Power Sellers Unite

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

When you think about ecommerce payments, you might think about entities like shopping carts and services like Google Checkout or PayPal. These kinds of features work when you operate an online store. But for lots of people, they just aren't appropriate. If you need to send an invoice to get paid and you don't have an online store, you can turn to a free payment service aggregator based in Boulder, Colorado called InspirePay that was launched December 20.

According to founder and CEO Mark Fischer, InspirePay's first and free payment product enables an individual or business to create a "Pay Me" page that aggregates all of the payment services they already use.

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y11/m12/i28/s03

luckyalive · Joined: 27 Apr 2008 Posts: 590

If their home page interface indicates their skill at money transfers I'll stay away. Stupid! They really think I have the time to waste with what they think looks cool as opposed to whats functional.

elpereles · Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 1478 Location: Puerto Rico

Looks like another blabla WePay style, but in "Beta" mode.

Wait a second! The concept is confuse. It suppose that you will receive payments from PayPal, Google, etc. Is going to be double fee here?

inspire · Joined: 13 Jan 2012 Posts: 2

InspirePay is different than other systems like WePay in that we are an aggregator. We make it easy for people to request money across multiple payment methods. For example... let's say I wanted to collect $25.00 for something... here's my payment link: https://inspirepay.com/mark/$25.00 . Let's say I wanted $500 : https://inspirepay.com/mark/$500 . If I was just asking for a donation, I could just send you to the page w/o specifying a dollar amount. https://inspirepay.com/mark/ .

The system is unique in a few ways.

1) It allows for you to request money from anywhere. It's as easy as texting, emailing, tweeting, or posting the link to your page. Even easier to make Quickbooks / Peachtree / etc. build the links for you with every invoice.

2) The person paying has the ability to change how much they are paying. This helps with conversion in scenarios such as high legal or medical bills where the payor may not have all of the money, but has some of the money and wants to make a payment. Few systems give the payor this flexibility.

3) There are zero distractions for those paying. Land on the page, fill out the form, hit submit... done.

We are adding payment methods regularly, as well as working on the user experience and interface. This is not Beta software, it is a PCI certified enterprise level solution being built in conjunction with feedback from our users. We just launched December 22nd, and have been iterating regularly. I've been in e-commerce for 12 years, payments for 5, and have a passion for building exceptional systems.

@luckyalive , I'd love to see your Douchebag Donahoe signature as your inspirepay page logo. Very pro.

@elpereles , We don't charge anything for the pay pages you create in our system. We will be selling premium versions with detailed reporting and access to our API in due time, but the pay page will always be free... so their is no added cost above what you pay for your payment processors of choice. We're suggesting Stripe and Paypal at this time for people transacting under $2K / month. For people moving more than that, we would suggest swapping out Stripe for a merchant account. The system connects at this time to Authorize.net, Sage Payments US, and Inspire Commerce gateways for those with merchant accounts already.

@elgato , Thanks for starting the topic.

elpereles · Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 1478 Location: Puerto Rico

inspire, I understand that the service is different. The "blabla WePay style" it means that you service look nice, but there is not some big push or any seller supporting it or any interest to become a payment service in a one of the "Alternative to eBay".

Quote: › docWrite("quote")3. Fees.

For so long as InspirePay™ is a beta offering, we will not be charging you any fees for using the Service. We agree to notify you thirty (30) days prior to adjusting or modifying our fees.

Now about the fees. Please don't try to cover it we nice words. I read your "Terms of Service". You are in beta no fees for the moment. Now seriously the only good thing that I always liked about Bonanzle (Bonanza), they never hide that in Beta they are free, but fees will be added in the future. It is a near DeJa Vu like Addoway. :roll:

One question. Support for it. Is for USA (50 states and US Territories) and International users?

I seriously like to see new ideas in Payment Method, but I need realistic useful methods that everybody can use. And not more Google Checkout or WePay or whatever.

