Canadian Federation of Independent Business (C.F.I.B.)

[ospreylinks]

I recently joined the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, mostly to take advantage of the group rate I could get on merchant charges through Scotiabank for our retail operation, but one of the perks that also comes by being a member is that you can get a 20% discount from UPS as a CFIB member for shipping to the US.

Just thought you might like to know.

Jeff

[phoebescollectables]

You can also get the same discount here along with some other discounts.

http://smallbizcan.venngo.net/VG_app_Global/VG_app_Welcome/index.cfm?fuseaction=welcomepage&partnerid=5096

[recped]

Retail Council Of Canada offers an even better rate than CFIB (at least they did) 1.7%

Best part is that even though my membership lapsed over 5 years ago I'm still getting the good rate from ScotiaBank. One thing to keep in mind, most of the Merchant Agreements for these deals specifically exclude sales over the internet. Don't ask, Don't tell, unless you have a high number of chargebacks they probably will never know.

Ben

[ospreylinks]

Yes I know.... when you sign up for merchant services they ask if the sales are face to face, and our account is really for the golf course, so 99.9% of the time this is true.

Jeff

[muminlaw]

I guess that's why our rates are so high! When we signed up years and years ago, we were doing mail & telephone orders even then so we never have had a card to "swipe". At least now, when we phone to authorize the sale, it's deposited to our account at the same time!

Hmmmmmmm ... I wonder if the discount offered applies to remote card acceptance for members (the rate would be different, but the discount might be the same??). After all, it's all relative!

Glenda

[recped]

All these discounts (as far as I know) only apply to "electronic submission" of transactions or in other words you need a dedicated credit card terminal, if you are doing authorizations by phone you are usually out of luck. Scotiabank Visa (now outsourced to Paymentech) do offer an online authorization service for a lower monthly fee than a terminal but if you go that route they will know that you are probably NOT doing "face to face" transactions and therefore will hit you with the much higher discount rate regardless of a clean chargeback record you may have.

Ben