Sellers Beware, Paypal

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Posted By: slacks

Can't comment on the post office dispute but...

Runscott: You seem like a logical guy, so I'm surprised we disagree on this point. That's okay, but my point is based on the following:

1) The existence of credit cards in this country drives a much higher degree of consumer spending than if everyone had to pay with demand deposits (cash, checks, etc.).

2) PayPal = consumer credit for most people.

3) Therefore, by not accepting PayPal (or credit cards on your own), you are limiting yourself to only those individuals who have the money on deposit AND are willing to go to the bank or post office and buy a money order (or write out a check and wait two weeks).

If you can accept the above as facts, than I think the logical conclusion is that you are excluding a certain number of buyers. Maybe our dispute is if these buyers are prospective buyers of your cards.

If I can hijack your example, what if bidder #1 is watching your auction for a few days, starts falling in love with your card, and keeps raising his bid amount to the point where he is at his bank account limit. But he gets paid just a week after your auction ends, and if you take PayPal, maybe he'll bid $10, $20, maybe $50 more because he can use his credit card and have the cash in time to pay his next monthly bill.

And please don't assume that all high bidders are calm, cool and collected and know exactly what their budgets allow. Quite often they're casual collectors who would like to complete a transaction with a "Buy it Now" and 5 minutes with PayPal and move to the other side of eBay to look for that Lone Ranger lunchbox they had when they were a kid.

If you agree that my point is valid for "straight sales," I would point out that eBay has a whole lot in common with the retail marketplace: product selection, marketing, competition, etc.

PayPal is just another way to offer your customers convenience by making it easier for people for buy your products.

The most wrong statement I’ve heard from many is "it hasn’t hurt me at all." Unless you have a clone in a parallel universe with PayPal, you can't know this! Just because you sell your cards at a price you feel is good doesn’t mean that you couldn’t have realized a higher net profit by offering a higher level of convenience.

Ten years ago grocery stores were one of last holdouts from credit cards, and they've all (at least where I live) realized that they need to let people pay with the means most convenient to them, or they'll lose business and have fewer sales. I see some of the same arguments from this group.

OT, are you a runner? I’m a former bike racer – been trying to make the move from cycling to running for about a year, but my knee is not cooperating.

Never mind the last part if the “run” in "runscott" means something else…