Recurring & direct response
E-commerce merchant accounts
Commonly assigned MCC
5999 · 5964 · 5311
The category actually assigned is set by the acquirer at boarding and can differ from these.
The short version
Plenty of e-commerce businesses end up in restricted underwriting without selling anything unusual. Rapid growth, international traffic, dropshipped fulfilment with long delivery windows, or one restricted SKU in an otherwise ordinary catalogue will do it.
The answer is usually structural rather than remedial: the right MID configuration, caps set against actual volume, and fraud rules built for your order profile rather than a default template.
What is actually being priced
What underwriting is looking at.
Growth outruns the cap
Monthly volume caps are set at boarding and a good quarter breaches them, which triggers holds at exactly the wrong moment.
Long delivery windows
Dropshipping from overseas stretches the gap between charge and delivery, which is where item-not-received disputes live.
Cross-border fraud pressure
International card-not-present traffic carries higher fraud rates and higher interchange at once.
What we put in place
- Volume caps set against real forecasts and reviewed as you grow
- Multiple MIDs with load balancing for redundancy and headroom
- Fraud scoring, 3-D Secure and velocity rules configured to your orders
- Cart and platform integrations, or a direct API
What underwriting will ask you for
Assemble these before you apply anywhere. The list does not get shorter by waiting, and having it ready is the single biggest thing you control about how long this takes.
- Twelve months of volume history and a forward forecast
- Fulfilment model and average delivery time
- Refund and chargeback rates
- The platform and gateway you run today
On this account
What a boarded account in this vertical usually carries.
Also in recurring & direct response
Tell us about your e-commerce business.
We will tell you whether a route exists right now, which acquirers are writing the category, and what your file needs before it goes anywhere.