Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Why Stephen King is cool

Author:Mark Alexander
Posted:7/26/2000; 9:40:52 AM
Topic:Why Stephen King is cool
Msg #:19110 (In response to 19085)
Prev/Next:19109 / 19111

As someone who works in the Credit Card business, I can state that $1 transactions for a large transaction shop is not expensive. The way bank cards work is that the banks pay the retailer for the charge minus a discount rate (usually of about 2% for bank cards). So for each $1.00 transaction, the retailer will get $0.98. Amazon due to their high volume probably gets a rate lower than 2%. The penalty for small transactions comes in that during any month bankcards want the average tranasction to be over a specific level like $15.00. If it falls below that rate, the bank usually raises the discount rate and can also charge the retailer a fee. Since the $1 King offer is a rather small percentage of Amazon business and the typical transaction is well over a typical level of $15.00, I am sure that their bank is not going to change the discount rate or charge Amazon any penalties.

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