The industry of Electronic Cigarettes is growing quickly with more retail locations opening monthly plus Business To Business vendors commencing on the internet. Alternative Merchant Processing and our risk managers are very comfortable and understand all facets of this industry and welcome the opportunity to work with new e-cig merchants whether they are literally just launching their business with no existing processing history or merchants that have been in business for years. Merchant types include manufacturers, importers, retailers and distributors of electronic cigarettes.
The industry of Electronic Cigarettes is growing exponentially – a projection by Bloomberg Industries shows e-cigarettes sales could surpass that of the traditional tabacco product by as early as 2023. It is still unclear who will dominant this industry — and the question of government involvement and the likelihood of increased regulation for state and national authorities is still a question yet unresolved.
Reserve accounts are based on the financial strength and history of our merchants, processing history, credit, financial and other information reviewed by our credit officers. Of course AMP will try to set up merchant with no reserve to increase the bottom line cash flow availability of our merchants but we cannot make a firm decision until due diligence completed by our internal staff.
Some of our E Cigarette Companies will request daily discount of processing fees or month-end billing where all the fills are debited at the end of the month, thus providing greater cashflow for the merchant during the previous 30 days. AMP is able to handle either payment form and this request but it is important that we understand your needs before application is submitting to our underwriting department.
In the majority of cases for existing E-Cig merchants that already accept credit cards, AMP, in the majority of cases will be able to reduce an existing merchant’s credit card fees which will increase the bottom-line profitability of your business. Once a new merchant has a clean processing history for a minimum of 6 month with minimal charge-back history, AMP will re-evaluate merchant with the expectation of reducing current fee structure to a more competitive rate.
As of Fall 2014, AMP is in discussions with many Electronic Cigarette Associations to set up preferred and discounted credit card programs for your E Cig Business.
Many major credit card processors are not working within the e-cig industry because it does not fall within their traditional underwriting guidelines; however, AMP is comfortable with this business type and we look forward to helping more e-cig merchants develop efficient processing accounts to help your business grow during these exciting times in the industry.
