If you've got something to sell, we would love to have you on board as a vendor. Getting set up is as simple as we can make it while still ensuring we have dotted our i's and crossed our t's. If the following information doesn't answer all your questions, please get in touch either by email or on Facebook.
Please check that you can get a reliable cellphone connection where you intend to use My Honesty Box. Our system won't work without a network. My Honesty Box will work with wifi but would require your customers to connect to a wifi network.
We started this project with high hopes of using what's known as the "freemium" model. Fast forward five years and we have had to revisit that decision. To pay for the infrastructure to keep the system running we need to charge a per-payment fee.
Vendors can choose to either pay 2.9% of the total payment amount for each Stripe payment or ask customers to pay a small fixed fee of 39c (NZ and Australia) or 19p (United Kingdom) per Stripe payment. Otherwise we would be unable to keep the system running or add new functionality. This fee is deducted from the total payment amount when your customers pay by debit or credit card.
As part of your registration process, if you are in New Zealand you can register with our two payment providers; Stripe for credit/debit card payments; and optionally POLi™ for internet banking payments. For vendors in other countries, we only require registration with Stripe and cannot currently process payments via internet banking. We do not participate in the relationship with the payment providers which is both a security safeguard for you, and we have fewer hoops to jump through. If there are any questions regarding a payment, we can provide you with information about your payment but we cannot deal with the payment provider on your behalf.
Stripe has no setup or monthly fee but they do charge a fee for each transaction. In New Zealand that fee is 2.7% + 30c per transaction and varies in other supported jurisdictions. We provide vendors the option to ask their customers to pay the Stripe fee as a surcharge but vendors should confirm their local regulations allow this.
The Stripe fee can differ depending on whether the card used is local or international. We cannot determine this ahead of time and if you choose to pass on the fee to your customers, any additional cost over the standard Stripe fee for international cards will be deducted by Stripe during the payment transaction.
Currently only available to our New Zealand vendors, POLi charges a minimum monthly fee of $5.00 (excluding GST) for My Honesty Box vendors, and takes a 1% fee for each transaction. The 1% fee contributes towards the $5.00 monthly fee. During registration with POLi you must tell them you are a My Honesty Box vendor in order to get the $5.00 fee which is discounted from the usual $10.00.
It's worth noting the "minimum account activity fee is waived for charitable, community or public sector organisations". If your organisation fits that description there is no minimum monthly payment required and you should communicate that to POLi when registering.
POLi should complete your registration in no more than a couple of working days. You should receive an email from POLi containing two PDF documents; a POLi Merchant Account Record, and a Merco Merchant Agreement. The POLi Merchant Account Record contains the information you need to provide to My Honesty Box. If you don't receive an email you can contact POLi directly by emailing POLi Support.