Taking a credit card for a brick and mortar shop can be expensive. It requires that you set up a merchant account, get the hardware and usually you have to pay for an extra line.

Working with service brokers can add up over time and adds an additional step. Early cancellation is a killer and usually has a minimum of a $500 dollar cancellation fee.

My research and experience at our little company showed there were pretty good ways to go for a small business that needs to take credit cards fast:

PayPal: is by far the fastest and least overhead of any credit card account. Unfortunately it is relatively expensive per transaction and requires that your customers have PayPal to get confirmation or refunds etc… Not quite what we wanted. It’s obviously more complicated than this depending on the card and transaction type, but here’s a general idea–

• .30 per transaction
• 2.5% fee

ModPay: A start-up company, (referred to us by a customer actually) recently bought out by Zion’s bank. It offers a handy little internet credit-card gateway. They are super understaffed and primarily meant for reoccuring accounts, but they are by far the cheapest per transaction and card swipe is a lot cheaper than your run of the mill credit card machine… Again, it’s obviously more complicated than this depending on the card and transaction type, but here’s a general idea–

• .25 per transaction
• 2.2% fee

So far our experience at Worldwide Bookstores has been favorable, and we’re looking forward to more satisfied citizens who can buy books with visa or mastercard…