Hello All,
Any advice on a brand new business in search of a merchant account? We are selling health and beauty products, shipped from the states, to Japanese customers in Japan. The site is entirely in Japanese and we would like to, but do not have to, accept payments in Yen.

I understand it's rather difficult for a new business to get a merchant account from a reputable bank. If this is true, what recourse does one have?

Any suggestions?

Hello Hubbiida - and welcome to the forums!

In actuality, it is usually quite easy for a U.S. business with a U.S. signer to get approved for a merchant account.

However, I will point out the two areas of concern that would be present with your specific account:

(1) English Web site - most merchant providers require a Web site in English so that they can see what the site is actually selling. Thus, I'd suggest putting up an English version of the Web site to help facilitate this.

(2) Foreign Transactions - these are usually ok but the concern happens when a merchant does virtually 100% foreign sales as the risk levels are statistically much higher - often 8-10X higher.

In fact, since you will be marketing purely to a Japanese audience, you may even want to consider signing up directly for the JCB (Japanese Credit Bureau) card.

They may offer some standalone solution for this... here is their phone # - (800) 366-4522.

Hope that info is helpful! :)

Welcome to the forums hubbiida

Actually it is quite easy to get a merchant account for new businesses. For what it seems that you want, you might take a look at WorldPay. Your website will need to be read by the processor so an United States merchant account might be unavialable unless you also have an English version

Thanks for the advice.

You know, we've already been declined by WorldPay because they didn't like our business model: which was to facilitate Japanese people to make purchases from US-based web sites. Such sites are very common in Japan. They basically buy the stuff for you and collect a fee for that service. WorldPay said we had to own and ship and goods we sold directly, so they turned us down.

Since then we've decided to change our approach and do a standard wholesale/retail operation, still catering to Japanese customers. What do people think of the idea of us re-applying to WorldPay? Stupid? A waste of time?

Also, what is the current buzz on PlanetPayment/Humbolt Merchant Services?

Thanks again for all and any help. It's much appreciated.

It sounds almost like you are aggregating or factoring to one extent. What happens if the person that you bought the itme for gets it & then does a chargeback? You are out the money, the item & you have a chargeback on your record.

Actually, the way that these Japanese web sites work is quite ingenious. They do not pay for the products with their credit cards. Their clients provide a credit card number, name, and address. The company then uses that info to make a purchase on an American web site on behalf of their client. They make money by collecting a fee for this service and state that this fee is unrefundable. Of course that wont keep people from attempting to get a chargeback on the amount of the fee, I guess.

The item is shipped to the owners of the Japanese web site (in the states) and they ship it to Japan. But, the Japanese web site is not stuck with anything if the customer wants to return the item, because they didn't pay for the item. It's the American web site that is stuck if a dispute arises. In fact, the Japanese web site charges a NEW fee if they have to help their client handle a return! So, it's hard for them to lose...they get it coming and going, so to speak...

I don't think WorldPay ever quite got this, but such is life...

Nonetheless, we have abandoned this business model and will just be buying things wholesale and selling them to Japanese customers.