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Sell premium cigars and alcohol online using the same payment gateway –

Are you launching a premium cigar site that also sells wine or spirits like whisky, scotch, or bourbon? You’ll need a merchant account that allows both – and your payment gateway must also integrate with your shopping cart.

Below, we discuss how to set up payment processing that allows tobacco and alcohol – without unnecessarily declined applications, held deposits, or shut down credit card processing.

If you’re new to e-commerce, you might find that it’s more challenging than you initially thought to sell tobacco, cigars, and alcohol – especially together.

The good news is that at Tasker Payment Gateways LLC, we’ve been working with premium cigar and alcohol website owners since 2002, and we have the real-world experience to connect your shopping cart to a tobacco and alcohol-friendly payment gateway and merchant account.

Payment gateway alternatives to Stripe, Shopify Payments, and PayPal for tobacco and alcohol

A+ rated and BBB accredited, our dedicated, independent agents will help your website accept credit card payments online – even if your credit card processing was shut down by Stripe, Shopify Payments, PayPal, or your local bank.

Get the right advice upfront before you sell wine, whiskey, cigars, or loose tobacco online

Considering the promising trends we’ve seen in the market recently, it is very tempting to throw yourself out there and launch a business. This is because many services are out there that make it easy to build a website and get off the ground quickly. However, you should take particular care if you’re planning on successfully starting an online tobacco and alcohol business.

Tasker Payment Gateways LLC cartoon guy holding a cigar

Before we discuss payment processing- we strongly recommend that you take the following steps before you launch anything:

  • Educate yourself on the licenses that may be required to sell your tobacco and alcohol products online.
  • Consult with both a tobacco and alcohol tax consultant and an attorney with experience in the field to make sure you have done all the required steps correctly.

Get advice before you start accepting credit cards.

sell cigars and alcohol online – Tasker Payment Gateway quote image

Educate yourself on high-risk e-commerce

For business owners new to selling regulated items online, getting started can be confusing. Below are a couple of common questions that highlight some of the confusion new site owners often face- without the right advice. 

  • Does Authorize.Net allow cigars and alcohol? Yes, but only if the back-end merchant account allows all your product types as well.
  • Can you sell cigars and alcohol on drag and drop site builders like Shopify, Wix, Weebly, or Squarespace?  Yes, but some site builders do not “natively” support high-risk payment processing which means you need to swap out the shopping cart piece of your site builder first.

Unlike most online businesses, selling cigars and alcohol online requires that you work with someone familiar with your exact industry. We strongly recommend that you either contact us for free friendly advice (we are paid by the service providers we recommend, not by you) and/or read our online e-commerce guides below.

Use a site builder and platform that works for tobacco and cigar sales

Make sure you don’t build your site on a platform that doesn’t support your product type. Creating a site using the wrong site builder has caused a lot of frustration for many, and you can save yourself many hours of work and headaches by doing it right the first time around.

There are many website builders and shopping carts that are excellent fits for online cigars. Companies like BigCommerce, WooCommerce, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, and even GoDaddy can all be terrific solutions if you correctly set up the payment gateway and back-end merchant account.

If you are unfamiliar with the distinction between a merchant account and a payment gateway, please read the Common High-risk E-commerce Questions section on our home page. 

Reach out to us anytime for free, friendly advice on integrating your website builder with a payment gateway and merchant account that allows premium cigars and alcohol like beer, wine, vodka, whisky, scotch, or gin. Also, please read through the high-risk payment processing guides we have developed for many popular shopping carts and website builders.

If you don’t see your site builder here, check out our High-risk Resource Guide for a complete list or contact us for help

High-risk merchant account and payment gateways for alcohol, pipe tobacco, and cigars

If you only sell cigar cutters, cigar lighters, decanters, brandy snifters, and other accessories, you can probably use a “standard” payment processor like PayPal, Shopify Payments, or Stripe. But, if you sell tobacco and alcohol, you may run into real trouble. Without a payment gateway and merchant account that allows all of your products, you run the real risk of having your money held by your payment processor and even risk having your merchant account shut down.

A+ rated and BBB Accredited, we’ll recommend a dedicated one on one representative who will take care of the payment gateway and merchant account for you. They’ll even help you connect it to your shopping cart if needed. So contact us today to get started and check out some of our BBB reviews to see what other’s say about us and our dedicated, professional independent agents.

You don’t have to go it alone – we can help!

At Tasker Payment Gateways, we’re always available to give processing and payment gateway recommendations along with expert tips to help you succeed. Over the years, we’ve helped businesses across high-risk industries, and we’d love to help you grow your online tobacco and cigar business. You can contact us here or through the short form below. We look forward to hearing from you!