Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 8792
Location: Ultrabubble
Posted: 07/15/13 17:48
So, as some of you know, I've done some work on a paypal module for jr5. (actually a set of modules)
Today I received an invite for the Stripe UK beta. Stripe wasn't very interesting before today's invite, but it did cause me to spend several hours looking at the documentation for the Stripe API.
After reading, I'm entirely sure that I can provide an almost equal (not better) alternative to foxycart using stripe than I possibly could using paypal.
I have previously asked if it was the monthly subscription thing which the 3 or 4 people who haven't liked the foxycart solution particularly objected to, but haven't really received much response, not enough to act on.
I have come to see the paypal/jr5 thing as an emotional rather than logical/real issue - check out iz's posts on the topic if you need clarification on that. So it's difficult to know what people really want, and more importantly, why they want it, and if it is valid.
So, at last, here is the question: If I switched current development to the Stripe API rather than the PayPal API, would people gain or lose interest in this particular possible alternative to FoxyCart? Stripe pricing is the same as Paypal, 2.9% +30 cents, no monthly fees, and I think works out cheaper when other charges are taken into account. It also has a future imo.
Any thoughts about this would be great. I'm sure to get good feedback from existing clients, but I'd like to know what potential future clients thinks as well. So please let me know here (preferably) or by email.
_________________ Kulshi Mezian!
"Stranger from another planet, welcome to our hole. Just strap on your guitar and we'll play some rock and roll"
Steve I am really looking for a way to take cash and I am really disappointed that it is not offered in JR5
I am always open to new ideas. I am willing to give foxycart a chance and see how we do but if I find I am spending too much on it after a few months I will be looking for an alternative. In all honesty though, PayPal has the "street cred" and I wonder if people might be turned off by not recognizing Stripe. People are always leery of paying online for products anyway.
Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 8792
Location: Ultrabubble
Posted: 07/15/13 18:45
IMO, Paypal lost all of it's street cred a while back, and cannot possibly regain it, ever. Of course, that's a personal opinion, and unrelated to it's api, docs and terms, so doesn't really impact on developing a payment module.
To some degree, stripe could be seen as closer to taking cash. Much less of a brand in the way, although that can always change in the future. Brands have a tendency to do that.
Are you saying that you are going with jr5 foxycart, and would be a potential customer (for an alternative module) if that doesn't work out for you further down the line? I'm just trying to gauge what the potential sales of such a module would be (probably 3 or 4 is my best guess so far).
Thanks for posting Dazed, I really value your comments on this whole topic.
_________________ Kulshi Mezian!
"Stranger from another planet, welcome to our hole. Just strap on your guitar and we'll play some rock and roll"
my guess at the end customer's thinking:
* Can stripe accept the cash that is in my paypal account? I've collected this by doing stuff online and view it as disposable income that I can transfer for other stuff.
my guess at the site owner thinking:
* Is the module a one time thing, because I don't expect to make many sales really, I just want to be able to offer 'sales' as an option "Just in case someone wants to buy something" so paying a monthly fee, I will probably be loosing money.
That would be my guess at your target module buyers, and module buyers target audiences thought process. (could be completely wrong.)
Good on you for thinking about building this Steve.
Hey Steve - I think they lost credibility with the IT community and many consumers however it is still number one so some people like it! As I mentioned to you though, I have customers who will not use it. I had someone contact me yesterday just wanting to use a credit card without paypal.
As for taking cash, I was hoping you could setup kiosks around the country.
Yes I will use FoxyCart for awhile on a month to month basis to test the waters. I think the new features and layout will be a huge plus for us and bring a lot of new traffic in. I am hoping that amounts to additional subscribers to keep the site afloat.
I think the biggest target for you is new and small sites though that are getting started. If I was just starting I would probably put up a PayPal donate button just because a small site is pretty cheap. Paying FoxyCart a monthly fee just to have it in case someone wanted to signup would be pointless in my opinion. As an established site though, it makes much more sense to offer members more choices for payment.
Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Posts: 1002
Location: Hollywood California
Posted: 07/15/13 20:26
The best thing for JR is develop JR own modules with flat fees , I find Buyers/ members don't like paid subscription unless you have something new to offer each month , people who are just starting up a JR site wont like any paid subscription modules like foxycart , paid subscription modules is the perfect way to kill JR or can be hijacked by foxycart if they get more greedy and raise there fees then we all will be Beeeeep ,Beeeeep ,Beeeeep
Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 8792
Location: Ultrabubble
Posted: 07/16/13 04:11
Michael:
my guess at the end customer's thinking:
* Can stripe accept the cash that is in my paypal account? I've collected this by doing stuff online and view it as disposable income that I can transfer for other stuff.
Not with Stripe, the merchant would need to transfer their paypal balance to their bank account. Stripe works with bank accounts and credit cards, although you can build up a stripe balance. As I understand it, the default setting for a stripe account is that money taken is transferred out of stripe at the end of each working day and appears in the owner's bank account 7 days later. However, if you change the default (which you need to do in order to transfer funds into multiple bank accounts) you can set up payment into bank accounts on a weekly (or less frequent) basis. There are no fees for transfers to your own bank account, 25 cents to transfer to a 3rd party (US only at the moment).
A bit more info about Stripe:
Refunds are free and your fees are refunded as well.
Chargebacks cost £15, but fraud prevention seems pretty good and you are notified of any known risks before you actually make the initial charge.
It seems very secure - although the customer can enter their card details on your checkout, the card details never hit your server and are tokenized before sending to the api, so all security is handled at stripe's end.
There is a downside: It isn't global yet. You can take payments from 29 countries, although you need a US, