Tag: merchant account

From Instagram Model To Entrepreneur. Scale Into The Big Leagues (Pt. 1)

Instagram models and influencers like Kylie Jenner and Huda Kattan have taken their brand from social media to mainstream. They are building lucrative businesses outside of Instagram. These influencers have shown they do not see modeling on Instagram as a long-term business plan. And, neither should you.

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms, but it is only considered a stepping-stone for true business owners. It has established itself as a great marketing tool to help grow empires. So what empires are you ready to take to the next level? Do you have the necessary resources to take it as big as it can get? In this blog we discuss how to expand from Instagram and other social media platforms to a real business online.

Making Money on Instagram

Since launching in October 2010, Instagram has had a meteoric rise. As of June 2018, Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users worldwide, and over 500 million daily active users. In addition to growth in business accounts and personal users, a wave of Instagram models have earned a lot of money through the platform. Some Instagram influencers with millions of followers have earned up to $100,000 per sponsored post.

According to Shopify, on average, 42% of Instagram influencers charge between $200 and $400 per post. But, influencer marketing for brands and sponsored posts on Instagram has limits as the market gets increasingly saturated. Ultimately, users learn a hard lesson about making money from social media; you must be a business owner to generate real revenue on a long-term basis.

Get off of Instagram…sort of

To really move into the big leagues, you need to develop a product or service outside of Instagram. This is especially true when launching a business that falls in the high-risk merchants sector. The high-risk label can apply to any business owner who makes a living selling products or services with a questionable reputation or the potential for a high rate of returns. This can include things like weight loss teas and supplements, subscription boxes, oral health care, skin enhancement creams, and much more.

When you want to generate real revenue, you need to develop and sell your own product or service independent of Instagram. Afterward, you only need to use the platform as a promotional tool just as you do now for the brands you promote.

Moving from Instagram model or influencer to a business owner

Here are a few steps you can take to make the move from Instagram model to entrepreneur.

1. Be daring

While you may have amassed 10,000 followers, you still need to increase your exposure. Be daring, controversial, and offer something of value to prospective buyers. Use your imagination and launch an innovative marketing campaign to grow your audience.

For example, if your followers are interested in fitness you could host of an IG live segment with a celebrity trainer. Talk about controversial topics like whether or not steroids, supplements or athletic gels really work. Another example could involve a video ad promoting a future IG live collaboration with three other popular sex/dating influencers. Collaborating with others is a form of cross-promotion.

Whatever you decide to do, be bold! Playing it safe will only keep you where you are and not where you could be.

2. Expand your engaged followers

We are speaking to engaged not bought followers. Having bloated follower numbers who don’t engage with you online will reduce your range and impact. So, grow your followers organically or through advertising. However, don’t buy followers.

Every social media platform at some point does a purge of fake accounts. Consequently, if your followers are mostly made up of bots and fake profiles, your numbers will fall quickly. This will have an impact on your credibility and economic value from the perspective of the brands that work with you.

You want authentic numbers? Increase your audience by expanding your social media reach. Create a YouTube channel and a Facebook page. More importantly, start a blog or build out a website. Owning a custom domain name gives you control over your branding and allows you to use multiple channels to cross-promote and expand your reach.

3. Develop a core product/service

Create your own unique product or service. Products don’t necessarily have to be tangible. On the contrary, they can be a digital product (e.g. video subscriptions, one-on-one virtual meetings, etc.) too. Even if you decide to sell a physical product (like a weight loss supplement for instance) it doesn’t have to be made by you.

Many new entrepreneurs build partnerships with manufacturers or fulfillment companies with ready-made products. Sometimes they can even be shipped directly to customers. You can consider partnerships where you are the personal brand to the product. Then, with your engaged followers, take that leaf out of Kylie Jenner’s playbook and leverage your audience. In her Forbes interview, Kylie remarked that “Social media is an amazing platform … I have such easy access to my fans and my customers.”

