Do you sell products online?
By cairalyssa
@cairalyssa (1402)
Malaysia
June 9, 2011 7:07pm CST
I usually receives payment without terms via paypal but i sold an item that requires shipment tracking number for the payment to be cleared on my paypal account. Is it safe that way? i cant hold up so much rolling capital for bulk orders, shipment cost, etc as the amount will takes another 4 days to clear on my bank account.
Any advise frens?
1 person likes this
1 response
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
10 Jun 11
This is one way of ensuring that the seller is acting in good faith and thus of protecting the selling website and the buyer. It is used, to my knowledge, by Yardsellr (a Facebook app).
It does delay payment to the seller a little - you do have to pay for the shipping BEFORE you can receive payment for the goods and shipping - and so might affect your cashflow slightly.
If your business cannot sustain what is effectively a Net7 (or maybe longer) payment policy, then you will need to find other outlets where you will get your payment sooner until you can build up enough working capital to handle the delay.
I can see this policy of requiring proof of shipping before payment is released as becoming more common, so it would be wise to run your business with that in mind.
@cairalyssa (1402)
• Malaysia
12 Jun 11
but owl, i have been selling products and ship it dis way for quite sometimes, i dont really have problem receiving the money immediately.. I tot if we purchase using paypal, we can dispute should there is any problem with the transaction? (i do agree, it is messy!) and that is why it is more secure to use online payment gateway? please advise,
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
13 Jun 11
I'm sure that you have no problem with receiving the money immediately (that statement can be taken in two ways!). Yes, PayPal do have a dispute system which works pretty well for most people but there are serious difficulties for some, in that it doesn't ALWAYS decide fairly in the favour of the right person, so some people have come not to trust it. It can also be difficult to prove, after the event, that the item was posted.
That is why more and more people - especially websites which handle such transactions - are insisting that the shipper produce some evidence that the goods were shipped before they will release the payment. Amazon have done this as routine for a very long time (they don't insist on a tracking number but they do require that the seller actually confirms that they have shipped the goods).
Don't forget that your customers need to feel secure. Just relying on PayPal's dispute system doesn't give them the security they need, so you have to accommodate them. In truth, it is probably a middle-man site which is making this stipulation but your customers are likely to be using that site because it gives them more confidence.
@cairalyssa (1402)
• Malaysia
14 Jun 11
i LOVE reading your advise Owl, you are very helpful!! btw, from my observation,this payment method to provide shipment tracking number is not applicable for e-commerce merchant, where they have tpaypal "pay now" button. Is that mean, e-commerce is better way to sell without holding up high capital? Furthermore, it's also easy to set up e-commerce blog with blogger.com
