@lm-entertainment wrote:
how have you found it digi on the "E" site? reason i ask is because i've noticed that site uses the same payment processor that ebay are talking about using.
i guess as you've pointed out ebay will have a lot of differences (ie length of time to hold / withdraw funds and possible higher fees), but have you found the delay on those other sites is frustrating or was it just a matter of getting used to it? i imagine, once you get into the swing of things and have waited the initial time .. then you'll find you'll be able to get the income coming in despite it not necessarily being for the most recent sales / purchases?
It's no too bad, once you're fully verified as a seller and are no longer subject to the intial delays. When you first set up for their direct checkout - which used to be optional but is now mandatory - your first payment takes about 5 days to clear. I always felt this was actually the worst aspect of it, because in order to accept them in the first place, you need to provide financial info (because funds are paid directly into a bank account), and when I opened my second store I also needed to provide photo ID which is now the standard, but despite all this verification, the first sale a seller ever gets, the payment is always pending for a minimum of 5 business days, so can't be sent for that long and the buyer has to be told they have to wait while the verification process completes for the seller. A really bad and unprofessional way to start things off for new sellers, IMHO, since it can make the sellers look a bit dodgy (or at least, not ready for business), so I hope the same thing doesn't happen here.
For the first three months, after the first payment clears, your funds are credited to your payment account after (I think) 3 days, and after that they're credited the next day regardless of the time of day the buyer purchases (i.e. if they buy an hour before the clock ticks over, the funds become available in an hour), and once they're available to you, you can make a manual withdrawl any time, or you can just set them up to automatically withdraw daily, weekly or fortnightly, so while you can't instantly spend money the same way you can with PP, you do have fairly ready access. You can't spend the funds on site at all, unless it's to pay seller fees.
Every now and then a payment won't clear immediately, and they can take up to 5 business days to do so, but usually take around 2, same situation as an eCheque, really.
There's never been much of an issue with payments being received into my bank account, sometimes it's in there next day, sometimes it takes 2, and it took 4 days when the scheduled deposit fell on Christmas day last year. I know they did have an incident when a mass amount of deposits were "lost" for several days, but that happened a little before my time and I believe the funds were ultimately provided to the sellers.
But, I opened both of my stores before their checkout was the only option, and sellers were able to just offer PayPal only (separately), or direct checkout (which is what it was originally called, now it's "E" payments). When they introduced integrated checkout, where sellers could just use their system while buyers could still use PayPal and "E" would receive / process it, sellers were given the option to keep PP as a separate payment option so that buyers using it would still have their payments sent directly to the seller's account. I actually switched to this option in one of my stores, but when they announced that integrated checkout will be the only option for all new stores, and they were removing the ability for sellers to turn it on and off, and if you had it turned off, you would never be able to go back to separate PP, I switched back so I could keep my options open, so I continue to have separate PP in both of my stores, where if I opened a new one today, I wouldn't be able to.
They don't offer merchant rates like PP, so you pay the same rate no matter what your volume is - even without merchant rates applied to my PP account, "E"s system is more expensive (USD 20c + 3.5% for local payments, or 4.5% for international, plus GST).
However, that also means I can see how many people prefer using "E"s checkout with CC, and how many people prefer to stick with PayPal - I sell internationally there, and there are some countries that almost exclusively use PP, there's also a couple where the checkout system hasn't actually been introduced and PP is the only option, but for Australia, buyers definitely prefer PP, the US most use CC, the UK is kind of an even split.
The most complaints from other sellers when the choice was taken away concerned no more immediate access to their funds, which they got with PayPal, and people preferred being able to use the funds in that account to purchase business related stuff (buy stock, and other supplies). I prefer PP for those reasons, too, and this change is definitely going to affect how I buy from my suppliers. Anyway, since it is stil a US-centric site, most sellers found sales increased if they were PP only and then went to the integrated checkout (a cynical person might suggest they go more exposure since "E" would now profit from the payment processing, but the preference US buyers have for cards over PP is very clear to me).
I have other concerns with eBay being in control of money from sales, because the other site is much more seller friendly than here. They won't come up with hare-brained reasons to keep a seller's money from them, and I'm not sure I trust eBay not to do something like that. Recently, a bunch of Chinese sellers lost all of the stock they sent to "A" for fulfillment, and the site also confiscated all of their funds in Germany (admittedly this has to do with tax law stuff, but we're talking millions of dollars just forfeited in an instant, and the sellers not being able to do anything about it - that kind of scenario scares me greatly, especially if eBay doesn't allow withdrawls for two weeks or something, because even with PayPal - who can freeze an account at an instant - I can make sure I always keep the balance at something I'm willing to lose for 6 months (or forever) if something like that ever happens). Aside from that little niggle in my head, my main concern is higher fees + GST.
It was quoted above that PP will still be available for buyers, as in quite specifically buyers and not sellers, so I think that may suggest PP payments will indeed go to eBay and a higher rate than PP's will be charged to sellers.
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