4. Promote your own business

Use the skills you developed marketing other company products through sponsored posts to promote your own products. This is exactly what affiliate marketers do; they graduate from being just an affiliate to an actual merchant by selling something of value. Leverage Instagram’s shoppable posts and send visitors directly to your business website to make a purchase. With easy access to 10,000 or 60,000 followers, it will be easier to grow your business quickly.

Be more than just an Instagram model

We hope the advice shared in this blog helps you grow from Instagram model to business owner. In part two of this post we discuss how selling controversial products makes you a high-risk business owner. In fact, you will learn why accepting credit card orders online is more complicated than it appears.

Are you already curious about becoming a business owner and need to accept payments? Above all, do you already sell a product or service and use Instagram as a promotional platform, but need a payment solution? Email our team now and we will help you get started!

February 6, 2019
Caribbean & Latin American Merchants, You Can Overcome Banking Hurdles

Caribbean and Latin American merchants have turned to DirectPayNet for banking solutions in recent months. What exactly was their problem? The inability to receive wire payments from banks in the US, Canada and European countries. This is a major financial roadblock for merchants in spite of the explosion of the ecommerce industry over the last five years. Globalization has advanced trade between several countries and is only expected to increase with broader access to the internet. For this reason merchants expect financial transactions to be faster, easier and frequent, but unfortunately that isn’t the case.

More Caribbean and Latin American merchants need quicker, efficient ways to wire money globally, safely and securely. Banks are stricter about the type of transactions they allow now more than ever. They think twice about wire payments to countries they believe have higher risks of fraud. If you’re in the Caribbean or Latin America and sell online products or services to customers in the US, Canada, the UK or Europe, a bank account in a bank-friendly nation can help you be more competitive. It also opens the door to finding suppliers anywhere in the world. Keep reading and we’ll explain why.

Banks have a hard time with high risk

Banks in the Caribbean and Latin America (or LatAm) use the term high risk to categorize certain merchants (as all banks do around the world). The label high risk is linked to industries with either a “sinister” reputation or major financial risk (e.g. high chargebacks, high-ticket products, etc.). Fitness, life and business coaches, travel sites, ebook and info products, and property rentals are in this category. So are merchants involved in 18+ entertainment and retail, e-cigarettes, smoking accessories and cryptocurrencies. You could be a Medellin tube site operator, a São Paulo-based body-enhancement cosmetics store, or a health supplements vendor in Buenos Aires. Regardless of your company’s government-approved credentials, these business models are all high risk. This makes getting banking services tough. Therefore, if you’re operating a high-risk business in LatAm, it’s harder for your US or Canadian suppliers (and customers) to pay you.

In the last 90 days, there’s been a few news stories highlighting security breaches with the banking systems in Latin America. Just this past April, it was reported that a cyber attack hit the Bank of Mexico’s Interbank Electronic Payment System (SPEI). North Korean hackers are suspected of committing this breach. Millions of dollars were withdrawn with the use of fake bank accounts. The threat had an impact on five banks all connected to the same state-owned system. Now imagine you have a business bank account that was affected by this activity. What would be your next move?

The benefits of banking outside of your region

Banking outside of your region is a wise decision for several reasons. In the first place, with the right paperwork you can be boarded at a bank with a more advanced and secure infrastructure.

Secondly, it allows for bank account diversification. In fact, this should be common practice among all online merchants around the world, but unfortunately it’s not! Take the case of one of our clients from Mexico with an 18+ retail and entertainment store. They were desperate for a bank account due to frozen funds. The merchant could not pay their affiliates or their employees. Having two or more bank accounts ensure that funds will be accessible even if one account shuts down.

A third benefit of banking outside your region is flexibility during unstable economic conditions. Political conflict in many countries can affect global markets. Exchange rates fluctuate all the time, which supports the case for diversifying your money. Having a mixture of domestic and foreign currencies allows you take advantage of perks like lower interest rates.

Caribbean and Latin American merchants can get both a bank and merchant account

On June 1, we published an insightful blog on the advantages to US and Canada-based online sellers of getting an offshore merchant account. These strategies and benefits also apply to Latin American merchants who are high risk or just simply need banking services outside of their region.

