posted on February 3, 2001 01:17:45 AM new
If you go to the state board of equalization for California(they collect the sales and use tax from CA sellers) you can pay with a CC and it says right there that you will be charged a convenience fee from the CC company based on the amount charged. It also says that the vendor keeps the fees and it is not a revenue for them. I guess they will be ok as long as they don't try to sell anything on eBay and plan on taking a CC through their CC service.
http://www.boe.ca.gov/elecsrv/payinternet.htm
I really think though that if they can do this someone could start a service where they charge the fees to the buyer and not the seller sense theirs basically is the exact same service as PayPal. You can bet the buyer would be more careful in sending the right amount the first time. I'm sure there would be fewer people sending monies without shipping or for the opening bid when actually they had bid it up to twice the opening bid. Also they could decide if they wanted to pay for the "convenience" of paying with their CC.
the service that charges the buyer would also make more money, how? we use to be in the top 500 people that used PayPal, we haven't taken PayPal sense the middle of Dec for some items, and not at all sense the first of the year. So really they have lost money from us by adding the fees. we use to have several thousands of dollars in their service they could make the interest on(remember this is how they said they were going to make their money) they don't have that anymore. Also I should mention it has not hurt our sales at all.
how do i make the address a link?
[ edited by airguy on Feb 3, 2001 01:28 AM ]
posted on February 3, 2001 07:18:11 AM new
I agree that PayPal missed the boat in the way it charges fees. I've always felt that way.
Instead of taking a new approach, it chose to charge fees in the same way as every faux merchant account service that came before it (CCNow and the original Billpoint) -- by charging the seller.
It's ruined PayPal as a personal payment service for "beaming" money between friends or co-workers. One business lunch for three people or a "baby shower" luncheon among co-workers can easily run higher than $100 in any major city. Who's gonna volunteer to pick up the tab and let everyone else "beam" them their share?
Those of us who signed up with PayPal at the very beginning recall this was the original sales pitch for the service.
So instead of being something truly extraordinary, PayPal is nothing more than a faux merchant account. Instead of being able to get a cut of EVERY transaction, PayPal will continue to lose a percentage of all those transactions involving people who don't use their personal PayPal accounts beyond their $100 monthly limit. And it's completely lost some sellers (again, reducing the revenue stream).
