In the last couple of years, the CBD industry has been one of the fastest growing markets in the United States. Whether online or through more traditional brick-and-mortar stores, CBD has come to stay.
What might come as a surprise for those looking to start their CBD entrepreneurial dream, is that finding a way to reliably accept credit card payments can be a real challenge. Merchant service providers that offer at fair terms – never mind processing with the stability necessary to grow businesses securely over time – remain elusive.
However, there are alternatives and ways to process credit card processing for brand new CBD e-commerce sites. It’s all a matter of getting the right merchant account, paired with the right payment gateway, and set up for the correct website builders and shopping carts. In order to set that up – all you need is information.
Why CBD is prohibited by merchant service providers
Unfortunately, most popular and familiar payment processing services are far from ideal for CBD businesses. Most payment gateways and merchant account providers prohibit businesses selling CBD, mainly because of the tightly regulated nature of these product types. This combination ultimately results in popular payment solutions like PayPal or Stripe (which combine merchant account and gateway products into complete services) being unable to provide their services to CBD businesses.
As a consequence, knowing that you’re in a high-risk industry is critical when setting out to accept payments online for CBD products. This knowledge enables you to find payment providers that specialize in your business type and industry. Now you can either seek out specific service providers, like merchant account or payment gateway providers, or find processing experts that can set everything up for you.
Common payment gateways used for CBD
As long as you have a high-risk friendly merchant account, you can start the process of accepting payments online for your CBD products. However, in order to add this feature to your website, you need what’s called a payment gateway. Remember, as we mentioned above, you’ll need to find a CBD friendly payment gateway.
There are two flagship gateway providers that stand out from the rest: Authorize.Net and NMI. Both gateways are excellent when set up correctly for high-risk businesses. Just as importantly, they integrate brilliantly with a huge number of platforms, carts, and website builders.
Should you use the NMI payment gateway?
There is one feature in particular that makes many CBD site owners love the NMI payment gateway – their patented multiple merchant accounts with a single gateway login solution. The multi-merchant account integration solution removes a huge amount of busywork for business owners who sell a wide variety of products that span different risk levels and points of sale.
The NMI payment gateway also offers a wide range of settings and features with different degrees of sophistication. It’s probably one of the more in-depth gateways available for high-risk businesses.
However, even with the NMI gateway set up for your e-commerce store, you might want to offer multiple payment options for your customers. While NMI does offer a wide range of purchase options, you might want to offer PayPal, etc., as well. In that case, you should double check with your platform or shopping cart provider’s specific guidelines on how to offer different payment options to your e-commerce site.
Should you use the Authorize.Net gateway?
Authorize.Net is another payment gateway favorite for business owners who sell high-risk products, like CBD. One of the primary reasons why merchants enjoy Authorize.Net is because they combine user-friendliness with robust features to great effect.
As a result, you get all the bells and whistles you’re after – especially if your business doesn’t have a physical point-of-sale element.
In short, Authorize.Net offers an ideal gateway for your business if all your products have the same risk assessment, you sell your products from a single website, and you don’t use more than one merchant account for your business.
Should you seek out payment gateway experts?
When you start searching for a payment gateway, website builder, and merchant account combination that will enable you to grow your CBD business online, it quickly becomes obvious that there are many moving parts. It can all become very intricate, very quickly.
Unfortunately, not all payment gateways accept CBD businesses. At the same time, not all gateways work with all website builders or shopping carts, and not all site builders and carts accept CBD sales.
Now that you’re armed with the knowledge that you need to seek out high-risk friendly providers, you’re able to find what you need on your own. However, you might be better served by simply finding payment processing experts.
Again, much like looking for specific merchant service providers, you want to make sure the payment processing experts you’re looking for actually have the needed expertise for your product type. For example, Tasker Payment Gateways offers in-depth information on CBD payment gateways and shopping cart solutions. They also demonstrate throughout their website that their sole focus is on payment recommendations for high-risk business types. Both are excellent signs that they will be able to help you find the processing you need for your business.
Easily accept credit cards for CBD products
What it all boils down to in the end is that once you know you’re selling high-risk products, it’s a lot easier to start accepting credit cards for CBD products online.
There are gateway and merchant service providers out there that specialize in your industry. However, if you feel uncomfortable diving into the nitty-gritty of credit card processing, you don’t need to do it alone. There are payment gateway experts that offer plenty of free advice on their websites and can easily help you navigate the many options available to you.
What is ultimately in your best interest, however, is knowing what to look for and where. You have options and can choose merchant accounts and gateways from providers that specialize in CBD – which is the best way to ensure that you can easily accept credit card payments online for your CBD products.
