Need suggestions for merchant card processing

sniper786

We are a small convenience store and i want to start accepting credit and debit car payments.

I have have had a look at two companies (Paypoint and Elavon) so far and the one offering the best deal is Elavon offering rental of the terminal at £14.50 per month (plus VAT) and they are offering low card fees (1.1% for credit cards and 11p per txn for debit cards). However, they charge a minimum service fee of £20 per month, so if all the card fees only add up to £10, they wil lcharge you an additional £10 - this seems to be quite common.

I must say the details are all very confusing between the companies and i have been warned to check the small print. I will be honest i don't excpect us to do many transactions in a monthly period, up to say £100 and at most around 10-15 a week (until it properly takes off).

Can anyone recommend a company with cheap service rates that is better than the one i have put forward?

lil.smartie

Try Cardsave & haggle

Kate

phill99

I"ve been looking into this for my own business and it seems to be a nightmare. In your scenario you have a rental of £14.50 plus vat plus £20 service charge. That's £37.40 per month or £448.80 per annum. To justify that, you will have to do 340 debit card transactions per month or £3400 per month in credit card transactions.

If you are a small convenience store, I would be very surprised if you will have that amount of throughput on debit and credit cards. You may find it easier to have a system with no monthly fees but who charge a higher transaction fee. Therefore you only pay what you use. Then if you find much of you business is via cards, you could switch to a different supplier with different rates.

Bet in mind that your merchant may also charge a set up fee. Mine wanted £120 just to set up!

Remember also to have a minimum spend on a card, say £20 or add a 50p transaction fee, otherwise your margins will be down!

earthstorm

have you tried something like payatrader.com or izettle.com where you can use a smartphone as a terminal

paddyrg

Hi Lauren/Ruby - promoting yourself/email address isn't really in the spirit of this board, better to keep things posted here as then everyone can benefit/chip in.

Easthstorm mentions a couple of options for smaller traders, there's also paypal home and worldpay zinc to consider for anyone looking.