posted on February 26, 2001 06:51:50 AM
cix: Although it took someone else to contest my post before you would show up here again, let me say this...
I WAS NOT INCORRECT in "MY" statement.
When I said that "I" get charged a fee for the transfer, "I" WAS correct, now wasn't "I"?
Unlike yourself, I am actually a PROFESSIONAL BUSINESS, and conduct my work as such. Therefore, I have no desire to have to log into paypal nightly to transfer funds manually. (if I happen to remember)
Anything I can automate is that much better.
I suppose I should be forced to do this to save YOU another penny or two on a transaction, right?
But then again, I would assume that you probably make a trip to the bank to deposit $1.00 checks as well, huh?
posted on February 26, 2001 11:58:39 AM
I won an auction once and the seller had the nerve to charge me shipping! Can you believe that? They should have figured that into the starting bid!!!
posted on February 26, 2001 09:13:52 PM
I am just curious. What is the margin of profit that most sellers are making on ebay to worry about the cost of paypal. Do they only make a few dollars off each auction?
-Trey
***********************************
"If your mind can concieve it, and you believe it, then you probably can achieve it."
posted on February 26, 2001 10:18:20 PM
Grandmarosie,
If indeed you own another business, you cannot tell me that you do not factor in the cost of credit cards into your pricing! If you don't, then there is no way you could stay in business!! Unless of course, you are too high priced to begin with! To run any retail business, and stay afloat, one must figure in their utility bill, trash, water, heating, wages, insurance on employees, insurance on property, and dozens of other overhead bills that must be paid in order to stay in business.
posted on February 27, 2001 01:21:10 PM
After reading this thread, I decided to forward e-mails from an auction transaction to Safeharbor to report a seller trying to charge me for using PayPal.
She charged you only if you used a credit card, but for some reason when I tried to PayPal from my checking account it said that that feature wasn't available at this time or some other typical crap! I was already irritated because the seller just kept feeding me these sob stories on how she's a SAHM and needs the money, bla, bla, bla.
So I just get my reply from Safeharbor. They said since the seller offered other options of payment, it's not their problem and I should try to come to an agreement with the seller!!!!
posted on March 1, 2001 12:13:40 AM
This all depends on how someone displays it.
With a merchant account it is indeed illegal to pass along card processing fee's to a consumer. As one individual noted however some will cloak that to some extent in handling fee's.
Since PayPal calls this a "commission" and not a "card processing fee" I really dont see where thats illegal.
For example, say eBay charges you 10% on a sale, there is nothing saying legally you cant say your winning bid + 10%. Granted, not smart but its not illegal as long as its clearly listed in terms of sale. eBay itself may have policy against that in the sites terms of services but legally its not questionable at all, just as eBay charges a commission so can a seller. You could call it the "feed my cat commission".
As a business you can write off anything thats a cost of doing business given of course you make enough money to do so.
If PayPal itself came out and said welp, any buyer is being charged 1.9-2.2% for processing fee that is against their merchant account. Understand, PayPal is NOT a bank and they are NOT a card processor. They are the MERCHANT no different than the restuarant that swipes your card or a gas station that accepts credit cards. This is why they have you sign off on all liability towards them as a seller or a buyer. Its also happens that many a bank considers paying a third party to be a breach of cardholders contract subject to fines and loss of credit.
You cant go into the bank that issues your credit card and say "I want you to charge my card drawn on your bank to pay Joe's Trinkets at eBay and transfer the money to their account". The bank will say, "No". Just as if someone steals your card and goes buying happy at eBay paying via PayPal again your bank will say "tough banannas", pay us.
You dont see Gateway, Dell, Barnes & Noble or any other "known" web entity using the service and you never will, at least, not as long as the terms of service voids all their rights and that of their customers while shrugging off any responsibility on their part.
For eBay sellers its an easy equation. If you cant make enough money to pay your commissions and fee's by the sale of your product your at best on shakey ground to begin with. Businesses can write off these expenses as costs of doing business as I noted.