PD
About the comment of Donahoewhatever. It doesn't look so professional if you are really a representative from a company that will benefit from PayPal. :roll:

elpereles · Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 1478 Location: Puerto Rico

Quote: › docWrite("quote")2) The person paying has the ability to change how much they are paying. This helps with conversion in scenarios such as high legal or medical bills where the payor may not have all of the money, but has some of the money and wants to make a payment. Few systems give the payor this flexibility.

Yeah, I saw it in the Terms. One question. Is by default or optional? As a seller I will not like to sell something and get less money. For example I ask a total of $30 (item $20 and S&H $10) and payer only send $20 because he wants to send it. Does he can file a claim to get that item for that price?

As far I see. Your idea is nice for people that want to sell like Layaway or for buyers that want to send partial/mix payments like PayPal balance and credit card.

Also another questions. Do you understand that a group of people is trying to avoid or no longer make business with Paypal? Do you understand that Google Checkout/Wallet only works for US (50 states) and UK sellers to get money? What about Moneybookers, ProPay, Paymate, Amazon, and others payment methods?

PD
Just an observation. About the logo with a circle and a line. Is a half happy face? It wasn't a better choice available because it looks/feel like the Moneybookers logo taking -90 degrees and falling.

inspire · Joined: 13 Jan 2012 Posts: 2

Hopefully some of this helps:

elpereles wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")I read your "Terms of Service". You are in beta no fees for the moment.

I will adjust this with our attorney. There are no fees for the basic service that is up there now. We will ALWAYS have a free version, which will be seeing features added on a regular basis. There will also be a paid version. I have to assume before speaking with our attorney that this languaging is to protect us should some paid features be added to the free system for a limited time. As of now, 100% of what is online will always be free.

elpereles wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")I seriously like to see new ideas in Payment Method, but I need realistic useful methods that everybody can use. And not more Google Checkout or WePay or whatever.

Please post a list of international payment methods you would like to see included. We will put them on our roadmap.

elpereles wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")It doesn't look so professional if you are really a representative from a company that will benefit from PayPal.

We have no working relationship with PayPal other than the fact that it is and will be an option within our system. It's an option for the merchant to allow or not for their customers. If you don't like PayPal, than you don't need to offer it to your customers. Our mission is to make all of the options out there more accessible to the masses. Some people will never leave PayPal, but if they try out Dwolla, Stripe, Skrill, or anyone else because of our system, that is just good for everyone.

elpereles wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")
Quote: › docWrite("quote")2) The person paying has the ability to change how much they are paying. This helps with conversion in scenarios such as high legal or medical bills where the payor may not have all of the money, but has some of the money and wants to make a payment. Few systems give the payor this flexibility.

This is on as the only option at this time. If you look at the UI when landing on the page ( https://inspirepay.com/pay/mark/$25.00 , it doesn't notify people that they can change the value, but they can. This more accurately mimics checking and cash payments. Again, the system's prime target today is anyone out there currently involved in online invoicing such as attorneys, developers, etc. Just like you would count cash when paid for a product, if using our system for facilitating payments, you have to look to make sure the full amount was paid. We DO have an API in development to be launched sometime this spring that will allow for locked transaction amounts and integration into third party systems such as shopping carts, etc. That is probably when it makes sense to start looking at for auction site integration.

elpereles wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")
About the logo with a circle and a line....

Our original logo mark came out of a design exercise where the designer was playing with a new font. When he blew the font up, the dot on the i looked interesting in relation to the serif stroke of the top of the i. We pulled it out, played with it, and it looked almost like a smiling face. We played around for days with our logo, and in the end came back to the fun play of the dot with the serif. Some people see a smiling face... other's see a ball moving up. We like that is is whatever you make it out to be. We did receive a trademark on the mark itself, so clearly no one thought it looked like the Moneybookers logo at the USPTO.

arcanesanctuary · Joined: 26 Aug 2006 Posts: 535

I'd like to see Serve and Moneybookers added.

elpereles · Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 1478 Location: Puerto Rico

inspire, thanks for your time and the answers. Good luck in your business. Less see what happen in 2012.

leeflang_archives · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 30

Initially I thought that Inspirepay looked like a great idea, but it is really not ready for prime time.

