Marketing Merchant Account
Implement a payment solution that enhances your revenue and frees up your time to create compelling content and keep readers wanting more.
Publishers and digital subscribers are a niche market in merchant services that requires payment solutions to help address customer payment disputes that commonly arise. Since 1993, Website Payment Pro has been facilitating that and fine-tuning a solution that can bring reasonable credit card processing costs to the industry. We regularly underwrite merchant accounts for magazines, catalogs, journals, periodicals, and other publications—with sales models including ecommerce, telemarketing, door-to-door, and storefront to multi-channel. Whether you have a small newsstand setup or a large online journal, with a magazine merchant account, you can take advantage of payment solution features and capabilities to keep your business viable and growing in the competitive space:
- Ability to accept credit, debit, and ACH payments
- Devices and software to accept mobile payments like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Android Pay for merchants selling in-store, via newsstand, door-to-door, or wherever your business goes
- Payment gateway that integrates with your shopping cart and other website features
- Virtual terminal for accepting payments over the phone (MOTO), designed to enhance outgoing contact centers
- Multi-functional POS system for your retail setting
- Gift card and loyalty program integration assistance
- Next-day funding for single payments and recurring billing strategies
- Cardholder data protected with industry-leading technology, like the latest encryption and tokenization obfuscation techniques, so it can be safely stored and used for one-click renewals
- Cloud-based solutions that allow you to use various payment products and software from multiple selling points, with real-time data accessible from any internet-enabled location
If you've already set up a merchant account, or are just establishing your business, you may be familiar with the sometimes overwhelming terrain of the payment processing landscape. It can be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to choosing the right processor for your business.
Most fees from merchant account providers are unavoidable as they are simply passed on from credit card networks and card-issuing banks, who charge assessment and interchange fees for their role in authorizing and settling transactions.
This is the general cost of accepting credit cards at your business, and it's non-negotiable. However, the markups merchant account providers charge for intermediary services (initiating the authorization process and getting the customers' funds into your merchant account) and becoming a financial guarantor if your company runs into issues (with chargebacks, fraud, bankruptcy, and other costly setbacks they can't afford to reimburse banks for) is negotiated. When you obtain a processing account, they assess the risk factors of entering a partnership with your business to determine this variable markup.
High-Risk Factors
"Friendly fraud" occurs when a buyer disputes a payment that was actually valid, in an attempt to leverage the chargeback system and get their money back. Unfortunately for businesses, buyers often get away with it because chargebacks are a form of consumer protection, and financial institutions often tip the scales in the buyer's favor during disputes. In the journal industry, it's a widespread issue due to buyer's remorse, forgetfulness of recurring billing arrangements, and fluctuations in disposable income over the course of an extended-term subscription. But there are numerous legitimate customer disputes that are not uncommon, and preventable, in the publication market:
- When the recurring payment terms and conditions are not properly disclosed or clear to the buyer
- Negative option trial business models that require the consumer to take action to cancel a subscription that automatically starts after a free or discounted initial period. Often, the fine print of free trials is not clear to the customer, who is surprised when they start seeing post-trial charges
- Automatic renewals that occur annually, biannually, or quarterly. For example, a consumer purchases a one-year magazine subscription and is billed monthly, not noticing the fine print stating the subscription will automatically renew itself at year's end
- Insufficient clear return/refund policies for unsatisfied buyers
- Publication businesses often have to rely on third parties for order fulfillment, leaving more room for issues and misunderstandings if the publication doesn't get delivered for unknown reasons
- Fraud
While the publication industry is susceptible to chargebacks for various reasons, you can protect your business from them, and we have ways to manage the inevitable cases. Merchant account providers care a great deal about chargebacks because they are liable to cover the debt owed to banks and credit card issuers when the merchant can't afford to. Examining a merchant's chargeback history is a business performance indicator and a key factor in determining processing rates and if the merchant requires additional safeguards, like a rolling reserve. Some providers decline them outright, while others charge them exorbitant processing fees to create a buffer against potential financial loss.
The Low Rate, High Performance Menu
Website Payment Pro takes an alternative route in that we regularly underwrite publication merchant accounts, and we offer a low rate guarantee—we will beat the rate of any verified provider. We're able to do this by offering chargeback and fraud prevention assistance to protect your business—and subsequently, our business—from preventable issues. While each publication is different, there are several common practices we advise and assist our publication merchants with:
- Properly disclosed payment terms, with a heavy emphasis on free trial and recurring billing setups
- Automatic, comprehensive order confirmations and statements
- Robust billing process in place to reduce the risk of errors, like double charging
- Ensuring your business name matches the name you use for payment purposes. Sometimes, customers don't recognize charges on their statements and attempt to dispute the seemingly unexplainable transaction
- Clear company contact information and liberal refund policies. While refunds seem like a loss, chargebacks are far more severe. We encourage merchants to communicate with customers whenever possible. One way to do that is by sending post-delivery emails to gauge customer satisfaction.
- A customizable Advanced Fraud Detection Suite. This is a built-in feature in the payment gateways we offer, and it allows vendors to set their own filters and thresholds to flag and hold suspicious orders for review before accepting them.
Once we have your subscription business covered through the major aspects, we drill down to the unique nuances of your operation to seal any other vulnerabilities. We have in-house chargeback and PCI compliance teams dedicated to walking you through the appropriate steps to take both before and after chargebacks and fraud occur.
Integrate More to Produce More
In addition to our below-industry rates and above-market services, Website Payment Pro offers integration assistance so your payment gateway syncs with other operations like accounting (QuickBooks, FreshBooks, and more), inventory, shopping cart software, CRM platform, and numerous other third-party software. Having one streamlined system makes your business more efficient by reducing your administrative workload and freeing your valuable time to create content that keeps members wanting to keep reading.
Since 1990, Website Payment Pro has consistently partnered with startup and existing publication businesses. If you're already set up and feel like you're overpaying in processing fees and monthly charges, you likely are. In a free consultation, we'll examine your current processing statement and provide a side-by-side comparison of our offer to show you exactly what you can save.
Streamline your publication's payment operations with tailored solutions from Website Payment Pro. Contact us today at 1-800-304-0555 to discuss our secure merchant accounts and high-risk payment processing services for magazines, journals, and digital publications.