Finally its important to realize that as a seller you may "think" your not a business and perhaps your not. Most states define this clearly. If you are BUYING merchandise be it in a garage sale hop or from surplus wherever with the intent of resale for profit you ARE a business in the States eye. Should a consumer drag any such issues into a court be it small claims or elsewhere your "problem sale" is likely to become the least of your problems as your State of residence slams you legally for operating an illegit, unregistered, no taxes paid etc. business. At that point most people wish they never even heard the word "online".
posted on March 1, 2001 05:58:52 AM
It should be quite apparent to everyone that Ebay and every other business adds the cost of doing business into their product or service. The only difference is that Ebay can't make money off of C.C charges and that is the only reason they won't allow it. Believe me if they could come up with a way to make money off of it then their policy would suddenly change allowing sellers to charge. As far as turning people into Ebay for charging fees, get a life ! What do you think, you'll get a get out of jail free card. It appears that some people have NO LIFE and just want to be a pain. One little narc in particular has made almost 500 posts to this site since Sept. Yet, has only ever purchased 1 item off Ebay. They're a real expert.
posted on March 1, 2001 06:56:16 AM
Sellers are forced into using paypal, because a majority of bidders will not bid if you do not accept this form of payment. So the greedy bastards at Paypal know this, and charge the sellers. If a seller charges the buyer paypal fees, so be it. The buyers should be the ones that Paypal charge, they are the ones convenienced by thier services.
posted on March 1, 2001 03:15:13 PM
Well, I'm one of the guilty that was trying to recoup these charge fees from my buyers, without being sneaky or deceitful and "hiding" them in the shipping charges. I didn't know that this was "illegal" on ebay and because one of you wonderfully kind and caring A.... H.... didn't have the balls to contact me and tell me yourself, got three lovely letters from safeharbor in a row.
I will remove the credit card purchases from my auctions and if you don't like something in someone's auctions either be big enough to contact them if you feel so strongly about it and/or STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM MY AUCTIONS.........I have many more choice words for several of you,,, but I'm sure they would simply be deleted.
posted on March 1, 2001 06:50:33 PM
I admit that I am fairly new to the auctionwatch boards, but I also must admit I am a little disappointed with what I have experienced thus far.
Nearly every thread that I have followed lately has devolved into a bunch of insults and namecalling! And then everyone has to have the last word in, and then the response, and on and on.
I get enough emotion and grief watching those people bicker on SURVIVOR every week, without having to see it here as well. It's actually a little boring, more than a little useless, and certainly prevents any useful information from getting through.
Next time you have a bad cup of coffee and decide to post something like this, go outside and run a couple of blocks instead of spewing it into the computer! We'll all love you for it.
posted on March 1, 2001 11:08:08 PM
Hi Joice! Isnt this fun!
HomeFurnishings:
Why would users demand PayPal? We do get requests to pay by paypal and we have a form letter we just cut n paste to them. We have a merchant account to process credit cards.
We qualified with Visa, Amex, Discover etc etc etc to have it. That qualification required 2 years of full tax, financial disclosures, credit references, consumer testimonials, supplier references, ban references, they even come in and take photos of offices & inventories. PayPal sellers dont have that qualifications process. Thats literally all we need say to a consumer and most instantly pay us and several have went "OH! I am cancelling my paypal account".
The cardholders contract is between the cardholder and their bank, not their bank and paypal.
Why would any consumer/seller work with a business thats saying "Sign off all liability against us" yet same service will not consign goods from sellers, they dont even have a complete bill of seller/consumer rights in plain view. What happens if paypal is passed a stolen card by one of your buyers? When an "investigation" happens where are the guidelines, liabilities or for that matter anything else about it clearly posted?
The fact is the service lives due to eBay. If eBay went bye bye tomorrow or say changed from person to person sales to business to consumer sales PayPal would be dead in a week, perhaps less. Again, you dont see Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Buy.com, Gateway or any KNOWN web entity using the service as they DO their homework before entering into any agreement.