Thinking Of Getting An Offshore Merchant Account? Here’s What You Need To Know

There are several benefits to getting an offshore high-risk merchant account. The first is that you will increase your online consumer market share. By setting up credit card processing to support buyers in other countries, you can significantly increase the number of cross-border payments depending on the location of your secondary market.

Secondly, you can process orders in more than one currency. For instance, let’s say you can buy cheap traffic in some EU markets. Add the right relationship with a bank that offers multiple currencies like Euros, British Pound, Norwegian or Danish Krone, or Swiss franc and see your conversions skyrocket!
With that in mind, remember to think globally! Translating your website to one or more languages is a great conversion tactic. Also, don’t forget to ensure you can affordably ship to customers in those secondary international locations. Determine your minimum order needed for free shipping, or the net profit margin after shipping and other expenses are deducted. Moreover, you should extend customer service hours in anticipation of more callers needing info and potential refunds.

To read more of this blog, click here.

Take advantage while you can

For many years Latin America-based banks were in a time warp. However, the internet, evolution of technology, and updated compliance policies have forced banks in the Caribbean and LatAm to advance. This growth takes time, but it is happening and with it comes a desire to prevent risk. This is why the DirectPayNet team has come to the rescue of a few high-risk merchants in the past six months. Our recommendation? Consider banking outside of your region!

Speak with one of our experienced experts about payment solutions for your ecommerce business. Contact DirectPayNet with Latin American banking questions and we’ll help you get started with cross-border processing or just a simple bank account!

July 5, 2018
Negative Reviews Could Affect Your Merchant Account Application

Negative reviews might affect your chances of getting a merchant account approved! Does the following story sound familiar? Say you’re a subscription, adult, dating, business opportunity, cosmeceutical, or nutraceutical merchant and you’ve been processing for a year or more. Your business generates five to six figures every month. Your company is growing and needs another merchant account. You apply on your own to multiple processors and acquiring banks. And then BOOM! You get rejected by all of them!

In the first place, your business model alone is high risk. Secondly, you are high risk AND your online reputation stinks. Double whammy! A few negative opinions aren’t a problem. It’s many pages of hostile comments scattered over the Internet that can affect whether you get approved or declined for a merchant account.

Throughout DirectPayNet’s history we have worked with multi-million dollar, high-risk merchants (even MATCH-listed ones) that often run into this nightmare. With our custom-tailored advice, they increase sales conversions, reduce fraud, and more importantly, repair their reputation. The result is merchant account approval! Here’s how you can survive negative reviews, too.

High risk + negative reviews can spell trouble

Have you already Googled your own company? You might see disparaging remarks about your product or service. Sites like BBB.org, Yelp and RipOffReport publish customer opinions all the time. Sometimes they’re anonymous. Negative reviews are normal for top-earning online businesses. Where merchants go wrong is when they don’t do anything about it.

Acquiring banks and processors hate risk. When they see negative content about a merchant online they immediately look for more.Whether or not the information is misleading or untrue makes no difference! There’s no incentive for a bank to approve you, because they are in the business of protecting their bottom line. Banks presume your business could affect their financial situation and contracts with credit card companies.

Take control of your online reputation. The first step is to hire an in-house community manager. This person should be designated to manage your reputation online. If a community manager isn’t feasible, find someone else in-house like a customer service representative that can dedicate up to 5 hours per week. A customer service representative is great, because they routinely handle client inquiries and complaints in your organization.

Your reputation manager should respond to negative comments online and offline. They should be a pro at customer support, social media management and be persuasive. Additionally, set up Google Alerts. One alert can include your brand name and keywords like reviews or customer reviews resulting in real-time updates. Another can include any tag relevant to your business so replies can be actioned immediately.

Seek an expert outside of your firm if you have no in-house talent to fight your critics. Hire a reputable and qualified SEO company to improve your reputation. Your SEO team should aim to get negative reviews indexed beyond page 3 instead of them being on 1 and 2.

Responding to your critics

Another step in the fight for your online reputation is to respond to negative reviews in a timely fashion! Over the years we’ve found that when high-risk, high-earning merchants implement fast response times to customer complaints they see a 45% decrease in chargeback incidents within 60 days.

