Alternative Medicine Merchant Account: Industry Guide
An alternative medicine merchant account is a specialized payment processing solution designed for businesses that sell holistic health products such as homeopathic remedies, essential oils, aromatherapy, and acupuncture services. Traditional payment service providers generally block or shut down alternative medicine businesses because of various reasons, including regulatory uncertainty, high chargebacks, and the risk of fraudulent transactions.
If you run an alternative medicine business, then you will definitely need a credit card processing solution that is affordable and truly compliant with the industry standards. The team at Quadrapay has written this guide for you. In this guide, we have explored various factors related to alternative medicine merchant accounts. The guide covers important questions that you may have related to payment processing for your alternative medicine business. Let’s begin.
Why Alternative Medicine Businesses Need Specialized Merchant Accounts
Alternative medicine businesses face strict regulations and banking restrictions because of many reasons. Some products sold by these alternative medicine companies fall in the legal grey area. Examples include CBD and hemp products. Another complication is the risk of high chargebacks and disputes based on the effectiveness of the product. If any alternative medicine company makes false claims about the effectiveness of the product, then it can attract chargebacks, and the credit card processor doesn’t like it.
As a result, most of the traditional low-risk sponsor banks and payment service providers, as well as those big names that guarantee instant approval, generally are not the best fit for onboarding alternative medicine businesses. Your best bet will be to work with a dedicated high-risk merchant account processor, which will offer you a stable and long-term payment processing solution.
How to Get Approved for an Alternative Medicine Merchant Account
There are many things that you can do that will have a significant impact on the possibility of approval of the merchant account. You should start with providing all the requested documents to the payment service provider for evaluation. Make sure you provide the three most important documents, including the product list, the license, and the COA. Depending on the product type, the COA and the license requirement may change.
If you are already accepting credit card payments, then you must submit the previous processing history. We suggest you submit at least 6 months of credit card processing history. You will have better chances of approval if your chargeback ratio is less than 1%. Along with that, make sure you provide the bank account statement. This statement should reflect the payout from the payment processor that you have been using.
To further improve the chances of your account approval, start using an eCommerce platform that supports multiple payment processors. A few of the best options that we can recommend are WooCommerce, Magento, and OpenCart.
For you it should be important to get a merchant account and maintain it for a long time, and that is why you should make sure that you do not make any misleading health claims. This will extend the life of the merchant account as well as reduce the risk of disputes from the customer. In the alternative medicine industry, most of the customers are aware of the product and its effects on health, and that is why you should avoid making any claims regarding the actual benefit of the product on the consumers health.
Final Thoughts: Alternative Medicine Merchant Accounts
If you sell alternative medicines online or at a retail store, you will need a specialized account for uninterrupted payment acceptance. You should choose a high-risk payment processor that has solid experience in working with merchants similar to you. This will ensure that your account stays in good shape and you don’t have to face problems such as frozen funds or account shutdown. If you need an alternative medicine merchant account, you can ask for a free quote. We can also send you a savings analysis that will help you to understand how much you will be saving every year if you switch to our recommended solution. For further information, you can email [email protected].