Would this work to avoid credit card fees?

[RightLane]

Hello,

I am researching e-commerce platforms to switch our website to because our current site is outdated.

Shopify has been my main preference so far, but I am needing to better understand how the credit card fees work.

My understanding is that Shopify charges 2.9% + 30c for each order. Those fees will add a large amount to the total annual price and I'm looking to find the most cost-effective option.

If we manually process the credit cards (I believe that's called manual card capture), then are we able to avoid these credit card fees, or would they still apply?

[Blair]

Hi @RightLane,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community! I'm happy to provide some assistance with this request, to ensure it gets resolved. To confirm I'm fully understanding, would you be processing those payments outside of Shopify?

If you're looking to incur no fees, I'd encourage you to check out manual payment methods as an option. This allows merchants like yourself to accept forms of payment besides credit cards.

As manual payment methods are not brokered by Shopify and are not subjected to transaction fees, it allows your customers to still place their order online and receive the payment in a way that works best for you. The most common types of manual payments include cash on delivery (COD), money orders, and bank transfers. To learn more about this, you can check out our Manual Payment Methods document as it touches on this further.  

The only time you will be charged fees, is if you decide to enable a third-party payment provider (i.e transaction fees) and/or use Shopify Payments (i.e credit card fees). Manually capturing those payments however, wouldn't avoid those fees as Shopify Payments is still being used as a payment gateway. 

Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. 

[RightLane]

Hi @Blair,

So if we were to setup manual payment methods and not use a third party gateway or Shopify Payments, then we will only have to pay the monthly or annual Shopify subscription fees, correct?

Is it possible to setup a way where a customer's credit card information can be provided at checkout, but this information is sent securely and directly to us so that we can charge their card for the order ourselves without using Shopify Payments or a third party gateway?

Basically can we setup our Shopify site so that placing an order basically just transfers information to us regarding what the customer wants, where to ship it, etc., as well as the payment method so that we handle the shipping and the payment processing?

[Blair · Accepted solution]

Hi @RightLane,

Thank you for the prompt response! 

To provide some confirmation, you are correct. If manual payment methods are used then no additional fees will occur other than the monthly or annual Shopify subscription fee.

As for customizing the checkout, this would be a limitation. If you're looking to incur no additional fees, you will have to use a manual payment option to collect your customers payment information outside of Shopify. 

Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. 

[RightLane]

Hi @Blair,

Thanks!

Could you give me any references to research how we could setup some manual payment method where we can process our customers credit cards ourselves? I'm having a tough time finding things online for this.