The ideal response time should be within 24-48 hours! The longer negative comments go unanswered the worse your business looks depending on the severity of statements made. Have your community manager privately ask formerly unhappy customers to change their opinions about your product or service if you’ve remedied the situation. You may be surprised to find that your customers appreciate that their grievances were heard, and they end up agreeing to edit their review.

Moreover, it’s tempting to delete negative comments on your own website. This never bodes well for any merchant, as the Internet doesn’t forget. However, it may be warranted to ask the owner of an external website to remove a negative review if you’ve explained why the issue happened and someone is slandering your company.

Earlier we mentioned BBB.org as one of many sites online that publish reviews about businesses. If you are already registered there, make sure your profile is updated and clean. If you don’t have a published profile as yet do so, as it will be good for PR. Any company in the US and Canada can register on the site for free. Your goal should be to get an excellent rating. Monitor it regularly, because it can change at any time. Clearly, adopt measures to improve low scores right away by responding to negative complaints and reviews. If your business manages to achieve a superior rating, you can apply to become a BBB Accredited Business!

It might be time for a refund policy makeover

Sometimes disgruntled customers leave bad reviews about you online. However, if you pay attention to those remarks, you might discover the solution to their problem is already in your organization. Customers often complain about money (e.g. a company stole it or didn’t refund it). If customers complain about not getting their money back, it might be a good time to review your refund policy.

Not addressing customer complaints about refunds can result in unwanted chargebacks. This is dangerous, because it can ruin your processing history and your online reputation. This is especially detrimental for merchant account applications. (Processing history is essential for merchant account approval.) Here are a couple of solutions to prevent this.

First, review your refund and cancellation policies. Make sure it’s clearly communicated on your website. Acquiring banks look at these pages with a fine-tooth comb. You should do the same. How many days do refunds take? Did you clearly state the return address where the customer can send their order or cancel their subscription? Are return shipping costs involved and clearly described on your website?

Determine if you’re allowing a reasonable number of days for refunds to be requested. Some merchants have a 10-day refund policy. Perhaps you might need to be flexible and increase that to 15 or 30 days. Regardless of the number of days you allow for returns make sure it is clearly stated. It should be clear in your refund policy, terms and conditions, and cancellation policy too.

Also, train customer service to respond to requests more efficiently and quickly. Clearly communicating the number of days allowed for refunds and when they will be issued can prevent customers from bashing your brand online. This is crucial for preventing chargebacks. Equally it can mitigate negative reviews from happening in the first place.

Smear campaigns can hurt you

Donald Trump may have coined the phrase “fake news” but long before in the ecommerce world, fake reviews were and still are a thing!

The larger and more successful your business, the more haters you will have! That includes competitors who are desperate to ruin your reputation. Time and again we’ve seen this happen to our multi-million dollar clients. They get attacked with negative reviews and after a little research they learn it’s their competition causing the damage.

It’s important to do some research online to learn about the profiles and motives for discrediting your business. Have your community manager gather data about the people posting the negative reviews. Are they using real names or posting anonymously? Does their location in their review match their location cited in their order? Respond to the complaints and ask for an email, proof of purchase like a customer ID or some other transaction details to help remedy the situation. In some cases, no response from the customer might mean that their negative review is indeed a fake complaint.

If it’s possible, learn about the IP location of those anonymous, angry reviewers. If you get tangible proof of a smear campaign, you might feel compelled to take it to court.

Have your community manager conduct an audit of reviews found on the first three pages of Google. Develop a plan for gathering concrete evidence showing that your competitor is ruining your reputation. When enough evidence is collected, some merchants take legal action against the suspected individuals and organizations. There have been court cases that have resulted in convictions and fines over matters like this.

Some competitors lack creativity and innovation and are too lazy to win clients the honourable way. Therefore, be on alert, because they could be trying to steal your thunder!

Talk to your merchant service provider about negative reviews

Merchants don’t understand the merchant account application process thoroughly, but a good service provider will. It’s important to have a good relationship with an acquiring bank or processor. Most merchants end up sabotaging their efforts by applying to multiple banks with no plan or strategy, which could result in penalties! Few are aware that this leaves a negative impression with processors. Worse your credit score can take a hit.