At PP they say "safe fast & secure", sellers/buyers see others using it and instantly percieve "Gee... must be safe look at all these people using it" when in reality a seller can send someone an empty box with tracking information and that consumer is taken. Simple as that. Again, they are not a card processor like say Card Service International and they are not a Bank like say Citibank. They are a MERCHANT, A SELLER, no different than any other seller EXCEPT for the fact that they AVOID all liability and have YOU sign off on it. So THEIR card processor (Chase) need not worry about fraud and mass amounts of chargebacks as you agree in the terms of service that THEY are the arbitrator and THEY make the final decisions. Call your bank and file a dispute of charges and your bank will more than likely say, "WHY! are you paying a THIRD PARTY with OUR MONEY/SERVICES/CREDIT CARD for goods bought from someone else entirely that is NOT and HAS NOT passed a qualifications process to accept payment BY credit card". Your contract is with YOUR bank not THEIRS.
You dont see "safe fast & secure but in using this you may be in breach of cardholders contract or defrauding your bank". Would you sign up then? Do they say that anyplace? Thats up to YOU to find out, not their responsibility to tell you.
It SHOULD be their responsibility but its not. Just like they dont consign goods. If you win something at say First Auction, Onsale, uBid etc. they consign goods from sellers. Thus, they OWN the goods they are charging for, a closed loop.
Instead what you have is "You agree not to hold us accountable for your transaction, we are just a payment venue and we wont consign goods as we dont trust the seller and we dont trust you or we would not be asking you to sign off on liability". Thats reality. Explain that to any consumer and they will pay you direct, no problem at all.
Consumers DONT KNOW. Sellers at eBay or shall I say many of them dont know either, thats why they sell at eBay, Amazon and Yoohoo. You dont see em' at Onsale, First Auction, uBid etc. as these sites work ONLY with legit businesses that can prove it.
Just as many a seller doesnt understand if they are buying things with the intent for resale for profit by definition they ARE in business whether they think so or not.
I'd guess any Person to Person point of sales WORST fear is that the federal government decides every web sale gets the buyer taxed as all of a sudden 16 zillion sellers are in a "Oh No! What do I do" mode.
On the web its MUCH more advantageous to be a legit business as you can take advantage of the cost of doing business write-offs.
I've had many a pal say "MAN! Dont you get blasted by eBay's fee's and credit card processing fee's, and this fee and that fee."
Nope. As far as we are concerned our listing fee's are free. Our commissions paid to eBay are free. Our commissions paid to Onsale, uBid, HSN, Amazon, dealdeal.com, even our web access and hosting services are free. They are all deductible. Thats not "really free" but it keeps a good attitude (something alot of people here could learn from).
If we used PayPal well thats a cost of doing business again. We'd be delighted to use the service too *IF* they operated with sellers like a REAL merchant account does, but they dont and they dont because they are not a card processor, they are a merchant, again, no different than Billy Bob's Gasoline Emporium. We are not about to place our interests in a business that has control over our business and has no defined procedures clearly displayed for sellers/buyers should problems occur. Thats just being business dumb. We will use Billpoint as we KNOW eBay has some level of control should problems arise and they are not inclined to make up policy "on the fly" as its directly related to eBay itself. Gee... Hmmm... "Wells Fargo...PayPal" who would you choose?
Cheaper does not always mean better ya know?
Do you see Discover card or Amex at PP? call em' up! ask em why! I bet you'll get your socks scared off.
Its not PayPal's fault either, If I were in their shoes I sure wouldnt want the liability of hoping some seller really ships and some buyer is being 101% honest in a claim. I wouldnt want the liability of some schlock shipping whatall, something illegal for import/export or stolen merchandise hanging over head. I mean what are they to do? Have sellers make a VHS movie of it being packed and delivered with timeline chronology?
So whats the answer? The answer is simple. If your a seller become a business and work towards getting a merchant account. Not only will LOTS more opportunity open up to you but more importantly your not at the mercy of everything out there which is the impression many sellers here give me. I gotta pay this here and that there, whats left for me? Where are my rights? Your rights are RIGHT in front of you and EFFORT is met with rewards.
For sellers private or business who cant make a profit then your in the wrong area of sales, that simple or you need find a place to better target the buying audience.
