50,000+ shops closed down on another site

[jellybirddesigns]

I sell on another site (the "handmade" one) and anyone who had stand alone Paypal and would not or could not sign up for global payments to their shop (ie: credit cards), have been suspended as of today.

In the last few hours I have watched the shop numbers fall from just over 1,020,000 shops down to 967,515 and dropping.....

Most people were moaning about their loss of stand alone Paypal as they would now have to give their bank details to get paid.

I remember a few years ago when Ebay made us ACCEPT Paypal and how everybody was moaning!

[jillywinkle]

So, they closed their shops because they WANT to use Paypal?? Heck. I find a refreshing sense of freedom 'over there', BECAUSE of their own direct checkout method. Nine out of 10 payments I receive are direct checkout, NOT paypal. Nice. Wonder why people are so weird about it, to go as far as to shut up shop. Comfort zone disrupted? The big paypal corporate brainwash of years ago? It sure was good marketing and lobbying wasnt it? Dreadful.

[jillywinkle]

And it's one of the redeeming features of the site too...the shunning of the Paypal monster...and I just re-read,, that the shops were suspended. My mistake, just read your post again. Ah they will get used to it...no paypal....:) noice

[jillywinkle]

Ah yes, I see what's going on over there. They are still accepting paypal, just folks are annoyed about adding more details, banking etc. Thats par for the course on the internet..

[jellybirddesigns]

Hi Jilly,

the forums there have been going bonkers the last few weeks.

The site just wanted uniformity, so they can still accept PP, it just becomes one of many ways to accept paypment and now it all has to go into a bank account.

People who didn't think twice about giving PP all their personal details are hysterical over giving those same details to the platform.

And of course there are those who suddenly realise that if money is hitting their bank account, they will have to cough up tax after under declaring their income.

Personally I love the global system - I think 99% of my customers have paid via CC and not PP anyway.

In my minds eye, all I can see are a group of people flipping their hair and flouncing out the door and giving it a virtual slam, lol. 

[chameleon54]

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@cushioncovers wrote:

Hi Jilly,

the forums there have been going bonkers the last few weeks.

The site just wanted uniformity, so they can still accept PP, it just becomes one of many ways to accept paypment and now it all has to go into a bank account.

People who didn't think twice about giving PP all their personal details are hysterical over giving those same details to the platform.

And of course there are those who suddenly realise that if money is hitting their bank account, they will have to cough up tax after under declaring their income.

Personally I love the global system - I think 99% of my customers have paid via CC and not PP anyway.

In my minds eye, all I can see are a group of people flipping their hair and flouncing out the door and giving it a virtual slam, lol. 

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Love the flipping hair and flouncing out the door analogy, made my day.....,

Its also highly likely many are running small businesses and accessing unemployment or other benefits and realise Centerlink will become aware of their activities.

I dont have any problems with a grandma making a few crafty items and selling them to buy the grandkids a birthday present or have a snitty down the club once a week, but if they are running a succesful small businesees, they should declare it, just like the rest of us.

[digital*ghost]

I sell there too, and have been reading a lot of the threads there, but I actually empathise with the sellers who have opted to no longer selll there rather than be forced to use the payment system.

I'll mention up front that opted into DC in both my shops upon opening them, so don't personally have an issue with this new change (as in, it doesn't affect me), but to give some insight into why some people were less keen on using it...

When a company is handling all of your business income, it would be nice to be able to have a customer support phone number - none is provided. You can only email, and responses take anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks. Even though I use their payment system, I have always thought that wasn't good enough, and I understand why it's a deal breaker for many businesses. Imagine not being able to call PayPal if you transfer a couple of thousand dollars to your bank account and it disappears into the ether for several days (that is exactly what happened to thousands of sellers using DC not so long ago). 

Site (and therefore personal information) security is also an issue - the other site has been hacked a number of times in the last couple of years. It's always a risk with sites, but over the previous experiences have made people pretty reluctant to hand over personal details (they require scans of photo ID, and were asking US members for the last several digits of their social security ID numbers - this is sensitive information that - at the very least - feels at higher risk due to previous hacks). 

Some of the "lesser" but still valid concerns is that it's more expensive. For me, it actually costs nearly twice as much as PayPal, so I did not opt in to integrated PayPal (this is where that site's payment processing system processes a PayPal payment when the buyer pays that way, so the money is paid to them, not directly to the seller, so their payment system fees apply). I have about a 50/50 mix between their payment system and PayPal. Less money being processed through the seller's PayPal account also affects things like merchant rate eligibility, and Working Capital loan stuff. 

[jellybirddesigns]

Thanks Digi - food for thought.

I see your point on some of the sellers, although some really come across with the "I'm leaving just to make a point", which seems a bit OTT - I wouldn't jeopardise my income for anything - there's always going to be change on the Interwebz, whether we like it or not,

Every selling site is going to expect compliance sooner or later, especially as governments crack down on unreported income - so even those sellers who drift over to other smaller platforms are going to have to give personal details down the line. And of course, going over to sell on the "the river" means you can't even take Paypal at all.

In terms of giving personal/detailed information for fear of hacking - giving the last 4 digits of an SSN is not the same as giving the whole number and for anyone who writes a cheque in the States, their home address and account details are available to anyone who looks at the cheque.

But I do understand where you are coming from.

[digital*ghost]

I think in situations like this, there will always be people who respond to ultimatums in the Rage Against the Machine way (i.e. @#/! You I won't do what you tell me), and the validity of the reasons why will vary.

Some people object to it ethnically because these changes are about increasing profits for shareholders at the expense of members (by which I mean members will have to make sacrifices, compromises or just outright pay more). And a lot of members have been there for many years, when the site was very much about creating something for the users instead.

From their perspective they were allowed to create and build a business exactly the way they wanted to, and now they can't - they are being told they have to run it the way the site wants them to, so the site earns more money, or not run a shop at all. That's being interpreted as mob tactics, so some of the objection comes from that.

[jillywinkle]

mmmm...yes, it seems that way. Flouncing and flipping. Thank goodness somebody else in the world flips out over things too. Ha. I went the message boards after reading that post on here and well, it doesn't seem such a big deal to me the whole thing. But different strokes for different folks as they say. Software on controlled large websites is always changing. Luckily I opted in for direct payment ages ago, so my store was left alone...:)