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Can someone with experience processing payments themselves or with a similar service comment on the pricing? Thank you. https://payments-sandbox.amazon.com/sdu

Can someone with experience processing payments themselves or with a similar service comment on the pricing? Thank you. https://payments-sandbox.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=paynow/pricing https://payments-sandbox.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business?sn=pa...

zacharydanger 18y ago
It looks cheaper than most of the payment gateway solutions offered by most banks (i.e. Chase Paymentech). And there doesn't seem to be a monthly fee.
- snprbob86 18y ago
  If I understand correctly, you need to pay a percentage and base transaction fee to process credit cards anyway. This service from Amazon bakes their cut into those two charges already. The Amazon charges are cheaper than competing services, but how do they compare to doing it yourself? Is that even an option? This service sounds highly attractive except for the requiring of an Amazon account. Hopefully, that problem can be mitigated somehow. I'd have to have a good hard think.
  - timf 18y ago
    I think doing it yourself is an option. You can integrate with something like authorize.net which I see mentioned a lot. But they, in turn, integrate with what are the I guess actual processors: http://www.authorize.net/solutions/resellersolutions/resellerprogram/processorlist/ http://www.authorize.net/solutions/resellersolutions/reselle... (note that I have no direct experience here yet)
    - timf 18y ago
      I'm confused now, at the link above Chase paymenttech is listed as a processor connection. But they are listed as an authorize.net reseller at this link? http://www.authorize.net/reseller_dir.asp?page_id=148721&reseller=46256 http://www.authorize.net/reseller_dir.asp?page_id=148721&#38... I guess I have a lot to understand yet, sorry.
lionhearted 18y ago
It's fair - a bit more expensive than you could get doing it yourself. I think if you shop around, you can 2.2% for Visa/MC and 20 cents per transaction even with no credit or volume. The question if it's worth it is how do they handle refunds, cancellations, and most especially - expired credit cards. In a monthly service, you might lose more to expiring CC's than to cancellations! People's cards go over their limit, get canceled, or simply expire. I was surprised when I started seeing monthly credit card attrition numbers, it can brutal. So if Amazon lets customers cancel without you/your support team doing anything, that's valuable. If they let you offer "no questions asked refunds" where the customer can get it themself - that might be valuable. And biggest of all - if you can define an automatic process for dead CC's, that'd be really valuable. If Amazon would check if a CC verified, then automatically try again right away if it didn't, then again the next day and day after, then sent a series of 3 emails - if they offered something like that, that'd be phenomenal. I'm going to doubt they do though... So their prices - competitive enough. You'll want to make sure you're not held hostage to them once you start using them, which I suspect you are. And does someone need an Amazon account to sign up? Big question there. Depending on what value they add, they might be worth using. But only if they don't hold your customer data hostage if you want to leave as you grow.

zacharydanger 18y ago

It looks cheaper than most of the payment gateway solutions offered by most banks (i.e. Chase Paymentech). And there doesn't seem to be a monthly fee.

snprbob86 18y ago
If I understand correctly, you need to pay a percentage and base transaction fee to process credit cards anyway. This service from Amazon bakes their cut into those two charges already. The Amazon charges are cheaper than competing services, but how do they compare to doing it yourself? Is that even an option? This service sounds highly attractive except for the requiring of an Amazon account. Hopefully, that problem can be mitigated somehow. I'd have to have a good hard think.
- timf 18y ago
  I think doing it yourself is an option. You can integrate with something like authorize.net which I see mentioned a lot. But they, in turn, integrate with what are the I guess actual processors: http://www.authorize.net/solutions/resellersolutions/resellerprogram/processorlist/ http://www.authorize.net/solutions/resellersolutions/reselle... (note that I have no direct experience here yet)
  - timf 18y ago
    I'm confused now, at the link above Chase paymenttech is listed as a processor connection. But they are listed as an authorize.net reseller at this link? http://www.authorize.net/reseller_dir.asp?page_id=148721&reseller=46256 http://www.authorize.net/reseller_dir.asp?page_id=148721&#38... I guess I have a lot to understand yet, sorry.

lionhearted 18y ago

It's fair - a bit more expensive than you could get doing it yourself. I think if you shop around, you can 2.2% for Visa/MC and 20 cents per transaction even with no credit or volume. The question if it's worth it is how do they handle refunds, cancellations, and most especially - expired credit cards. In a monthly service, you might lose more to expiring CC's than to cancellations! People's cards go over their limit, get canceled, or simply expire. I was surprised when I started seeing monthly credit card attrition numbers, it can brutal. So if Amazon lets customers cancel without you/your support team doing anything, that's valuable. If they let you offer "no questions asked refunds" where the customer can get it themself - that might be valuable. And biggest of all - if you can define an automatic process for dead CC's, that'd be really valuable. If Amazon would check if a CC verified, then automatically try again right away if it didn't, then again the next day and day after, then sent a series of 3 emails - if they offered something like that, that'd be phenomenal. I'm going to doubt they do though... So their prices - competitive enough. You'll want to make sure you're not held hostage to them once you start using them, which I suspect you are. And does someone need an Amazon account to sign up? Big question there. Depending on what value they add, they might be worth using. But only if they don't hold your customer data hostage if you want to leave as you grow.