Payment Processing for Jewelry Stores

High tickets, bigger stakes

Jewelry is a high-ticket category, so processing fees, declined cards, chargebacks and financing all hit the bottom line harder.

Why jewelry payments are different

Start with the ticket size. On a $4,000 engagement ring paid by card, a flat 2.9 percent is $116 in fees. If better pricing takes half a point off your rate, that's $20 back on that sale, and on every sale like it. And a single chargeback on one ring can erase the margin from ten.

Every tender a jewelry register sees

A jewelry register also sees more kinds of money than almost any other: cards, with chip, tap and mobile wallets, and consumer financing, with the down payment and the lender's payout tracked separately, layaway deposits and balances, and trade-in credit that also creates an inventory record for the piece you took in, wire and ACH for very large tickets, and cash, with the IRS Form 8300 when more than $10,000 in cash comes in. Each should post as what it is, so a ring paid with trade-in gold, cash and a card is one clean ticket.

How to read a processor's rate sheet

When you read a processor's rate sheet: interchange-plus beats tiered pricing, because it shows exactly what the processor keeps, and it's the only structure you can audit. Read past the headline rate to the monthly minimum, the PCI fees, the batch fees and the termination clause, and confirm next-day funding, with no holds on large tickets.

Reducing chargebacks on high-value sales

Chargebacks are won or lost at the point of sale. Dip or tap the chip, never key it in, and on large tickets, keep a signed receipt and note the ID you checked. Log the sale on the customer's record, since their history is your best evidence, and for shipped goods, match the shipping and billing addresses, require an adult signature on delivery, and keep the tracking with the sale.

Surcharging and dual pricing

Surcharging, or offering a cash price, can recover real margin where state law allows it, but there are rules: no surcharges on debit cards, the card brands cap them, some states prohibit them, and disclosure is required. And think twice on bridal: a 3 percent line on a $5,000 ring gets noticed.

What to check every month

Four numbers keep your payments honest every month: the effective rate, total fees divided by card volume, and the chargeback count and reason codes, the share of keyed transactions, which should be close to zero, and the gap between the card batch and the bank deposit: exactly the fees.

Payments in WJewel

In WJewel, every tender is part of the sale. Choose how the customer is paying, and split a sale across payment types: part cash, part credit card, financing, or any payment type you set up. Take a trade-in as part of the payment, and if you use QuickBooks, WJewel can export to it. Bank transactions download straight from your bank, for easy reconciliation.

Contact us

You'll find the full guide on the WJewel blog. WJewel is fully web-based, and runs on PCs, Macs, tablets and phones. To learn more, visit www.wjewel.com, or call us at (646) 578-8300.