----
As to Cix & Captain trinket I'd like to say I commend Cix for being proactive, if more people were the web/world would be a nicer place for honest folks. If I were in Cix shoes given the insults thrown I'd capture those ad's in printout and make a nice file I'd be sinding off to both his state AG's offices and local district attorney so now he'd have REAL trouble instead of a few warnings from Safe Harbor. Its QUITE apparent Commandant Trinkets could care less about consumers, Cix, You, I, Moderators, AW or eBay just money. Well then so be it, you can know what real trouble really is. If Cix emailed you and said "Thats illegal take it off" you'd have said go blow air just as you have in this thread. Instead he did the RIGHT thing in protecting consumers who you are ripping off due to greed and protecting eBay from your greedy tactics.
So I commend Cix, I have a new hero!
However, I do have a word of Advice for Cix. Your in public forum here, people see you as what you present. You have NO need to lower yourself to mud slinging especially when you know your right in this particular topic. To command respect display respect.
I am proud to see a user who actually cares about OTHER consumers, sellers & eBay enough to take the effort to point out blatent wrongs to eBay and thus keep eBay a place where consumers and decent sellers can get good deals, have some fun in getting them and more so help keep it clean from those self-servers who could care less about anything but self.
posted on March 2, 2001 06:08:11 PM
I accept PAYPAL and BIDPAY and sell internationally and use a Business Account.
I dont pass on the % or the 30c I pay but I do insist that Buyers using PAYPAL insure their parcels otherwise I cant track them overseas. If I have a chargeback I can then prove shipping.
On Bidpay I ask buyers to add a $4.50 fee for using this system not because of any costs of Bidpay but because it costs me that to cash a foriegn check (Im in Australia) Cash the bank charge the same fee but I can put these together and get charged 1 fee so Im happy to absorb the cost. With checks I get charged per check.
I dont sell a lot of small items overseas any way as the shipping costs are a killer but the additional fees dont help my sales Im sure.
It would be nice to play on a level playing field where I didnt have to charge these. Whats the general thoughts on my position ?
posted on March 2, 2001 06:14:32 PM
OK: If you think it is not right to charge for the use of paypal. Then let us go back to the days when you drove to the post office for at least a $1.00,got a Money Order for $.75 then used another $.01 for and envelope and another $.34 for a Stamp for a Grand total of $2.10 And do not forget YOU have taken 2 hours of your time to do all of this. and then YOU get to what a week are more wondering if YOUR Money Order ever got there. I could go on and on why it is fare to charge for this service, But I think You are to D_M stupid to catch on.
posted on March 2, 2001 06:19:32 PM
I didn't want to start a new subject because this touches on charging the buyer for PayPal services.
I may be wrong, but I believe that in the world of business, a store CANNOT charge the customer extra if they want to use a credit card to pay for purchases. I read somewhere where this is a rule set out by credit card companies to any store, business etc. which wants to be able to accept credit cards as a form of payment, which of course most do. I have often heard merchants, especially of the smaller stores, complain about the high credit card fees they have to pay when a buyer chooses this type of payment. That's why you see signs "Minimum charge for credit card $20.00" or something similar.
As far as PayPal charges, when I sell something I accept it as part of being able to take credit cards. As a small time seller, I would never be able to afford to set up an arrangement with credit card companies to be able to offer that form of payment to a customer. So I look at it as a way for me to do something I otherwise couldn't, and just consider this is the cost of doing so.
I know this should go under the Yahoo! thread, but it surprised me that people almost boycotted selling on Yahoo when the service started to charge. How spoiled people can get! It's a fact of life, nothing is really free, or won't remain free forever. To those who oppose Yahoo's fees, I say "Welcome to the world of commerce, folks"!
Thanks for reading...Sharon H.
posted on March 2, 2001 06:53:43 PM
Well here we go again. This is about as interesting as reading in the former Ebay magazine the shipping cost debate. I don't think that some buyers understand that most people selling on Ebay are business owners. Businesses, that are trying to survive and have lots of overhead and cost that have to be passed on to the consumer at some point. We are just like Wal Mart or K Mart, and have to include all of our expensese into the cost of the transaction. I no longer accept paypal. So don't turn me in please. End of that problem. IT is my choice and may cost me some bids. But lets look at it. I put an item on Ebay for 4.99 that I paid 3.00 for. Ebay charges me .30 cent just for listing, finial valuation fee are .25 cents. My bubble wrap, that I do pay for, .25 cents. So now the cost of the item is 3.80 and if it sells for only the original 4.99 I have made a whopping 1.19 cents. If you take away another .30 cent I make .89 cents. Not much of a profit, how long will I be in business you aks. Why would I put something like this on? IN hopes that it makes more than the starting bid of 4.99 of course. I love selling on Ebay, but please let me stay there!!!
