Power Sellers Unite

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 17240 Location: Texas

Accept payments online with free merchant accounts
Dwolla allows merchants to get paid online without the hefty recurring costs associated with other networks. Accept payments with our regular merchant account and pay no special account fees.

Cut plastic fees out of your business. Accept payments for just 25 cents a transaction.
With Dwolla’s merchant integration customers can use Dwolla at participating merchants and because Dwolla cuts away from any of those nasty plastic transaction fees, Dwolla can save merchants tons of money! See all of our fees here.

Integrate with your existing shopping cart solution
With Dwolla’s shopping cart integration, access Dwolla’s powerful payment platform directly from your web site without making a lot of changes. Merchant shopping carts can integrate with Dwolla’s API which is publicly available here.

Sync & enjoy automatic deposits to your bank account
We are nothing like those other services that make it as hard as possible to get your money. You can easily enable automatic withdrawal and all money sent to your Dwolla account will automatically sweep to your bank account.

Accept payments at your physical store front
Whether you are operating a virtual store or a physical store you can use Dwolla to benefit your company. Using our unique POS integration Dwolla is easy to accept everywhere!

Pay other businesses from your mobile device
Use our iPhone or Android applications to quickly pay vendors while on the go. Easily send outgoing payments without ever picking up your check book.

Send money for less than mailing a check
The days of mailing checks are coming to an end thanks to Dwolla. No longer will merchants need to write, copy, scan, and buy a stamp to pay one another. Simply send them a Dwolla payment. It’s faster, cheaper, and more convenient than a check!

more.. link to news article

leeflang_archives · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 30

I'm also impressed by Dwolla's service and site and see it as a great opportunity for sellers.

However, I see two problems with their service which need to be addressed, otherwise the whole product will fail.

First of all, their strategy to achieve adoption through retailers is doomed to fail, as retailers are not the ones that primarily need to adopt Dwolla. It is buyers they need to get on board. Sellers will accept any payment method once buyers are showing them when entering their site or their doors.

Currently the process is that buyers (which Dwolla advertises as a big benefit) can sign up quickly via Dwolla's site, but 'signing up' does not truly mean that one can pay right away for a purchase.

One has to wait days for the test transaction to validate one's bank account at Dwolla.

That won't work to achieve massive adoption. There are too many alternatives out there which are already active for sellers and allow immediate conclusion of a transaction, like the buyer's favorites Amazon Payments, Google Checkout and Paypal accounts.

Most sellers will therefore, because of its true slowness of many days, abandon a purchase transaction showing Dwolla as payment option or will select and alternate payment method, because then they want to do an immediate payment, not wait days.

How can Dwolla fix this problem? I suggested to them, to follow the 'European' combined 'bank-to-bank transfer facility' and 'debit card' models. Over there these two facilities get issue for free or a small fee by default by all banks there. Almost all Europeans have adopted those methods and few use credit cards online or in stores. They are already Dwollaized there.

The strategy to achieve this same in the USA that Dwolla needs to follow is to get the Dwolla service adopted by banks so they offer this for free to their customers. Big banks will resist initially as they have vested interests in the credit card revenues, but smaller banks are not that committed, so they should be addressed first.

Second bottleneck to resolve with Dwolla, again following the comparable bank-to-bank transfer and debit card adoption success in Europe, is the 'guarantee issue'.

Dwolla should offer a 100% ironclad protection and refund guarantee for unauthorized charges, better than card companies offer, so they can compete with them. It should have a faster and more transparent review procedure, and maybe it could be combined with an insurance type of set up.

This is necessary, because currently the US laws do not protect bank-to-bank or debit card transactions at all. In Europe these transactions are legally protected and banks have excellent procedures in place to provide quick fixes in case of unauthorized charges.

Dwolla needs to achieve this same level of consumer confidence before it can expect consumers to switch to their product.

Until these two issues are addressed by Dwolla, their service will remain a marginal business, never competing with the big boys, and it will therefore not be of interest to sellers, since they would waste their valuable time investing into something that will not amount to much just for getting a few transactions a year with lower transaction costs.

So the challenge is to you, Dwolla!

xbaystores · Joined: 30 Oct 2006 Posts: 562

This 28-Year-Old's Startup Is Moving $350 Million And Wants To Completely Kill Credit Cards

Quote: › docWrite("quote")Dwolla was founded by 28-year-old Ben Milne; it's an innovative online payment system that sidesteps credit cards completely.

Milne has no finance background, yet his little operation is moving between $30 and $50 million per month; it's on track to move more than $350 million in the next year.

Unlike PayPal, Dwolla doesn't take a percentage of the transaction. It only asks for $0.25 whether it's moving $1 or $1,000.

Ultimately we're trying to build the next Visa, not the next PayPal. We're building a human network based on how we think the future of payments will work. The current model needs to be blown up.

