Merchant Account ???

[meikel]

Hi,

I'm a shareware programmer and I want to tell you how I collect money from my customers http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

I don't have any special status or have a merchant account or so. I just signed up with a registration service.
These services are mostly targetting shareware authors, but they are usually capable of handling anything.

What is this: A registration service is a company that collects money for me. They accept credit cards, checks, cash... they have a 0800 number to call in, accept fax, email and have secure online ordering.

I don't want to have a merchant account myself as it would be a lot of work to handle all this myself (okay.. maybe this depends on how many sales one does per day/month).

Of course the registration service takes a fee for doing this, I found the fees to be acceptable for the service they offer.

I'm currently using
www.shareit.com (http://www.shareit.com)

Other known services to me are
www.kagi.com (http://www.kagi.com)
www.regnow.com (http://www.regnow.com)

There are many others. Just look for shareware and registration service.

Usually this is a risk-free way of collecting money. The service sends out an email the moment, the payment is secured and it's sure you get the money.

Of course there is the possibility of chargeback on credit card sales, but it happens rarely (very very rarely).

Greetings from Bonn, Germany
[nbsp][nbsp]Meikel Weber
www.meikel.com (http://www.meikel.com)

[gwlubin]

Dear Meikel,

The great thing is, that these % will decrease as time goes on.

BTW I never realised that you wrote FreeMem, I currently have the shareware version running on my PC. It a great piece of kit.

Graham
London, England

[Justin]

Just to throw in my two cents, every single order I've had was purchased with a credit card. If I didn't offer that method, I think I'd be very broke, as opposed to just a little broke http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif People want instant gratification, and with credit card processing they get it. Most shareware purchases are impulse buys. Most of my orders were less than a day after downloading.

RegNow is starting to get on my nerves. They charge 20%, so for every $30 order I get $24. That's not all that bad considering that I wouldn't make anything at all without them (or some form of online purchasing), but their fraud rate is relatively high. Luckily I send out reg numbers, not them, which allows me to catch obvious frauds or a high amount of attempts before the order went through, etc. But this is more work for me that should be done by them for 20% commissions.

Worst part is I got a charge back from a 3 month old order the other day - and it was deducted from my account. I figure if it's that old, they should have caught it by now.

I'm going to check out sharit.com, see what they have to offer...


------------------
Justin Nelson, SFE Software
www.vdj.net (http://www.vdj.net)

[meikel]

You have to calc the fees. ShareIt was very high $4 + 4%, now they're a bit better $2.65 + 4% which just leaves $1 more with me per sale.

Shareit has the same problem with chargebacks after months. So far I just had 3 chargebacks. One was after 4 month.

I think it's because in the US you just walk to your bank and tell: "I want this back" and he gets this back. Independant on how long this was ago.

ShareIt works nicely, but they seem to have a very low response time to queries in the last time.

Meikel

[Boksoft]

I'm using CCnow ( http://www.ccnow.com ) and are very satisfied with them. They pay on time and fast and their charge is not real high.