Amazon Offers Retailers Discounts to Adopt Payment System • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Offers Retailers Discounts to Adopt Payment System

#51

Post by StudentStuff » Thu, May 03, 2018, 8:32 PM UTC

sho wrote: post #49

StudentStuff wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've been offering it to most of the clients I used to work with in the grocery industry, Mercury is matching it too. Might not be available to every SIC, but perhaps its a good excuse to buy into a small grocer that does $150k/month in processing and run all your volume through that. Grocers pay among the lowest rates for credit card processing, I think that was a big part of Amazon's very loud attempts at grocer…

Sorry but it utterly defies belief that Amazon were able to reduce their MDR by loudly pretending to be a grocer. The banker scans the document with a frown. He strokes his chin thoughtfully. "Amazon.. Amazon. Where have I heard that.. Oh yeah, the grocer! Zero basis points!"

MDR? Use english please!

Back on topic, different SICs[1] get different interchange rates from Visa, Mastercard and the like. Multiple companies have sued to lower certain SICs interchange rates[2]. Amazon's SIC has changed over time, and it could easily be argued that they fit into multiple SICs.

Its up to the sales org that handles them to appropriately code their SIC, Amazon could easily have switched to processing with a new platform for Amazon Fresh, and slowly moved most of their volume over without negative repercussions from Visa/Mastercard.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Industrial_Classifica... 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Interchange_Fee_a...

Re: Amazon Offers Retailers Discounts to Adopt Payment System

#52

Post by chrischen » Thu, May 03, 2018, 10:11 PM UTC

StudentStuff wrote: post #48

chrischen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably depends on how much you do it. I'd imagine they know how much their average revenue per customer is and they'd cut people off after the chargebacks exceed a certain threshold.

Depends on the time of year, but especially when dealing with sketchy merchants (low end providers/vendors), if PayPal gives me any gruff, its straight to American Express for me. Perhaps PayPal wants to avoid violating the terms of their merchant agreement, which banning users that weren't mostly fraudulent would probably not jive with? American Express is very strict with processors

Amex probably has more to lose than PayPal does if PayPal went to war with them.

Re: Amazon Offers Retailers Discounts to Adopt Payment System

#53

Post by StudentStuff » Fri, May 04, 2018, 10:11 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #52

StudentStuff wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the time of year, but especially when dealing with sketchy merchants (low end providers/vendors), if PayPal gives me any gruff, its straight to American Express for me. Perhaps PayPal wants to avoid violating the terms of their merchant agreement, which banning users that weren't mostly fraudulent would probably not jive with? American Express is very strict with processors

Amex probably has more to lose than PayPal does if PayPal went to war with them.

American Express isn't afraid to drop a large merchant if they're mis-treating customers or not profitable, look at what happened with Costco. Visa/Mastercard/Discover won't go to war, but Amex will with a smile on their face.