I've been thinking of setting up to accept American Express and Discover. Does anyone currently accept these and did you see an increase in sales?

I am surprised to say that there are a lot of people that have American Express. Also American express offers some sort of protection if you ship it to their billing address and get a signature. A lot of people do not like to deal with them and Discover, because they handle their own merchants, processing, etc..and most of the time there is extra fees.

I work in an industry where American Express seems to be de facto for a lot of purchases, and I know for business expenses I wouldn't use anything else.

But, there is a premium there. Same with Discover.

And I am repeating what Krazy already said.....go back to computer and type on keyboard...

I would definately say YES. The more payment options the better (within reason). If you limit yourself to "just" V/MC you run the risk of losing many Discover card/Amex sales. People who have these two cards generally prefer to use them even if they have other cards. I definately saw an increase when I accepted discover and then even more when I accepted amex. One other thing... For some reason AMEX sales are always higher than the average sale...

True, true. It's kind of like Mac users versus PC users. Mac users do so for a reason, and are used to paying a premium for the usage of the machine. AMEX users are doing so because of the premium service, and usually are of a higher income bracket. At least that is the way it seems.

There are quite a few people out there that only have american express so you would definitely want the option. Most people will use MC/Visa though.

We take V, MC, Am Exp, and Discover. We get some Am Exp charges. Rarely do we get a Discover charge. Most come in through Visa and Mastercard.

Lately we've been getting more PayPal charges.

I agree with Eric. We accept American Express, Visa and MC. Our fraud attemps are much lower with AmEx. Although we get fewer American Express sales, most are always higher dollar charges. We have also found that AmEx will verify cardholder info for international orders. (Although not many international customers have this card.)

ladyg