Most banks are conservative by nature. As a result, high-risk merchants go through strict investigation. That’s why a service provider is there: we are advocates to help you navigate the process. The right provider can strategically guide you to approval through their acquiring bank relationships.

Seasoned providers don’t just fill in a form. It’s our duty to inform you about compliance, policies and regulations that might affect your application. Additionally, we negotiate pricing and work to get your high-risk businesses approved so they earn more revenue. DirectPayNet is very strategic in finding the right processor long-term. Service providers should be offering recommendations on how to be more compliant to gain an approval for your next merchant account. This by itself is a gamble and waste of your valuable time, especially if you’re on the verge of being or already are MATCH-listed.

The above is just a look at how cleaning up negative reviews and your online reputation doesn’t happen instantly. However, the effort proves invaluable for trying to get your next merchant account application approved.

Do you need another merchant account, but are too busy? Run out of options? Contact our experienced team so we can help you find a solution today!

May 2, 2018
8 Ways Affiliate Traffic Might Hurt Your Merchant Account

You depend on your merchant account for credit card processing and you depend on your affiliate program to supply you with affiliate traffic. However, if you aren’t careful your affiliate traffic could affect your merchant account in a bad way unintentionally.

What are the signs your affiliate traffic stinks? The biggest signs you might be in trouble are high refund rates, chargebacks and fraudulent orders. Not only does this show your affiliate channel is losing money, but you’re also making your merchant processor nervous.

Here are eight ways your affiliate traffic could be hurting your merchant account and your entire business, and what to do about it.

1. You don’t screen affiliates (resulting in bad partners)

The point of affiliate programs is to get traffic! However, not all affiliate traffic is guaranteed to be good. Before you automatically approve an affiliate application, ensure a quality check is done on the leads sent within the first few weeks. Once the affiliate sends more traffic, keep monitoring and verify all information provided to ensure it is valid.

There are simple techniques you can take to protect your business. Review every website URL, email address, physical address and phone number. You can even look for signs of affiliate links on their web pages — real affiliates will likely have affiliate links already live and published.

Contact the affiliate directly to make sure they’re a real person – ask them to do a Skype video so you can give them tips on how to better promote your product or service. If you don’t have time, ask your customer service reps or admin assistants to contact a handful of new affiliate applicants each week. Put any new applicants that look suspicious on hold until you confirm they’re legit.

2. You don’t know how or where you’re being promoted

It’s dangerous to not know how or where affiliates are promoting your product! For example, an affiliate could be using dishonest marketing tactics to promote your nutraceutical product. They could be publishing content promising that your weight loss tea or supplements will cure a disease or illness. Without control over the message, you could receive negative reviews that not only hurts your image, but also could significantly hurt your chances of having a future merchant account approved.

Use a spreadsheet to keep track of what marketing methods your affiliates are using. Identify pages where ads are placed and the type of marketing tools used.

Search for keywords like your own brand name in Google and use a backlink tool to determine all pages linking to your product. If you catch an affiliate brand name bidding for keywords that could mislead buyers, specify that this type of paid advertising be not allowed in your program. Add this rule to your terms and conditions. Alternatively, offer a list of short and long-tail keywords affiliates can use to promote your product.

3. You don’t know any of your affiliates

Would you ever hire a vendor or an employee without knowing anything about who they really are? Of course not! Affiliates are your sales force, so you should know everything you can about your sales person and how they represent your brand!

We’ve talked about the 80/20-rule on the DPN blog before: 20% or your affiliates will generate 80% of your revenue. Pull a report of your top-earning affiliates for the last six months. Offer a higher commission, if you can afford it. Groom these relationships and develop exclusive partnerships so they only promote your product.

Don’t forget about the other guys! Select a handful of promising mid-level partners you foresee making you more money with a little motivation. Set up calls with or email them to talk about what it will take for them to promote your product exclusively.

