Recession and Payment Processors
I’ve had a huge lesson in Payment Processors the last few months, I hope this helps you out as well. Because of my interest in processing credit cards for my membership websites, I decided 2 months ago that I would move to a new payment processor that was supposed to be better for handling the recurring credit card payments that membership websites demand.
I thought it would be no big deal, that I would make the change and not notice a thing. Boy, was I in for a huge surprise when my sales fell 30%-50% for an eight week period. I scrambled to turn off AVS, and did everything I could, but the sales would not recover. In the end, I had to move back to my previous processor which had been serving me well for the last 12 years, and the sales seemed to pick up again.
What is the lesson here?
Be very careful about how you choose payment processors. If you have used the same one your entire life, consider switching to see if it makes a difference. If you keep all settings the same across processors, you should not notice any drop in sales. If you do notice a drop in sales move quickly away from the new processor and back to your old one.
Why would this occur?
My speculation is that the new processor I tried had much stricter credit acceptance policies and was restricting payments to my previous shopping cart purchasers. I have many purchases from outside of the USA and losing those sales makes a huge difference in overall sales volume.
So, there you have it… pay very close attention to how your payment processor is working out, and be cautious, but switch if you feel that you are losing out on sales. If the sales pick up, it’s likely your old processor may have been restricting the credit allowed on purchases that the new processor allows…. I know, it’s ridiculous, but true.
Keep your chin up, your eyes forward, and keep moving: with recessionary consumer spending habits in place, things are going to tighten up for anyone marketing to the consumer online, especially if you are in a impulse sale market.
Best of luck… post your comments, or stories below and we can continue this discussion.
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