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Video: TrepStar retail order purchase page "Buy Now" buttons. |
Retail Order Gateway Fee Comparison to other Shopping Carts:
Click Here for TrepStar Retail Order Gateway Terms and Terminology.
Monthly Fees:
- Cart Fees: Shopping cart systems like 1shoppingcart, UltraCart, Ejunkie, ProStores, and others charge monthly rates of $30.00 - $100.00 per month.
They charge your credit card each month regardless if you're selling product or not.
Our TrepStar retail order purchase gateway/cart is only $5.00, and we only charge this if you have a positive
retail order balance (you've sold product). Because of this, we don't require a credit card to use our service.
- Merchant Account Fees: When you decide on a shopping cart service, you then need to order merchant services.
You often have to sign a long term contract. Merchant services allow you to actually accept the credit card purchases (Visa,MC,Amex/Discover).
Shopping Cart fees are separate. Merchant Services cost about $50.00 per month on average
and normally require a 2 year contract ($1200.00). You may find lower contract terms, but that usually means higher monthly fees.
The TrepStar Retail Purchase Gateway accepts all major credit cards (Visa/MasterCard/Discover/Amex and PayPal) on your behalf, and does not charge you anything extra for this service,
and there are NO commitments.
- PayPal Fees: If you're a serious merchant, you also want to accept PayPal in addition to Visa/MC/Amex/Discover. PayPal business services cost
$30.00-$60.00 per month for a business account able to accept shopping cart orders.
The TrepStar Retail Purchase Gateway accepts all major credit cards (Visa/MasterCart/Discover/Amex and PayPal) on your behalf, and does not charge you anything extra for this service.
Transaction and other Fees:
- Base Transaction Fee: All merchant account services and Paypal charge a base transaction fee of $0.35-$0.60. They want to
discourage low price transactions.
The TrepStar Retail Purchase Gateway does not charge this base fee in order to keep things simple.
- Process Fee: All merchant account services and Paypal charge a percentage fee for the total amount collected.
You are charged this fee because that's what Visa/MC/Amex/Discover/Paypal charge you to use their method of payment.
These fees are typically 2%-5% of the total amount collected for each transaction.
The TrepStar Retail Purchase Gateway charges a simple flat 5.0% transaction fee
but we have no base transaction fee. For example, if you charge $25.00 or less for your product, the TrepStar fees are lower (some examples below).
We get charged these fees and we pass them to you.
- Refund Fee: All merchant account services and Paypal charge a refund fees. When a customer requests a refund, it's a lot of manual work.
We attempt to refund only the retail price, not shipping and handling whenever possible.
When you, the merchant, lose a dispute with a customer, the credit card companies and Paypal refund the purchase price from your account and charge a refund fee.
If tracking was used, and we can show it was delivered, sometimes we can avoid a refund situation.
TrepStar only charges $15.00. Before a refund is issued, TrepStar has to respond to
several email messages sent back and forth between your customer
and card services (Visa/MC/Discover) or Paypal. We attempt to remidy the situation to reduce refunds.
- Charge-Back Fee: All merchant account services and Paypal have charge-back fees. When a customer disputes a charge, it's called a charge-back.
This is different from a refund where the customer did order the product but later changes their mind.
Usually, a charge-back is the result of fraud (stolen credit cards). Most of these customers never knew of your product and only saw a bill on their credit card statement a month later.
They dispute the charge with their bank, and we are told the purchase was a result of fraud. In this case we are forced to allow the refund.
When you, the merchant, lose a dispute, the credit card companies refund the purchase price from your account AND charge a chargeback fee of usually
$25.00 or more. Because TrepStar collected the money on your behalf, we attempt to defend the dispute which takes time and resources.
TrepStar only charges $25.00.
Before a charge-back is issued, TrepStar has to respond to several email messages sent back and forth between your customer
and card services (Visa/MC/Discover) or Paypal. We attempt to remidy the situation to reduce chargebacks.
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Monthly Fees
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Purpose
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TrepStar Purchase Page/Cart
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Other Carts / Merchant Services
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TrepStar Savings
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Shopping Cart Fee:
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Facilitate eCommerce
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$5.00
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$30.00 - $100.00
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$50.00
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Merchant Services:
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Required to accept credit cards
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$0.00 (included)
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$30.00 - $75.00
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$45.00
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Accept Paypal:
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20% of people choose Paypal
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$0.00 (included)
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$30.00 - $60.00
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$30.00
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TrepStar Fee Savings:
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$125.00
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Transaction and other Fees
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Purpose
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TrepStar Purchase Page/Cart
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Other Carts / Merchant Services
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TrepStar Savings
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Base Transaction Fee:
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Discourage low purchase price
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$0.00
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$0.35 - $0.60
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$0.60
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Process Fee %:
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Visa/MC/Discover/Amex charge to use their payment method
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5.0%
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2.0% - 5.0%
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depends on your retail price
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Refund Fee:
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Pay for increased customer support costs
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$15.00
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$25.00
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$10.00
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Charge-back Fee:
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Pay for increased customer support costs
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$25.00
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$25.00-$35.00
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$0.00
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Other Notes:
Process fee: With traditional shopping cart / merchant services you pay 3.5% (on average) or more plus a base transaction fee.
- For example, if you had a $20.00 retail purchase price, the fees would be something like $0.40 (base transaction) + 3.5% of the total $20.00 retail charge.
This is $0.40 + $0.70 for a total of $1.10.
- TrepStar charges less because we don't charge the base fee. We simply have a flat 5.0% fee.
Our charge for a $20.00 product retail price is $1.00.
- If you choose an even lower retail purchase price of $10.00, the TrepStar savings are even better.
We charge $0.50 on a $10.00 retail price.
- Paypal and other merchant services would charge you $0.40 + $0.35 = $0.75 for the $10.00 transaction.
Monthly Fee: You could easily pay $150.00 or more for monthly fees if you use a traditional shopping cart / merchant service.
- if you sold two(2) $20.00 products per week you would just barely cover your costs using a traditional eCommerce cart solution.
- With TrepStar, just sell one product a month and you're making a profit.
- TrepStar exists to help you self publish your product, and give you the most economical way to do that.
Our goal is to break even on our internal fees, fraud losses, refunds and charge-back fees, as well as account maintenance overhead and support costs.
- The TrepStar monthly fee of only $5.00 is charged on or near the first of each month ONLY if you have a positive retail account balance.
