Group Buy Process

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plano_harry

plano_harry

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Joined
Jan 12, 2012
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Plano, TX 75093
Having run a group buy and dealt with PayPal, I wanted to start a discussion on the payment process.

When you send money, you have two options:

  1. paying for goods and services (fee is charged to recipient)
  2. sending money to friends (no fee to sender if you have and existing balance or linked to a bank account, if linked to a credit card you pay the transaction fee
I contend that we are NOT paying for goods and services, since we are not buying from the person who is running the group -- and should use the sending money to friends option. We are only using PayPal as a way to send money to our friend who is going to go and buy something, and the credit card or PayPal people will get a fee for that full transaction.

On my group buy, some used option 2, most didn't. For those that used option 2 on my group buy, I was able to refund the fees for an additional savings.

Should we make this a part of our standard process? Any downsides? Hope I am not overstepping any bounds here -- just wanted to provide some group input to Mannie, our fearless leader.
 
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I'm definitely on board with this.

The only downside I can think of is that there's no buyer protection. Which I don't see you to be an issue here.

The other is that it's a little bit harder to print a shipping label as you need to enter info manually.
 
I was one who used the "no fee" option on that g. buy. If I felt it was going around the rules set by Ppal, I would not do it that way. We join together to get group benefits, and the single big transaction by the coordinator does yield the fee to whatever processor is used. It is a proper way to go, and should be listed as the method of payment in the group buy instructions. Maybe the single big payment to vendor should be always done via Ppal, as that would completely close the loop as to the question if it is the "right" way to proceed.
 
I think it makes a lot of sense to use the "Send money to a friend" option to send the funds to the group buy leader and then use the "paying for goods & services" for the final purchase to the vendor.
 
The ability to send money to friends is a free benefit that PayPal extends to me for all the money they have made off of my purchases and sales. It is an enticement to open an account.:present:

If money goes into my account and I return my product to you, that is a sale. If no income is realized by the recipient, no sale of product or service (as listed on the PayPal option) is made. (Note: I am not a lawyer, but would like to play one on TV :cool:)

If we mailed checks to each other, it would be less convenient, but would not change the nature of the transaction.
 
Dan Masshardt said:
...The other is that it's a little bit harder to print a shipping label as you need to enter info manually.
Click to expand...
This is my main reason for not using the "Send money to a friend" option. I can print 10 or so mailing labels using the regular PP method in the time it would take me to manually enter one address. Plus it eliminates any typos in the address.

I would be hesitant to put this restriction of only using the "Send money to a friend" option. We have so few who volunteer to run a GB as it is currently set up and I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from running one. However, if the general consensis is that everyone wants to limit GP payments to the "Send money to a friend" option, then I could include that in the guidelines.
 
Monty said:
Dan Masshardt said:
...The other is that it's a little bit harder to print a shipping label as you need to enter info manually.
Click to expand...
This is my main reason for not using the "Send money to a friend" option. I can print 10 or so mailing labels using the regular PP method in the time it would take me to manually enter one address. Plus it eliminates any typos in the address.

I would be hesitant to put this restriction of only using the "Send money to a friend" option. We have so few who volunteer to run a GB as it is currently set up and I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from running one. However, if the general consensis is that everyone wants to limit GP payments to the "Send money to a friend" option, then I could include that in the guidelines.
Click to expand...

I saw it both ways. Honestly as the coordinator it was small potatoes but as a buyer you want to make that dollar stretch and not overpay on fees because 3% of 300+ dollars starts to look more considerable.

What I did for addresses was copy and paste everything and then double check my physical print out. Addresses are sometimes different too when dealing with billing and shipping.

When I saw that some folks were savings fees that certainly caught my eye :)
 
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