Dwolla started out of my old company. I owned a speaker manufacturing company and we sold everything directly through a website. I got really obsessed with interchange fees and how not to pay them. Every time a merchant gets paid with a credit card they have to give up a percentage. In my case, I was losing $55,000 a year to credit card companies. I felt like they were stealing from me -- I was getting paid and somebody was taking money out of my pocket.

Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-11/tech/30381380_1_credit-card-interchange-fees-paypal#ixzz1dmbyHbF6

boogiebobsrecords

This place http://help.dwolla.com/customer/portal/articles/87192-dwolla-for-merchants has come up with an amazing idea. If you use Paypal or any form of credit or debit card, you need to check this out !!!

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 17240 Location: Texas

"Online Payments Service Dwolla Launches Instant Cash Feature"

Online payments service Dwolla released a new feature called Instant that gives users access to cash instantly, avoiding the two- to three-day waiting period for transfer of funds. Previously, users could only initiate an immediate transfer of funds if they had money in their Dwolla account. If a user wanted to access money from a different source, like a linked credit union or bank checking account, the transfer would take up to three days.

Dwolla spokesperson Jordan Lampe said Instant allows online users to get the things they want without having to have a credit card. "It's like paying a one-time ATM fee to have access to cash on your phone whenever you need it," he said. "This is a big step for us in the creation of a new, bigger, and better kind of payment network."

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y11/m12/i16/s04

luckyalive · Joined: 27 Apr 2008 Posts: 589

"Dwolla should offer a 100% ironclad protection and refund guarantee for unauthorized charges, better than card companies offer, so they can compete with them. It should have a faster and more transparent review procedure, and maybe it could be combined with an insurance type of set up.

This is necessary, because currently the US laws do not protect bank-to-bank or debit card transactions at all. In Europe these transactions are legally protected and banks have excellent procedures in place to provide quick fixes in case of unauthorized charges.

Dwolla needs to achieve this same level of consumer confidence before it can expect consumers to switch to their product. "

As a seller if there is any chance a buyer can file a chargeback claim, or any similar claim, I will not use the service at all.

I can use ING Direct's Person2Person bank transfer for free and its not reversible! ING is the company that provides PayPal with its overseas money transfers.

I fail to see why I would pay for this service? I am under the opinion that a lot of these services are started by geeks sitting behind their desks instead of anyone that knows about real world shipping and selling.

luckyalive · Joined: 27 Apr 2008 Posts: 589

Within minutes I found this post on their site:

"Why was my transaction reversed?
Last Updated: Jan 05, 2012 11:38AM CST
If a transaction on your account has been reversed it is possible one of the following scenarios has occurred:

1. The sending party has filed a dispute with their bank, which has resulted in an automatic reversal of a transaction.
2. There has been a dispute filed by the other party, which has been closed.
3. The financial institution funding or receiving the transaction has failed to complete the transfer.
4. The account was suspended which caused pending transactions on the account, were failed.

If you require assistance with this issue, please contact us at: 1-888-289-8744 between the hours of 8AM CST and 6PM CST or via an email at: support@dwolla.com and a support service agent would be more than happy to assist you. "

Seriously why would I pay for a service when the other party can rip me off at time?

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 17240 Location: Texas

"Hitting the big time: Dwolla gets sued"

Des Moines, Iowa-based mobile payment start-up Dwolla has hit the big time now: The company just got its first high profile law suit.

In a suit filed in Northern California District court, TradeHill, a Bitcoin exchange, is blaming actions taken by Dwolla for causing the company to fold. According to the suit, TradeHill alleges that Dwolla violated its "no chargeback" policy and fraudulently reversed a number of TradeHill transactions amounting to nearly $100,000, forcing the company to shut down.

"(W)e at TradeHill believe we unjustifiably lost tens of thousands of dollars when we used Dwolla as our money transmitter during June and July 2011," said Jered Kenna, TradeHill's CEO, in a statement. According to Kenna, the company has spent months attempting to contact Dwolla but has met with "silence or obfuscations."

http://www.mobilepaymentstoday.com/article/191415/Hitting-the-big-time-Dwolla-gets-sued

leeflang_archives · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 30

I had warned Dwolla beginning of 2011 about their lack of chargeback protection and their lack of buyer protection against unauthorized charges.

Dwolla hides behind the US legal system (which is very faulty in protecting consumers as well as sellers).

Dwolla is trying to introduce a lookalike 'instant peer to peer bank transfer system' like in Europe (which is laudable) without offering the same protections as over there. That won't work.

Instead, to fill the gap our legal system does not cover, it ought to have an opt-in insurance for sellers that protects them financially against chargebacks.

Credit card companies often offer this kind of 'insurance' via a higher fee, so how come not Dwolla?

As long as this chargeback issue is not covered I won't offer Dwolla to my customers and I will advise any other seller to stay away from it.

Great idea, shaky execution. Hopefully some day they will be more solid.