New Online Shop - Credit Card Acceptance & Fees

Hi,

I am planning for a online store. Most of the purchases will be made from outside Switzerland using credit cards. For processing payments, I am considering to use Stripe as a payment gateway. The disadvantage is on every transaction they charge 2.9% plus 30 cents. As the margin itself is only 6-8%, it is impossible to pay 2.9% for the payment gateway.

I checked with Credit Suisse & UBS which also charges commision fee.

Credit Suisse - E-Commerce Basic - 2.95% commission fee per transaction
UBS - E-Commerce EASY - 1.95% commission fee per transaction

Can some tell me if you know a bank in Switzerland which offers payment solution with flat fee per month without any commision? or the one with lowest commision rate?

Postfinance startup option looks reasonable

https://www.postfinance.ch/en/busine...yment-psp.html

I interpret that it has no commission based fee but 1 CHF per transaction. Is it true?

It depends on a lot of different factors (how many transactions per month, the amounts involved in each transaction and total transactions, etc.). There is no one solution that is cheapest in all cases, that I know of.

Once your business grows and transaction volumes increase, you may be able to negotiate better terms and conditions with acquirers.

If you sell a relatively high-value product, then the 1 franc per transaction you pay with the Postfinance Startup Package is a good deal, in my opinion.

If your average checkout sale is relatively small, then you might pay less with a percentage-based fee like UBS Easy Plus (from what I see on the website it’s 2.45%. Where did you see 1.95%? 1.95% would be very good, as far as I know.)

Stripe seems like one of the more expensive options at 2.9% plus 30 centimes per credit card transaction, and it only accepts Visa and Mastercard (Postfinance Startup Package lets you accept Amex too, and Postfinance cards which is good for Swiss customers). Unless you need the development flexibility you can definitely find cheaper solutions.

Hope this helps.