Post by Malcolm Vidrine on Feb 15, 2010 16:59:28 GMT -5
I’ve been trying to come up with a good way to trade records on the auction site and reduce fees for doing so & I think I came up with an answer today. I’m kind of posting this as a message to myself as not to forget the idea.
Another eBay pet peeve of mine is paypal fees – you are always paying them at the same rate even if the money is only moving from one paypal account to another. For Ebay/Paypal, this is pure profit and is a useless expense for sellers.
What if the seller had an option when listing a record to have the funds from the sale of that record deposited into a specific account for trading? This account would be separate from the normal seller account where funds can be withdrawn by completing a withdrawal request. When the item would be listed, there would be a checkbox to deposit funds from the sale of this item into your trade account. For doing so, the seller would receive a 3% discount on the final transaction fee (which is the % that paypal or credit cards charge – this fee is normally rolled into the per item transaction fee we charge). This money would then reside in a sellers trade account and could only be used to pay for other auction winnings at any point in the future. This is totally feasible as the money would never be leaving our server – only transferred from one trade account to another (or trade account to a seller account depending on how the seller listed the item).
We could also work in a feature where this money could be transferred from the trade account to the seller account (if the seller changes his mind and needs the cash) but the 3% discount would be applied to the transferred funds then. This way your money would never really be stuck in the trade account, but you could receive a benefit if you are only selling records to buy more!
A 3% discount may not seem like a lot, but if you think about it, this would bring your commission payment to the site down from 6-10% to 3-7%, which is a fantastic rate for sellers! And since the money is never leaving the site, there is no reason for us to charge the seller the extra 3%, as our commission rate will remain the same. Multiply this by a bunch of records and the savings could add up quickly.
It’ll be awhile till I can get to this as I’ve got a lot of other fixes/additions to work on first, but I think this is a really good idea. I’ll continue to mull over the physical workings of this till then. In the meantime, if you have anything to add or would like to make any comments, please do so. I’d love to hear your ideas.
Malcolm
Another eBay pet peeve of mine is paypal fees – you are always paying them at the same rate even if the money is only moving from one paypal account to another. For Ebay/Paypal, this is pure profit and is a useless expense for sellers.
What if the seller had an option when listing a record to have the funds from the sale of that record deposited into a specific account for trading? This account would be separate from the normal seller account where funds can be withdrawn by completing a withdrawal request. When the item would be listed, there would be a checkbox to deposit funds from the sale of this item into your trade account. For doing so, the seller would receive a 3% discount on the final transaction fee (which is the % that paypal or credit cards charge – this fee is normally rolled into the per item transaction fee we charge). This money would then reside in a sellers trade account and could only be used to pay for other auction winnings at any point in the future. This is totally feasible as the money would never be leaving our server – only transferred from one trade account to another (or trade account to a seller account depending on how the seller listed the item).
We could also work in a feature where this money could be transferred from the trade account to the seller account (if the seller changes his mind and needs the cash) but the 3% discount would be applied to the transferred funds then. This way your money would never really be stuck in the trade account, but you could receive a benefit if you are only selling records to buy more!
A 3% discount may not seem like a lot, but if you think about it, this would bring your commission payment to the site down from 6-10% to 3-7%, which is a fantastic rate for sellers! And since the money is never leaving the site, there is no reason for us to charge the seller the extra 3%, as our commission rate will remain the same. Multiply this by a bunch of records and the savings could add up quickly.
It’ll be awhile till I can get to this as I’ve got a lot of other fixes/additions to work on first, but I think this is a really good idea. I’ll continue to mull over the physical workings of this till then. In the meantime, if you have anything to add or would like to make any comments, please do so. I’d love to hear your ideas.
Malcolm