Merchant Fees – Should we give a long-winded discussion about the dreaded topic of merchant fees or get right to the point. Fees are fees no matter where or how you hide them. Merchants know you hate them, and each time your temper rises out of frustration to figure out the bill, they continue to search for new ways to charge you.
The hide and seek with fees began with expensive equipment. I remember because in my first company a long time ago I kept the entire amount of a sale. Payment went from my customers to me with no middleman. Once this Merchant process began, I jumped on the course like everyone else I knew. My first terminal cost me $250. That is $250 per month! Also, there were batching fees, per-transaction fees, and a few more that I did not know at the time. All of a sudden I was in the mix wondering why do I have to give a portion away to someone else who has no idea this transaction is happening when my customer is standing right in front of me?
Reducing merchant fees 
Merchant fees and percentage costs kept changing and soon other merchants created less expensive terminals until “Square” came in and eliminated the profit from equipment. How could others compete? By jumping to the next level of dodging where fees were coming from in their contract. I remember an HVAC company who said they were getting an amazing deal at 1.8%. I did the quick math and made it up through a higher percentage of each sale. The others scrambled to play catch up, which started the ongoing reduction sale. Competition to survive became a dog eat dog industry.
So what is the next step that has happened in this revolution? Now they think charging your customers instead of you will solve the problem. Think it through. Your customers don’t enjoy paying sales tax. Do you feel that they will enjoy adding 5% to purchase your product or service? And where do they get this extra fee? From you as the business owner raising your prices? You are still charging your customers the extra.
In Conclusion
Where merchant fees are heading now, I can’t imagine if I would be all too happy to purchase something for $100 and realize with sales tax and now merchant fees could cost me up to an additional $12 to $15! …”Let’s hide our merchant fees behind the sales tax.” Like that solves any problem.
The only way to truly reduce the fees is to eliminate them. That is right … ELIMINATE THEM!
Contact us at WojeMoney.com to learn more about this easy, and profitable process!
