Merchant Accounts for Online Smoke Shops

Accepting credit cards for an online smoke shop can be tricky. Most merchant account providers do not understand or respect this industry and tend to be indifferent toward it. Blue Wave Merchant Solutions on the other hand, has you covered.  With over 15 years of experience, we understand the difficulties associated with the field. We enjoy chatting and assisting business owners in the MMJ-420-Cannabis space!

Does this sound familiar?

Your business starts to build momentum and BAM!, your account is frozen out of nowhere.  Orders cannot be fulfilled, fires need to be put out, and the bills start to pile up.

Sure, Shopify, PayPal, or Stripe (to name a few) may let you get started processing quickly, but they cannot provide a long-term solution. We all know that.

Your local bank or traditional payment processor may have opened your merchant account without issue but once it goes through a more thorough underwriting/vetting process (and it will), you will find your funds getting held, your account or product going through unsuspected risk reviews, and ultimately account closure. You will be told that based on your business model and product, you will have to find another payment processor. 

This is not only extremely frustrating for a business owner, but it sets off a negative domino effect on the running of the business. Not to mention if your company is a start-up, these mishandlings could make or break it.

What are the negative effects of a merchant account closure?

Online smoke shops often sell other products than tobacco such as marijuana-related paraphernalia, music, clothing and accessories.

However, traditional banks often do not concentrate on the marijuana-related products even though they’re perfectly legal in many states.

That results in the business being classified for credit card processing as a head shop. 

If your business has been denied credit card processing by the bank because it’s considered a head shop, your business could be in trouble.

Although these items are considered mainstream items throughout the country, tradition dictates that they be viewed as “high-risk” products for the businesses that sell them.

Even if most of your income comes from tobacco, there are risks in these products as well such as selling to minors or contributing to health problems.

It’s impossible to predict when attorneys general might decide to sue tobacco sellers to defray healthcare costs. 

These businesses attract great scrutiny from neighborhood activists and law enforcement, but the real problem is that customers often have second thoughts and ask for refunds.

Sometimes, parents demand refunds when their children use their credit cards without authorization.

Faulty or cheap products also generate returns and chargebacks. 

High Chargeback Rates Result in Merchant Account Applications Being Denied

Your application’s approval is influenced by several factors that make a smoke shop a greater risk than everyday businesses such as a clothing store.

Chargebacks are higher–often because kids use their parents’ credit cards to buy products over the internet.

Some smoke shops target underage kids specifically, and others try to defraud customers by selling drug-related substances and paraphernalia that don’t do what the sellers claims. 

Although medical marijuana has resulted in booming business pipes, rolling papers, rolling machines and other paraphernalia, marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

Credit card processors could share in legal liability. They are definitely liable for chargebacks.

However, you can qualify for a credit card processing account when you choose the right processor.

Blue Wave Merchant Solutions has extensive experience in processing credit and debit cards for high-risk companies. 

About Blue Wave Merchant Solutions

If you’ve been denied credit card processing services, your best option is to find a more liberal payment processor that looks beyond traditional risk profiles and supports legitimate businesses that sell popular products to fulfill consumer demands.

Supply-and-demand is the cornerstone of the free enterprise system.

Blue Wave can help you build your business with all the necessary processing capabilities.

Your application can be approved within a day or two, and you’ll be ready to start taking internet orders. 

Blue Wave also offers advice and answers to your questions. We can help you establish better customer service and verifications of customer ages to reduce chargebacks and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Our program includes special steps you can take to keep your chargeback rate below 2 percent, which is the cutoff rate of many processors. 

A collaborative processor like Blue Wave Merchant Solutions has a thorough understanding of the trends and opportunities in the smoke shop industry.

The company won’t deny your application just because conservative banks and their insurance underwriters deny your applications even though you’ve done everything properly to get your legitimate business online. 

Blue Wave has developed processing solutions to simplify accepting credit cards while increasing profits for your enterprise.

The company handles everything needed to accept credit cards, but it takes its job of mentoring new clients just as seriously so that these merchants can maintain better customer service, which results in lower chargeback rates. 

Inevitable Expansion of Smoke Shop Products and Accessories

Smoke shops have added head shop items as a necessity because of the falling rates of tobacco use. Adding e-cigarettes, pipes and paraphernalia are natural enhancements to your inventory.

Blue Wave understands the necessity of expanding goods in a declining market. Adding these increasingly popular items protects your investment. 

We understand these influences on your business decisions, and if you follow our advice, you should have no problem running your smoke shop profitably.

The e-cigarette and pipe industries are expanding to handle the needs of the fast-growing medical marijuana industry.

Some brick-and-mortar stores are nervous about selling head shop products because there is still quite a lot of controversy over medical marijuana.

Brick-and-mortar stores could be targets of protests, so selling products online becomes increasingly attractive for aspiring entrepreneurs. 

The things needed to establish a merchant credit card processing account include: