part-year-only revenue stream. What's our best bet for avoiding insane fees?

Here's the scoop, in as close to a "nutshell" version as I can get it:

We're organizing a convention for a subset of the sci-fi/fantasy community (ok, so it's a furry convention) taking place in August. Right now we're using PayPal for folks to pay for membership online, but eventually we'd like to stop relying on them.

During the event, however, we'd like to handle credit card payments in two places. One, we want folks to be able to register on-site and pay by credit card. Two, we'd like to take credit card transactions on behalf of some of the smaller shops in our dealer room.

So far, I've come across two options:

1) Merchants Express, who doesn't exactly look disreputable, but has a definite too-good-to-be-true vibe that's setting off warning bells.

2) e Merchants Group, who is apparently a non-profit group of merchants. Their low rates seem more acceptable in that context, but I can't find much information about them, and the Yahoo favicon and Hotmail email address don't inspire confidence.

The biggest issue is that we'll have approximately no business at all for 6 months or more out of the year, so a minimum monthly transaction volume is something we'll never meet, and fees of much more than $10-15/month for our inactive period just can't happen either.

Are my two prospects any good? Are there other, better companies or different options I should be looking at? For what it's worth, we're not concerned about the capital expense for two card terminals, which we'll probably buy used.

posted by CrayDrygu to work & money (9 comments total)

Google's got a new Google Checkout service that looks worth checking out. I don't know a lot about it, but my mother's looking to try it out--she's in the same situation where paying several hundreds of dollars per year for just a few credit card transactions doesn't make a lot of fiscal sense.
posted by jenh at 5:01 PM on December 21, 2006

Hrm, on second thought after looking at the web site, it looks like Google Checkout is all online and doesn't support off-site with-machine processing. I guess it all depends on the price--if the rates are low enough, you could always consider setting up a "kiosk" at the venue to handle on-site registration.
posted by jenh at 5:08 PM on December 21, 2006

Seeing as it's a furry convention, have you considered asking on 4chan?
posted by chrissyboy at 5:44 PM on December 21, 2006

I don't know the details, but the non-profit I work with just had a fundraising auction where we needed the option of taking credit cards. This will only be a once-a-year event, so we didn't need ongoing capabilities, which sounds like might be the case for you as well. Anyway, we were able to set something up through our bank for short-term. We used the manual, imprinter to run the cards on-site rather than getting an electronic terminal. Don't know if this helps, but thought I'd toss it out there.
posted by moonlite at 8:40 PM on December 21, 2006

@jenh: I could do a Kiosk that would handle the payments through PayPal like we currently do. But for one, I'd like to drop PayPal entirely. And two, I really don't want to have to rely on the hotel's internet connection for vital business functions.

@chrissyboy: I actually never go to 4chan, so it never crossed my mind to ask there. I might check it out. I also plan on asking a couple of the folks I know who run other conventions, but I wanted to get a more rounded set of experience/advice.

@moonlite: That's exactly the sort of situation I'm in. Unfortunately, our bank doesn't set up merchant accounts directly, and the company they use didn't seem like that great a deal. Though, when I last asked, I didn't have some of the specifics I have now. Maybe I'll try them again. I need to go back anyway, as it seems they got our Tax ID number wrong...
posted by CrayDrygu at 10:16 PM on December 21, 2006

Merchant Express claimed to be a BBB member and, lo and behold it actually is (many websites claim falsely that they are members). It has a "satisfactory record" with the Bureau.

If it sounds good to you, and the company isn't a fly-by-night operation, I say go for it.
posted by Deathalicious at 11:03 PM on December 21, 2006

Oh, and I'd avoid emerchantgroup like the plague. I don't know anything about them, but they sound very, very sketchy--far sketchier than Merchant Express. It sounds like maybe you are expected to combine your account with them or something. In any case, never trust any service where somone is somehow giving you money without charge.
posted by Deathalicious at 11:08 PM on December 21, 2006

Google Checkout is waiving all processing fees until January 2008. Normally, they charge 2% plus $0.20 per transaction.
posted by reeddavid at 3:53 AM on December 22, 2006

@Deathalicious: Thank you so much for the BBB link. Despite the logo on their site, I wouldn't have even thought to look there. (I long ago started tuning out those little buttons and logos.)

Also, eMerchant Group isn't offering money with no charge. Their fees are just a fair bit lower than most merchant account providers. Montly fees are $2.50/mo lower than Merch Exp, the per-transaction fees are about $0.05 lower, and I would call the discount rate competitive.

For our volume of transactions, though, I don't think there would be a large difference between the fees we'd pay to Merch Exp versus eMerch, so I think the postive BBB rating gets Merch Exp a major vote of confidence.
posted by CrayDrygu at 10:18 AM on December 22, 2006