4. You Run No-Condition Affiliate Contests

Many merchants do affiliate contests all wrong! For example, imagine an merchant runs a weekend-only contest with double commission days. This is risky, because some affiliates aren’t reachable on weekends and the rates of purchase fraud can be high. Also high refunds, chargebacks and associated fees, usually follow this type of promotion.

There’s a better way to manage this. Start by launching your weekend-only contests on Thursday to get extra traffic. This gives you two days to communicate with affiliates, review links and monitor transactions before Saturday. This is just one example of how to reduce fake traffic through contests.

Affiliate contests are a great way to boost traffic. But if you don’t set any ground rules, you expose yourself to fraud. Reduce your risk by running an invite-only contest. That way, you can choose who is eligible and who’s not. Try paying affiliates a performance bonus instead of a higher commission if you can afford to.

Another strategy is to pay affiliates 15 days in arrears or more instead of weekly. If your contest is desirable enough, many affiliates will wait for payment. This buys more time to pay commission on legit referred sales that don’t turn into refunds or chargebacks.

Affiliate contests are fine so long as you have protections in place to make sure partners are honest and only rewarded for real sales.

5: You Have No Affiliate Manager

Affiliate marketing programs aren’t a simple “set it and forget it” type of thing. That’s why you need an affiliate manager to oversee the daily operation of your program. A good affiliate manager can spot problems before they become a crisis, help attract high-quality affiliates, and make sure your program is performing at a high level.

Your affiliate manager should be screening affiliates and the content they use to promote your product. Affiliate managers can recruit new partners, motivate existing ones and negotiate better ad placement for your brand. Ultimately, your affiliate manager should be making you more money through your affiliate channel.

You can either hire an outsourced program manager or an in-house employee for this role. In our experience, you need personable talent in the event they represent you at affiliate marketing conferences. Finally, offer them a rev share on the revenue the affiliates generate!

6. You Don’t Perform Affiliate Program Audits

Regular audits help detect fraudulent affiliates fast. They help you see the strengths and weaknesses of your program. If you don’t want to be surprised with a merchant account termination, you should schedule affiliate program audits on a bi-monthly or monthly basis.

During your audit, you should review your program terms and conditions to make sure they’re aligned with your current goals and that affiliates aren’t violating any rules. Check to see which affiliates are actively promoting your products and which aren’t. You want a list of affiliates that are converting, not bogging you down.

Pull a report of sales per affiliate; then find how many chargebacks and refunds each is generating. Don’t be fooled by underperforming affiliates. Many of them can fly under the radar by only having a few sales, which become refunds or chargebacks. Be vigilant and check every affiliate periodically.

7. You Have a Weak or Non-Existent Fraud Prevention Program

If you want to keep your merchant account in good standing, take steps to prevent fraud in your affiliate program. Start by weeding out affiliates that send a few sales that end up refunded or charged back every time. Be aware of underperforming affiliates who suddenly start sending high volume traffic and sales.

Merchants can also use software to their advantage. For example, fraud detection software that use transaction scoring systems can hold or even reject transactions with suspicious data (e.g. mismatched billing and IP addresses). If your product is made for a specific geographic market, question why an affiliate is sending traffic from a country where your product doesn’t ship. Keep in mind; if you sell a digital product don’t put orders on hold, as customers will think they were declined. Remove affiliates caught referring fake sales. Your program will be better off and so will your merchant account.

8. You Aren’t Providing Affiliates with Content

You can’t just give affiliates some code and let them market your product or brand however they choose. The best affiliate programs provide affiliates with tailored landing pages at the bare minimum, so the audience that lands on your site knows exactly what to buy. Consider providing affiliates with display ads, email creative, social media ads, or any other digital content that could help them refer quality traffic and sales. Get rid of marketing tools that are low converting. Ask your affiliates for feedback or ideas on what they would like to use to market your product.

Now It’s Time to Fix Your Affiliate Traffic

Those are the eight major ways that affiliate traffic might hurt your merchant account. Quantity matters, but quality traffic is far more important! Bad affiliates result in higher costs, chargebacks, refunds and eventually, fraud. Furthermore, this can damage your business’s reputation and even lead to the termination of a merchant account.