You are correct. Walmart or any business accepting payment via credit card is not supposed to charge the consumers the card processing fee's. Its an instant breach of any merchant account I have ever heard of.
Contrary to belief it is also a breach and not legal to charge a minimum transaction fee. You can go into Walmart and charge a .05 piece of candy if you so choose. Say you go in with no cash, all you want is that .05 piece of candy for your son or daughter, you as a consumer cannot be forced to go and spend $20, $10 or even .10 cents because you wish to utilize bank credit. That would be forcing you to spend money you dont want to spend, thus is deemed unlawful.
We have often had a loss at say ebay. We put something out at $1 and say our cost of goods was $3, we figured it'd go higher, the low start bid gets "more activity as its a true auction below cost of goods" we run ALOT of these as it draws bidding traffic and thats why people are at eBay to partake in an auction not a fixed price sale. Thats what an auction is. So we sell for $1, we are already at a loss of $2. They pay via credit cards with say a $4 S/H fee so the total we charge is $5. Say the buyer pays by American Express which has a 3.5% discount rate and our card processor has its .25 transaction fee. So we pay 17.5 cents (they round up, so .18) of that $5 to Amex, we pay .25 to the aggregate card processor, atop that we paid eBay .25 to list it and a commission of what all on the $1 final bid value. This is all loss atop the loss of our cost of goods .vs. final bid value.
Thats what AUCTIONS ARE. If we could not be profitable at it then we are in the wrong business. If say this item 2 weeks in a row sells at a loss then we need look at upping the start bid or go fixed price perhaps even resale at the cost of goods just to get rid of it rather than have it sit here as a capital asset, perhaps move it to a more favorable point of sale (POS). If what we are selling cannot drive a profit thats not the consumers fault. Why should they pay for our stupidity in trying to sell something that we cant drive a profit at?
Alot of eBay sellers think EVERYTHING they sell should make me money, well thats not what auctions are about. Auctions mean risk. If your asking a consumer to take a risk on you in bidding then at the very least a seller should respect that and not try to shaft every single fee upon them.
As a poster pointed out it might be more expensive for the consumer to drive, buy a money order, postage stamp, this/that. But the consumer perception is you are nickel and diming them to squeek every last cent you can from them rather than the gas station squeeking its money, and the postal service squeeking its etc. It may well cost the consumer more raw currency out of their pocket than simply passing along a processing fee etc. But perceptions count. And in business perceptions are often more valuable towards sales than those few cents. As a seller whether a buyer covers your expense of say PayPal or decideds to pay by Money order WHERE are you? Your making no more profit than you were? The only difference might be a little speed and convenience. If the service is too pricey to buffer into a profit margin than probabl;y ought not be using it.
Perception is EVERYTHING on the net. We have helped many many sellers make better profits. You dont see walmart making shlock only textual advertisements. Display COUNTS, perception COUNTS. Biggest mistake sellers on eBay make are rotten ad's and poor communication. We've has countless bidders ell us we make some of the absolute best advertisements on eBay. They are quite attractive.
If you want everything that you sell to make money then go fixed pricing and put your costs as part of the fixed price. If that makes it too high to be attractive to a consumer thats the sellers problem not the buyers.
msmelmel:
Some of the above applies. We pay for packing materials as well. In fact we have a person who is not part of our business do all our packaging and they get paid per box. At years end we 1099 him for tax purposes.
Understand, losses and cost of doing business as a business are tax deductible and while its always better to have money in hand tax deductions are one of the BIG things that has made the US of A the marketplace to the world and the strongest nation on the planet. Contrary to belief again the government is highly proactive in making this nation what it is. If it were not for the ability to apply expense by nature of business and loss as a nature of business against "profit" we'd be the commerce looser of the world. Its this creative environment that the government has created over hundreds of years and countless legislators and leaders (and then some) that allows for business to have a "Chance" at success and not be waffled out like a match that never lit.
