someone recommended me to a small church to set up a system for them to accept credit cards in their gift shop.

most of the items there are relatively cheap and so getting a proper credit card system would not be feasible since the processing fees would be more than any amount of profit they are making on these items (they're not making anything substantial on these items to begin with - they're like literature, mementos, etc.).

anyone have any experience with this? could i set up a paypal system there and have people enter their credit card info? what's paypal's limit on funds each month for a regular account? any better way to do this?

12/5/2005 9:17:16 PM

paypal has a virutal terminal system, its like $20 a month but you have to input the buyers billing address so its a bit of a pain. not as nice as just collecting the credit card number name and expr date

anyone who processes credit cards will take a cut tho, paypal or whoever. Are they making less than 3-4% profit on each item?

12/5/2005 9:41:55 PM

yeah, they aren't even making that much profit on the items because their main purpose obviously is outreach with things like books and CDs.

i was thinking of setting up a free paypal account and just going that route because there aren't fees for those accounts. but i was wondering if anyone knew of the limitations placed on free accounts.

12/5/2005 9:51:20 PM

dont know offhand, i have a premier account which pay nothing for, and have no restrictions.

i think you have to place a credit card or bank account on file to create one.

all the info is at paypal.com (types of accounts, restrictions etc). Read up there

12/6/2005 12:40:11 AM

I would imagine (but I don't know) there would be something special for churches/ non-profits.

12/6/2005 12:42:30 AM

just tell people to pay cash

12/6/2005 12:42:58 AM

hahah theyre not making money cause they're paying you too much

12/6/2005 12:51:52 AM

my dad makes and sells art (fused glass) on the side at shows where he cant be connected to internet/phone. when someone wants to pay with a card, he calls and gives the bank or whatever the info and they do the transfer. it's a possibility, i'd call the shop's bank and see what solutions they have.

i want to say the free paypal limit is like $200, the one time i exceeded it i had to upgrade and i've been upgraded since.

[Edited on December 6, 2005 at 1:04 AM. Reason : ]

12/6/2005 1:03:38 AM

if they arent making enough profit to pay the processing fees on a proper POS system, they aren't going to be making anything form cc payments through paypal either.

Paypal charges like 2.35-2.5% on cc transactions, or used to at least.

12/6/2005 5:44:03 AM

they don't really want to make anything through accepting CCs - they just want more people to buy stuff so their word is spread and since nobody carries cash nowadays, they think a CC system would be nice to implement.

so is the best solution for them just to charge a little bit extra for people to use credit cards at the store?

12/6/2005 9:45:48 AM

That is one option, or have a computer hooked up with the internet so that they could sign up for paypal online and do it that way... but still, you are going to get charged that small percentage from paypal.

12/6/2005 10:36:26 AM

A lot of CC processing gateways offer substantial discounts for non-profit and charity organizations. I know of one in particular that charges ~ 1.7% per transaction on CC transactions, plus something like a $20 monthly fee. I don't know if this is still too much for what you're trying to accomplish but there may be even better discounts out there for non-profits, just look around.

Might check this company out also:

http://www.revtrak.com/index.htm

[Edited on December 6, 2005 at 10:46 AM. Reason : ]

12/6/2005 10:44:35 AM