 Re: Merchant Account for drop shipping?
Due to strict underwriting guidelines I seriously doubt you'll be able to get approved for any sort of merchant account. Plus, unless you're handling MASSIVE amounts of dropship orders, Paypal's fee structure is going to be more favorable for you compared to a "high-risk" merchant account. A bank is going to look at your operation and determine you do not have enough control over your business for this to be a safe investment for them. I was able to get a merchant account on my 2nd try but I keep tons of inventory and manage my own stores.
People think it's cool but at this point in eBay's development it's really not worth using a merchant account unless you absolutely have to, because you can't use Paypal. I'm assuming you want to use this w/ eBay, but correct me if I'm wrong.
I've told the story a few times now. I switched my best eBay account to a merchant account because the Paypal attached became permanently limited. Since switching from Paypal to our merchant account, this eBay account has been averaging $250-300/day in sales. When it was still accepting Paypal the average was $1800-2000/day and I'm not even exaggerating. $55-60k in monthly payments before switching, now we're at a fraction of that.
There are a few reasons for the massive decline.
1) Merchant account payments aren't supported on the eBay App, from what I can tell. I get multiple messages daily from customers who haven't been able to pay. Most are able to pay once I send an eBay invoice for their order, but it seems like some still have to switch to the classic website to pay.
2) Customers are so brainwashed into using Paypal that they are blown away when they're directed to eBay checkout rather than Paypal checkout to complete their order. Many decide to cancel their order at that point. Even though auth.net is fully PCI compliant and equally safe compared to Paypal, a lot of customers simply refuse to enter a CC # at checkout.
3) Listings which don't accept Paypal are buried in the search results. The majority of customers we are serving now are those who have been watching our listings/store for years. They're only ending up at our listings now because they show on their home page.
In short, don't make the switch unless you have to. If you do make the switch it would be majorly beneficial to continue accepting Paypal payments in addition to accepting direct CC payments, so your customers have a choice at checkout.
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