Merchant Account For Offshore Pharmacies

Merchants who own an online pharmacy will surely be looking for a way to process CNP transactions, which stands for card-not-present. Today, people will not be willing to send out checks or money orders, or go to banks to wire transfer. Today, most internet shoppers will want to enter a few personal details, and their credit card information, spending only a few minutes. If you offer a next-day delivery service, and one of your customers needs an urgent refill of Cialis, for example, he will only get it in a week or so, due to the fact that the money order will have to travel to you, than you'll have to travel to the bank, and only then send out your 'Next-Day' medicament. Will your customer be happy? You won't think so, when your online pharmacy receives a complaint. On the other hand, having a next-day delivery service AND a credit card processing service will enable you to service your customers with the least possible time lags. Credit card processing takes a few seconds to transfer money from your clients' credit cards to your merchant account (bank account). And that is extremely good service, guaranteeing many great testimonials and guestbook messages.

So, the trick is in credit card processing. A merchant account, in this case an offshore merchant account, which is far easier and cheaper to get than a local merchant account for your online pharmacy, provides all the services needed for credit card processing. The reason for offshore merchant accounts being a better choice is that their regulations are not as strict as US-based accounts. Online pharmacy businesses are considered to be high risk. This involves many additional fees and charges. Offshore merchant accounts for pharmacies may actually process your transactions not considering your business high-risk. Pharmacy Merchant Accounts are usually offshore accounts with better terms and rules based on the specifics of the business.

How can one find a good merchant account for offshore pharmacies? Most merchants think that the best place to find anything concerning web-services can be brilliantly handled by search engines. Surely Google.com will give you thousands of results, with dozens of relevant ones, but have you got enough nerves and time to go through all of the merchant account providing companies. Plus, most companies will not give you a pricelist, stating that 'the best solution will be provided after registration'. And that is not as bad as it may seem. This means that the providing company has in fact a database, small or big, which will, hopefully, contain the best solution for your online pharmacy business. A good company will roughly tell you the price, which may drift from one bank to another, and then will actually give you the exact rates of the chosen bank from their affiliates list.

If you don't trust offshore pharmacy merchant account providing companies and want to look at direct offshore banks, which is not really recommended, then you'll have to have some basic knowledge on rates, terminology and pitfalls. Many decent merchant account providing websites have their own Knowledge Base (or Articles Section) with all the terminology you'll surely encounter when dealing with credit card processing. Be very careful and try to fully understand each term, rule and statement in order to know what you're working with.

There are also many pitfalls which must be looked out for before signing up for any merchant account service or credit card processor. Many providers do not list all the terms and rates on their websites. These will popup in the terms and conditions moments before clicking the SIGN ME UP button. There could be tons of fineprint and the fees and rates may be different from those displayed on the website (due to some 'taxes not included', conversion rates and service provider commission fees). It is recommended to re-read the whole terms and conditions page (or pages), and review a few times the fees and rates that your credit card will be subject to during your affiliation with the gateway. It is also important to check whether technical support is included or not. You may also find out that extra costs apply after having requested some statistical information, or after having requested some other additional service. Be sure to check when e-Commerce merchants get paid using a specific providing bank, this is important when you need to invest every month.

It is recommended to seek the professional help of offshore merchant account providers specializing in pharmacy account processing, as it saves time, money and nerves. Regulations and terms will never be concealed by responsible merchant account providers and many bonus services will be rendered free of charge. Professional account providers will have large databases with hundreds of offshore banks offering credit card processing services for e-Pharmacy businesses. If you're really looking for the BEST merchant account for your online pharmacy you'll inevitably have to either spend hours on end looking through websites, e-mails and talking to bank managers over the phone (which may be very expensive!), or be assisted by special pharmacy merchant account providing companies, which will handle everything for you at low cost or no cost at all!

Online pharmacies will not 'survive' without credit card processing and offshore merchant account services. An online pharmacy must be flexible and responsive. Consumers may all of sudden need to purchase some medicine (due to physical loss of pharmaceuticals or increase of dosage), and if your pharmacy is not able to rapidly process the order and eventually provide the medicine it will never grow to be a real online pharmacy. People need Viagra, Cialis and many other medicaments and pills. People don't like to wait. 98% of Internet shoppers carry credit cards. Merchant accounts for offshore pharmacies are the junctions, connecting these people and e-Commerce pharmacy resources.