What is a merchant service?
Merchant services are what enable a business to accept an electronic payment. The transactions are made through a secure gateway using the customer’s credit, debit card, or direct payment from their bank account. The transactions use encryption to keep the information secure.
What are merchant service providers?
Merchant service providers are the middle man between the bank and a person, business or organisation receiving payment and the person, business or organisation purchasing goods or services. The merchant service provider provide the requirements to accept various forms of electronic payment so that the transactions can be made.
Online payment providers
There are many, many businesses that offer to receive payments online. NZ merchant services are provided by most banks but independent companies specialise in online transactions.
Choosing who you will use to provide merchant services often comes down to costs and what is likely to be more cost effective for your business and the number of transactions you will likely have.
There are various fee options involved that can help you work out the best options for you:
- Set-up fee
- Monthly fee
- Per transaction fee
What are the merchant service fees?
Companies often offer no or low monthly fees but higher pay per transaction fees. Others are the opposite. As an example, PayPal has no setup fees or monthly fees. However, for their transactions in NZ it’s 3.4% plus $.45 per transaction. This is a pretty big percentage per transaction. If you’re not initially making a lot of sales it maybe a good option. Once you start selling in bigger volume another option may be better.
Banks, other than your own, may offer more competitive rates, so we suggest you investigate the different options.
It’s important to know that transaction fees are from your gross sales and not net profit so where you have a 20% profit margin you’ll be giving more than 15% of your gross profit if the fee is 3% of a sale.
These are the most common merchant services nz companies use. We can integrate these into your WordPress online store. Shown in no particular order:
BNZ
https://www.bnz.co.nz/business-banking
ASB
https://www.asb.co.nz/business-banking/accepting-payments.html
Westpac
https://www.westpac.co.nz/business/payment-solutions/
Kiwibank
https://www.fetchpayments.co.nz/web-payments/
ANZ
http://www.anz.co.nz/business/products-services/merchant-services/
BAMBORA
https://www.bambora.com/en/nz/
SWIPE HQ
PAY STATION
http://paystation.co.nz/signup#pricing
POLIPAY (Direct Bank Transfer)
PAYMENT EXPRESS / DPS
https://www.paymentexpress.com
E WAY
AUTHORIZE .NET
2 CHECKOUT
PAYMATE
PAYPAL
https://www.paypal.com/nz/webapps/mpp/merchant
STRIPE
What happens if you have a physical store?
If your online store needs to integrate with your physical store, we can help with that. Vendhq is one of New Zealand leading POS systems. It’s a user-friendly interface that’s fast to use and easy to learn. Works seamlessly with your WordPress website. All your data is synced to the cloud and accessible from anywhere.