It misleadingly advertises logos of payment services it doe snot support (like Google Wallet).

Inspirepay only supports Paypal and Dwolla righjt now. Too meager for most merchant merchants.

Dwolls is really not ready for prime time either so not an important addition and Paypal has a bad rap with customers.

When they truly add some players with better reputation like Amazon Payments and Google Wallet, I will reconsider them.

Those bring a significant customer base and have much better 'quality' customers, especially Amazon which also boasts greater numbers of buyers and with deeper pockets.

I'm also not sure though why we really need InspirePay.

One can so easily set one's web site up to access all these payment processors and display them together. Most shopping carts already offer that functionality.

leeflang_archives · Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 30

PS And billing from one's own site or via Quickbooks is no problem either. So I do not see much added value in InspirePay if any.

As to the stats, one can get those from so many sources 09and much more) I sometimes do not know what to choose.

As to allowing customers to change our bills, no way we would allow that and most sellers should not. It would add a major extra cost in non-automated communication issues. An unchangeable bill is what keeps 'billing costs' low. And if I want to bill a customer 'by pre-agreed installments', most services offer that option. I'll certainly no allow my customers to determine what the installments would be. That would be like letting the customer determine what cash flow I would have instead of setting that goal ourselves. InspirepPay suggesting this as being an option shows how little they understand how businesses work. Only non-profits accept random amounts and they do not 'bill'.

As to the uniqueness of 'requesting money from anywhere'. That can already be done through most browsers or an Ipad or similar device accessing our database9s) and application(s) remotely. The extra cost of that is trivial or none at all.

I also do not see any 'integrated one-kind fits all entire platform' protection for buyers against fraud. That means that buyers will have to still have to investigate each time which payment service will provide the least risk.

The real problem is that there is nothing major that is unique in this InspirePay service. It is merely an assembly of existing services and can easily be copied, as far as it is not already.

There is nothing that will make me move away from what I have. What would be the major increase in revenue or major decrease in costs with this service within this context of already available features which most sellers already have?

If I were InspirePay I would not count on 'medical bills' to become big users. I know how fickle health care providers are and how most really not deal with consumers anyway. They deal mainly with insurers and bill THEM! So this is not really for medical billing. As long as consumers are left out of the health care decisionmaking, that ain't going to happen.

The InspirePay product may be more something for shopping cart providers and marketplace, to be offered as a back end solution for them. A it is, is not a 'direct' merchant solution.

What we really need is what Dwolla is trying to achieve (but still has a long way to go), which is 'bank-to-bank processing. It will eventually put card processing in their place and reduce their market significance. In Europe it has already been done, which is why Paypal is a dwarf there. They love instant bank transfers there and so do vendors. We're antiquated over here.

elpereles · Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 1478 Location: Puerto Rico

Quote: › docWrite("quote")Initially I thought that Inspirepay looked like a great idea, but it is really not ready for prime time.

leeflang_archives, if you ask me. I'm not surprise the same happen to everybody with "Google Checkout". Nice ideas that are just living in "Beta Mode" forever. Anyway be ready to some point or another to see a direct answer to your comments from the "inspire guy" in the forum. :wink:

The topic was created in January. For example I said the "possible/future fees" about their service. Today I checked the site. It is still in the site. A non-sense idea to create a service that will technically in a future be another fee sucker. In a world were sellers are trying any alternatives to avoid fees.

My recommendation to any of these new "Alternatives" or "new" ideas for payment methods. The first thing is that you need to be part as a checkout option for the e-commerce sites.

As I said before good luck to Inspire in their business. Less see what happen in 2012.