I agree re: credit cards being somewhat cheaper in the long run. Bad debt and fees that it costs run prices higher than one might expect. As do the deposit requirements for banks. As a person that deals with companies that have to look at their balance sheets in terms of bad debt and good debt, a receivable from the credit card company is almost instantly paid (you get the money faster and without default issues) and you are trading on the credit of Visa, not Joe Schmo.
If the fees remove all of Jim's profit, it is more proof that Jim does not have a high enough margin on the speakers generally. I cannot complain about that for the speakers I bought because I benefited from the low margins. I want Jim to raise his prices if this is truly a reflection of his margins (profit wiped out by 3% fees). I want to be able to buy HT2-TLs to replace my SongTower RTs (I need to sell the latter to buy the former, so that is annoying because of the wait. Sigh, so I have been putting it off.). Anyway, that means he needs to have enough margin to survive for me to be able to buy them. Raise those prices Jim!
Shawn