Power Sellers Unite

pjrcoffee · Joined: 23 Apr 2006 Posts: 634

DaLizardsLair wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")A couple of quick notes about GCO, based on their User Agreement.

1. The seller MUST ship the item, within 24 hours of receipt of payment, or GCO will refund the buyer.

2. The seller MUST notify GCO of the tracking number on the package within 24 hours, or GCO will refund the buyer.

3. GCO does NOT accept Delivery Confirmation as proof of delivery, since it does not show the buyer's street address. When using USPS, they require Signature Confirmation.

4. In the event that you (the seller) need to refund a buyer's payment, they (GCO) will keep the transaction fee for the payment, so that will come out of your pocket.

Bottom line...if you plan on using or are using GCO, the wisest course is to open a new checking account with a minimal amount of money deposited in it, and give GCO this account. That way, the majority of your money remains safe.

(I put in the paragraph numbers in the quote to make it easier to follow my comments.)

Paragraph 1- The key word in the agreement is "capture". You can set Google Checkout (GCO) to automatically capture the funds from a buyer or you can do it manually.

I personally have set it up to automatically capture the funds as I read my e-mail regularly and have everything I offer in stock and do not sell one of a kind things on multiple venues. You do not have to do so.

"Capture" means to authorize the payment into your GCO balance. You as a seller do that when you are sure you have something in stock and are willing and able to ship. The deadline to capture the funds is set at 168 hours (7 days) not 24 hours. Even that does not initiate an automatic refund as the agreement only says that GCO will only guarantee no refunds to the buyer until then. It does not say they will refund to the buyer only that they will if the buyer requests it after that deadline. Seems totally reasonable to me. The buyer will know when you capture the funds and not getting that e-mail from GCO makes any buyer nervous that the seller may not deliver.

The seller chooses when to capture funds. Nowhere does it say that a refund is automatically sent to the buyer. I suppose if you want to be a deadbeat seller and dawdle about delivery then perhaps GCO is not for you. Other sellers (the ones GCO wants to attract) pride themselves on providing good service which includes prompt attention to fulfilling the promise to deliver when you have a sale. Surely the requirement to mail out a package within 8 days of getting word from GCO that the funds are available is certainly reasonable.

Paragraph 2- Tracking numbers need to be supplied to GCO only if there is a question about the order from the buyer and only if the seller wants to be defended by GCO's Payment Guarantee Policy. See Section 8 of GCO policy. You do not need to send that information unless needed to prove you delivered the goods. The deadline for supplying that tracking number is ten days from hearing of a complaint through GCO.

Paragraph 3- GCO requires Signature Confirmation for protection under their Payment Guarantee Policy only when the price exceeds $250. Delivery Confirmation is sufficient proof of delivery under that amount. Note that neither of these is required to use GCO. These rules apply only if you want to win a dispute with the buyer over if the delivery took place.

Paragraph 4 -That is true but seems reasonable to me. I believe the small fee they charge has been earned by GCO so I do not fuss about it.

To me, the wisest course is to be a responsible seller and serve your buyers well. That includes being willing to deliver promptly and leaving sufficient money in your bank account tied to GCO to satisfy any refund requests that might arise. Scammers figure out ways to leave the buyer high and dry if there is non-delivery. One way they frequently use is clearing out their account so no money is available to satisfy legitimate claims. You can be like them or not. I choose not to.

I applaud the desire of GCO to protect the buyer and am happy to abide by the reasonable requirements they make on us sellers.

diesel_parts · Joined: 23 Jul 2006 Posts: 723

I finally found a decent merchant account. I can take orders over the phone now and the merchant account will be installed on my website as soon as tech can get to it. I only sell on my websites and craigs so that will cover it as craigs is usually cash.

paypal will still be an option on my website but the merchant account will let me process credit cards. paypal wouldn't process the credit cards . I think they wanted me to upgrade to a merchant account with them. I upgraded but not with paypal.

I can't always ship in 24 hrs as some of my items take up to 2 hrs to pack. I also live in the country and running to the UPS with every pkg isn't an option. I guess it is better that I didn't get set up with google.

I think google is a great search engine and up to half of my website traffic is from google. They need to stick with search and ebay needs to go back to being a flea market. Neither one will probably take my advice though. LOL.

purple_reading_giraffe · Joined: 04 Feb 2008 Posts: 5485 Location: Indiana, USA

"I can't always ship in 24 hrs as some of my items take up to 2 hrs to pack. I also live in the country and running to the UPS with every pkg isn't an option. I guess it is better that I didn't get set up with google."

In that case, I would suggest using the Manual Capture of funds that pjr mentioned, and not capturing the funds until the day you are ready to ship. (I said this mostly for others, btw - you are certainly free to not use Google Checkout!)

p.s. UPS will pick up if you schedule it. For me it costs a bit extra (which I resent a wee bit - free with a day or two notice would be more fair, IMO). Not sure if that's because I'm at a residence or not.

hotnana · Joined: 02 Feb 2008 Posts: 875

I receive 15-20 payments a month through GCO and have never had a problem thus far, been using them for 6 or so months. I do ship within 24 hours usually sooner, and provide the shipping info from USPS or FedEx. Also I don't believe FedEx charges for residential pick up. I always drop mine off, but for Diesel that could be another option.

May L Bocks · Joined: 18 Apr 2009 Posts: 25

My Two problems with GCO has been the very poor response time
by customer service (when they reply at all, very reminiscent of Amazon.com~) and the poor turn-around of payment into our accounts.
The claim of 2 days or three days payment turn-around is false.
The payment dates have been magically changing to the following day,
and payouts never land on a holiday or weekend.

We love Google, but the service they provide is not what we're looking
for, so our terms of service will not be renewed. As much as I hate
to lose the convenience they provide, it's become like Junk food convenience. It does not satisfy what we need.

Paypal covers the U.S. sales well enough, but daily we will have a customer with a bad taste in their mouth over ebay/paypal and wish to
use another credit card or payment method. WE do NOT like to lose business, and are researching some alternatives (PPPay , DR, notably).

The international sales are a huge concern, and google did very well with
that end. But the two flaws in service mentioned keep us from re-implementing the service to cover international sales.

Any good experiences / bad experiences with PPPay or DR?(digital river)