With demand through the roof across North America, a person can be forgiven for believing that it’s easy to sell hemp-derived products like CBD online. Actually, ever since the legalization of cannabis in certain US states and across Canada, many businesses have been trying to sell CBD online, and the competition is stiff.

No matter how badly the public wants your product, there is no shortage of companies trying to get a piece of the multi-trillion-dollar e-commerce market, especially when it comes to cannabis products like CBD.

However, starting a CBD merchant account and getting a high-risk payment processing system is difficult in the early stages — if you can’t get such a merchant account, you simply can’t accept sales. Here’s what you need to know to get your online CBD business going.


Low- and High-Risk Sales Processing

CBD consists of less than 0.3% THC, the psychoactive property found in marijuana. Still, it’s associated in the minds of the general public and even sales processors. It doesn’t matter that CBD is fully legal in the US — unlike marijuana, which was only legalized in certain states, the Farm Bill of 2018 reclassified hemp and took it off the DEA’s Controlled Substance Schedules.

Even though CBD is perfectly legal and the stigma surrounding marijuana is beginning to erode after decades of intense government-driven hysteria, mainstream financial institutions may still block your business from taking payments. PayPal has done this in the past, one of the most ubiquitous payment processors there is.

Having an eCommerce platform with multiple third-party payment integrations will allow you to process high-risk payments as if your business were low-risk. The platform must have as many payment integrations as possible since the ones accessible to you depend partly on the country in which you’re operating.


All-in-One Platforms

There are many hoops to jump through when navigating the regulatory framework of any product, let alone ones like CBD. But it’s a very lucrative business, and those intrepid and determined enough to see it through will find out that it can be made a lot easier when you have the backing of an all-in-one eCommerce platform.

The advantages are numerous:
  • Track and manage orders
  • Forecast earning potential
  • Facilitate returns easily
  • Boost credit card approval rates
  • Get data reports and analytics in real-time

Powerful, Flexible Security

Once your merchant account is running, your business needs top-notch security. It has to be powerful and flexible — find an e-commerce platform that lets you customize security settings for each product and campaign as needed.

Also, security has to be fast. Online consumers lose attention in about seven seconds, so verification and authentication need to work in milliseconds so they don’t even notice.

CBD is a product that helps people relieve anxiety, and it has numerous other important health benefits. Hopefully, the stigma surrounding it will disappear for good, so merchants don’t need to struggle so hard to get their business up and running. But to start selling CBD now, pick an all-in-one E-commerce platform with enough payment integrations and enterprise-level security.