If you’re starting a venture and you were declined for payment processing, odds are you’re looking for a way to accept “high-risk” payments online.
What you need is to find a payment service provider that can provide a stable and affordable way to accept credit and debit card payments in the long run. However, you might not know exactly what to look for. For example, you may have only recently discovered that you need a high-risk payment service provider. If you have any questions or would like to get started, contact us any time.
Over the years, we’ve helped countless business owners with their payment needs. We offer advice and expert credit card processing insights regularly to ensure that you have the information you need – upfront.
This article provides some basic insights into how you can tell the difference between standard and high-risk payment service providers and help you figure out which one is best for you.
A quick definition of a payment service provider
A payment service provider offers, among other things, online credit card acceptance services for e-commerce sites, enabling businesses to accept electronic payments in a variety of ways. This includes payment methods such as ACH, credit card, and debit card acceptance.
Payment service providers can also offer other services like chargeback mitigation, merchant account/payment gateways setup assistance, and affiliate payout systems.
Need help? Let us help you make sense of it all.
The world of online credit card processing has many terms that appear to be used indiscriminately. For example; merchant services, payment gateway, payment processors, and payment service providers.
At Blue Payment Agency, we make accepting online payments easy! We’re dedicated to helping you and your business grow and succeed. Regardless of whether you’re a smaller agency or a large corporation, we help with “merchant account and gateways setups,” “payment gateway only accounts,” credit card processing, online ACH, and affiliate payouts.
When you need to be particularly careful selecting a payment service provider
As we’ve already mentioned, you need to be particularly careful when choosing a provider for your business. Deciding between payment processing options can be especially tricky when setting up a business in a high-risk category. If you sell supplements, nutraceuticals, or other tightly regulated or scrutinized products like high-dollar business coaching, seminars, or CBD, you’re running what’s called a high-risk business.
There can be several unique factors that impact high-risk businesses; it all depends on your unique business and the product types you sell.
What this means in terms of choosing a payment service provider is that you have fewer viable options than other business types. Most merchant service or payment service providers are unable or unwilling to offer you their services if you sell high-risk products online.
Make sure you use a high-risk payment services specialist
If you’re in the process of launching a high-risk e-commerce site, like CBD, and you’re looking for merchant services that will allow you to accept credit card payments, you must choose carefully.
As a high-risk site owner, you’re likely to experience a higher chargeback ratio than other business owners. Similarly, your products probably face higher regulatory scrutiny than others.
It might be tempting to use a payment aggregator, like PayPal or Stripe. However, we don’t recommend relying solely on these payment service providers without contacting them first and carefully reviewing their terms and conditions. You’re likely to find that your business type is on their respective “prohibited business” lists.
Most payment gateway and merchant service providers don’t specialize in handling the unique factors and risks that are a natural part of running a high-risk business.
If you do decide to use a credit card processor that doesn’t specialize in high-risk processing, you can expose yourself to an unnecessary degree of risk. Worst-case scenarios can include frozen accounts, closed merchant accounts, and an inability to accept online credit card payments. This is why it’s so important to find a payment service provider that specializes in helping high-risk businesses.
What you need to start accepting online payments
If you’re about to launch your first high-risk e-commerce business, you’re likely going to need both a merchant account and a payment gateway. As we mentioned above, you’ll want to make sure that both are compatible with your business type. However, it’s equally important that your gateway is properly integrated with your merchant account and that they work smoothly together.
One payment gateway that we often recommend is Network Merchant Inc (NMI). For one thing, they support e-commerce and card-present (physical store) businesses. Among their best features is that they make it possible to integrate multiple, different merchant accounts within one simple, yet feature-rich, payment gateway. Perhaps even more importantly, NMI is also high-risk-friendly.
At Blue Payment Agency, we can help you regardless of whether you need a “gateway only” account or if you need a merchant account and a payment gateway. We’ll be there for you through the entire process to ensure that everything works smoothly for you. Simply contact us here or give us a call at 844-253-9769.
We look forward to helping your business grow and succeed. You can start accepting credit card payments online today – we’re here to help.