Now that you know why your traffic isn’t great, take steps to improve it. Email or call us so we can help you optimize your affiliate marketing strategy to make more money from your merchant account.

March 12, 2018
High Chargebacks? Lower Them To Avoid Merchant Account Termination (Pt. 2)
High chargebacks ruining your business? Last week we published part one of blog and provided some great strategies to prevent chargebacks from terminating your merchant account. Well, we have more great tips to help you avoid an online business disaster, so here is part two.

Is your help desk or customer support page helping?

The purpose of your help desk or customer support page is to minimize calls, emails, refunds and chargebacks from your customers. The following items should be included on that page.
- Contact information (include a customer service phone number, and an email or contact form to get in touch with you).
- Customer service hours and typical delays for responses (don’t forget to indicate your time zone).
- FAQs (list common questions and answers to reduce incoming customer inquiries).
- On the first page, answer the following question: “What is the charge I see on my credit card for?” (it should be immediately clear what the customer purchased to prevent a call to his bank).
Avoid chargebacks with responsive and effective customer service

Customer service can make or break your business. It can also affect your chargeback and refund ratios. Are you outsourcing your customer support team? Is the quality of service a good reflection of your company? Do the hours of operation allow your customers to reach you during reasonable or extended parts of the day? You and your team should address all of these questions while setting up your high risk merchant account.

Many merchants spend tons of time perfecting their marketing and business practices to achieve high volume sales. Unfortunately, they neglect the potential losses that can incur when unsatisfied customers ask for refunds or even worse, contact their bank and issue a chargeback. Acquiring banks charge a chargeback fee so you’re actually losing even more money. Worse, you may see extra revenue lost for a referred sale that became a chargeback if it came from an affiliate to whom you paid commission.

An effective and available customer service team can actually be a “profit center.” Looking at it as a “cost center” will definitely make you skimp on important details, such as hours of operation and hiring qualified well-spoken customer service agents. Training support agents on how to save customers and upselling other products or services can increase your bottom line and profits!

More to come on best practices for customer service in a future DirectPayNet blog post! Stay tuned!

Is forced continuity costing you money?

Free trial offers, forced monthly continuity and unclear billing terms can increase short-term profits. However, if not managed correctly it can spell trouble for your merchant account providers and authorities if enough complaints are received. This shouldn’t dissuade you from trying new billing practices or offers for your customers. There are legitimate well-run businesses that offer free trials and forced monthly subscriptions. The key is to learn how to market your product before trying these billing practices.

This could mean spending some additional time understanding how to entice your customers to buy without signing up to a free offer or forcing them to a long-term commitment. The benefit of this is twofold. First if you are able to generate even a low profit, it will be the proof of concept you need to push forward. Second, obtaining a high-risk merchant account is easier when you’re not offering free trials or forced subscriptions. It will allow your payment processor to get to know you and your business, and build trust. When you decide to try a new billing practice, your processor may be more willing and able to support your new business model.

Obtaining a high-risk merchant account with no previous processing history is hard. It’s even more difficult and expensive with a forced free trial, monthly subscription product. You may have high reserves and outrageous transaction fees to pay in order to get a payment processor to allow you to get started.

Mismanaging a free trial or forced monthly continuity program may actually be less profitable than initial sales figures may suggest. Most merchants don’t realize that. DirectPayNet often sees processing statements with 20% or more in lost revenue due to refund and chargeback fees. Keep track of profit (especially net) not just sales figures.

In conclusion…

Keeping a high-risk merchant account safe and operational is a big concern for most online business owners. Getting shut down because of high chargebacks can be costly. Therefore, tread carefully. You may have to put your converting offer on hold. Affiliate relationships might be lost while seeking alternative processing solutions. Future revenue from customers on subscription offers could be lost. This is why a conservative product or service launch might result in a few good lessons that will save some time and money when driving aggressive marketing campaigns.

Was your merchant account shut down due to too many chargebacks? Need an expert to help you with refunds and fraud reduction?

Contact DirectPayNet for a free consultation to get your online business back up and running today!
January 23, 2018