High-risk payment gateways for Shift4Shop –
We have been helping high-risk websites with Shift4Shop compatible payment gateways quite a bit lately. At first glance, Shift4Shop appears to be a versatile and sturdy e-commerce platform. Vape pens, e-juices, FFL transfers, tactical items, and smoking accessories are all areas we often recommend payment gateways, merchant account providers, and shopping cart solutions for – and we realized we’ve possibly been neglecting a solid platform that fits those businesses well – Shift4Shop.
Shift4Shop has a very long history
Shift4Shop has been around in the e-commerce industry almost since the beginning. Founded in 1997 as 3dCart, Shift4Shop has survived every major shift in this volatile industry. That alone should tell you it’s a platform worth inspecting. Add to that, competitive features and modernized coding, and you have yourself a sturdy platform on which to build any e-commerce business.
With over 200 features, mobile ready themes, and an in-depth control panel it’s easy to see why Shift4Shop is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms out there for high-risk merchants today. We like Shift4Shop for several reasons, the first of which is that they use three of our favorite payment gateways: Authorize.Net, NMI, and eProcessing Network.
Payment gateway versatility opens Shift4Shop for high-risk
We help website owners set up and start selling “high-risk” products like cigars, vape pens, tactical gear, smoking accessories, and FFL to FFL sales. Because of the many high-risk payment gateways that it integrates with, Shift4Shop is an easy site platform for us to help site owners accept payments on.
Why a high-risk merchant account and payment gateway?
Some newer merchants in the high-risk industry try to get away with using common payment gateway solutions like Stripe or Paypal. Depending on what you sell, this can be a recipe for held funds and shut down accounts.
If you are in a high-risk business, you are probably on your low-risk processor’s list of prohibited business activities. This is a big deal; it can completely disrupt your business.
The issue is that a final underwriting and risk review for these low-risk payment gateways can occur after the account is open, and all of these underwriting policies have explicitly prohibited most, if not all, high-risk category products from being sold on their platforms.
High-risk products are labeled such primarily because of regulatory scrutiny or their inherent risk of chargebacks, in other words, the forced return of funds.
As we mentioned, this is a big deal. When the “after the fact risk review” is finished, and the low-risk provider discovers you are selling high-risk products they will possibly freeze or close your account; worse yet, some processors will blacklist you, thereby making getting processing elsewhere very difficult.
The reason high-risk payment gateways and appropriate merchant account recommendations are so important is that they are underwritten specifically for the product(s) you intend to sell.
While these accounts are sometimes (but not always) more expensive than a low-risk payment gateway, they allow you to do business in many lucrative and profitable industries in a stable way.
Whenever we recommend a proper high-risk merchant account, we also make sure you have a compatible payment gateway that works with your site builder.
As mentioned above, Shift4Shop is compatible with three of our favorite payment gateways, Authorize.Net, NMI, and eProcessing network.
High-risk payments and Shift4Shop? We can help
We will match you with, and help you set up, your payment gateway and recommend a merchant account that works with your product type.
We provide high-risk merchant account recommendations at no cost to you; we receive an incentive from the service provider who can best serve you in exchange for bringing them qualified high-risk website owners.
Authorize.Net and Shift4Shop
One of the most popular payment gateways we match our clients with is Authorize.Net. A leader in e-commerce transaction processing for both common products and high-risk industries, AuthNet has been one of our most reliable payment gateway “go to” solution.
When correctly set up, (which is very important with any payment gateway, but especially so with AuthNet) it is a perfect match for many high-risk product categories, like electronic cigarettes, FFL dealers, and cigar sales.
While setting up AuthNet isn’t terribly difficult it must be done properly for any high-risk site. If done incorrectly, you could very quickly end up with a low-risk processing account attached to your gateway. Contact us any time with questions.
We often help guide our clients step by step through the process, helping generate the API Login and transaction key and setting up the AVS.
In addition to getting you started, we can help fine-tune your AuthNet software to help mitigate fraud by adjusting you daily velocity filter.
NMI with Shift4Shop
NMI is another excellent and accessible option for high-risk payment and credit card processing. NMI is a powerful payment gateway solution that even allows you to manage multiple accounts through one interface.
For example, if you had a vape pen or e-cig store and a smoking accessory company, you probably wouldn’t want them on the same website.
With NMI, you can manage both your transactions and data analytics through one NMI login. This is a massive advantage for those who own multiple businesses or have multiple e-commerce stores that shouldn’t be mixed.
Additionally, NMI has an advanced “card on file” system called The Vault, which allows your customers and clients to create a profile and manage their payment methods, so they can quickly and easily make payments for future purchases.
NMI is a great solution for cigars, vape pens & e-cigs, tactical businesses, FFLs, online marketing companies, and many more high-risk industries.
Shift4Shop features and benefits for all merchants
In addition to the excellent shopping cart, Shift4Shop has a lot of other business feature platforms ready to go, such as Enterprise and B2B e-commerce and point of sale solutions.
There are some other clear benefits to using Shift4Shop’s Shopping Cart for your e-commerce website, such as no “double-dip” transaction fees )which can occur when you cannot use a platform’s recommended payment gateway), unlimited bandwidth, data storage, and built-in SEO tools at no additional cost.