Plan The Financial Streams For Your Nutraceutical Startup

Not all types of business yield immediate money after production. Years of continuous hard work, teamwork, and law-work take a pharmaceutical company to start earning on its drugs. How to be in the Industry till then and how to further ensure cash inflows from the market? The condition is even more tricky for Nutraceutical companies since they are affected by the High Risk vs Low-Risk categorization, done mainly by merchant account providers for Payment Processing. They easily fall under the ‘High Risk’ category, but the opportunities of getting a huge market keep up the interest at a high degree. How does a nutraceutical company work? The working protocol necessitates efficient and higher level secured, encrypted and dedicated facilities for payments in multiple directions including:

• Resource procurement locally and internationally

• Production and research operations

• Infrastructure setup and maintenance

• Skilled and expert workforce

• Logistics and packaging

• Wide angles of communication

• Market surveillance

• Payments from sale and advances

• Financing and funding

Open the finance doors meant for you

To start with initial funding for your business/startup, once you have developed your prototype of the production process, and standardized the procurement and target markets, there are government bodies, private lending agencies, merchant accounts for E-commerce businesses and lots more. Finalize with your plan and approach the most startup-friendly of them with a brilliantly designed website that describes who you are and what you aim to achieve as a nutraceutical company.

Nutraceutical products may not have the credibility of proven clinical studies and regulatory labels. This reduces the initial demand for your products, especially when you are completely new in the market. Hence, you are considered as a High-Risk merchant by account providers who provide a payment gateway for accepting online payments from customers and most of the Multiple Underwriting Banks. The chances of the unregulated nutraceutical supplements producing negative ripples against their proposed benefits are more, leading to customer dropout and chargebacks.

When a nutraceutical company sends a product to be used as an ingredient for a medical formulation in a bulk consignment and any property does not meet the client’s requirements, a huge chargeback results. A card processor will never take this as a one-time mistake and reflects in the transaction history of the company. The company receives payment as a check or a domestic card from an offshore client, which is common for the supplements industry. Its processing becomes a challenge with foreign currency and the swipe showing Card Not Present for international payment. Nutraceutical products can be released with endless claims, but hitting on the exact requirements of the customers and having a credible payment gateway channel including Virtual Terminal put you on the preference list of shopping.

Utilize smart opportunities from smart providers

As a startup, you may be eligible for various discounts and commercial assistance to grab the initial foothold in the market. The rates for different services are reduced and stringent requirements to start the account get relaxed to suit your progress. There may be no application fees or minimum capital reserve for the first few months into the commerce and thereafter, rates vary by Startup vs History of the company or contemporaries. Additionally, you can also check for providers with no setup fees or those highlighting ‘No Rolling Reserve Requirements’ for fresh ventures.

There are established giants occupying a major share in the current market of your segment and to create your mark in the already crowded mind of the customers, it is a must to travel an extra mile. Finalize your products and their benefits along with documented backup to support the health claims, identify your target customers, and medium to reach out. With the overwhelming use of digital and social media in the current world and never-to-cease internet users, marketing a new venture is not an uphill task. Launching iPhone/Droid Mobile Apps might singly do most of the connecting job.

The challenges lie in providing better quality and improved products, staying true to your claims, ease of access to your products, after-sales service to the customers and maintain the good word-of-mouth publicity. A quick way to tap on the existing approval of supplements and phytonutrient-based medicines in the market is to research herbal drugs approved by regulating agencies in other world markets as a reliable reference. In this way, the risk of your product not having the proclaimed effect will reduce and lures the interest of card processors.

A broader network boosts your business, prepare for multi-tasking

Bearing the tag of ‘high-risk merchant’, establishing a strong agreement with an encouraging account provider becomes the priority for all these networks to be organized systematically and smoothly. It is possible to focus on the local or domestic market in the initial stages. However, owing to the demand for superior phytonutrients and alterative biopharmaceutical ingredients in markets worldwide, spreading into off-shore markets is a clever way of expansion. Again, more the number of modes of sending and receiving payments, both domestic and international, better positioned your company becomes. High-Risk merchant accounts generally facilitate payments via

• Visa/Mastercard/Discover/Amex

• ACH Processing/Check Processing

• Payment gateways

• Currency exchanges

• Internet banking, etc to the least

Your company's flagship product might be extracted from the exotic fruit that is a common sight in a far-away tourist island, but a seldom spotted species in the factory's vicinity. The operating medium is thus wide with domestic and offshore sites and involving entities are numerous, with continuous material and cash transactions. A strong and flexible merchant account offering diverse prospects for the commercial success of both the parties easily become your backbone.