I can understand your plight with the variety of fee's and expenses vs the profitability of what your selling. In ANY sales environment if what your selling cannot drive a final consumer price that allows for a reasonable profit after expense then you are either selling something that is simply a looser to attempt to resell thus your wasting your time and bound to fail eventually or you need target your buying audience in a more focused fashion or even a more focused site. That can cost money too. I am sure many telemarketers and infomercials expend GOBS of money to try and advertise to target their consumer market and end up with sales that dont cover their costs of doing business.
Heck, its ALL over the web. Amazon flirts with profitability, PayPal itself flirts with profitability, buy.com, multitudes of them.
We knew when paypal went out there sooner or later they'd have to charge. We have a merchant account too. They cannot "invest" millions of peoples monies for 3-5 days and cover card processing costs as well as staff, support etc. No way. Thats the same circumstance you have, especially given short term investments are highly impacted by what happens in markets.
We are probably the only seller you'll find that doesnt fault paypal for charging fee's.
We understand they need make money too.
In fact they probably dont know exactly which way we go. One message feels like an attack and another feels like defense. In actuality its neither, its just the facts.
In one regard they are highly commended by us for having the guts to do what they do. It takes a VERY brave set of people to open up a whole new way to do commerce on a global scale. It takes a dedicated group of people to deal with the issues pertinent to "person to person" transactions. I am sure stress levels often reach premiums in their business. As such, I have a great deal of respect for them.
On the other side of the coin I do feel that they should engage in full disclosure of policy of given circumstances and have a complete bill of seller/consumer rights all in plain view so that people who are acting in good faith can make informed decisions when making online purchases using their services as the venue of payment.
We as a business have never looked at things in an "Us vs Them" situation anytime be it with site or consumers. eBay and us have agreed to disagree many times as we have with other ppints of sale. Thats what makes a horse race.
Many sellers have a complete wrong attitude about "business" (be they legit or not).
99% of eBay if asked this question:
"Does eBay work for you or do you work for them in perception?"
will say, "they work for me, I pay them money".
Not us. We work for THEM, thats our perception at EVERY point of sale we use. Through their sucess comes ours and we "all work" to each others mutual benefit. This is how the Internet works BEST. Far Far too many web resellers consider it like brick & morter sales where Mom & Pop's shoes is competing right with Walmart and thus Walmart becomes their nemesis. On the web this need not exist and both small and big web players take that view. Those that tend to make TRUE runs at success dont view it that way at all. Instead they look towards creating mutually beneficial relationships and thus increase BOTH parties chances at success.
posted on March 3, 2001 04:08:15 AM
Cix (and everyone else on that tattle-tale band wagon),
GET OVER IT! Were you the kid in school who was always raising your hand, pointing and saying, "Teacher teacher, he's got gum!?"
As if doing business on eBay isn't hard enough, there is a faction of people that just can't seem to stand seeing anyone make a profit. Or in the real world, they can't mind their own business. As long as is doesn't hurt you or infringe upon your rights in some way, let it go.
Do you actually understand the concept of free enterprise? That in order to survive, a business must make a profit. Protecting those profits comes from covering your expenses by charging them to your customers.
Most businesses are able to build those expenses in to the sale price. In an auction format, extra expenses have to be added on to the final sale price. And, if these terms are explaned up-front and are not acceptable to the buyer, a bid should not be placed.
I do not run a "non-profit" organization. You can't expect any other eBay seller to run their operations according to your skewed sense of what is right, either.
No profits = no sellers. No sellers = no eBay. No eBay = nothing for you to whine about. Would you like that? Then what will you do?
At least the sellers that you have reported to the eBay police only charged the additional fee to the buyers that opted to use PayPal. Don't lose sight of the fact that the small additional fee charged to the buyer is usually less than the cost of postage to mail a payment.
PayPal and the other services like them cover their expenses by charging these fees in the first place. It's no different for a user of these services to pass on those fees in order to cover their expenses. It is NOT an additional profit source like fantom shipping and handling fees.
Let the buyers make their own decisions about paying fees to cover expenses for the sellers. Why don't you mind your own business?
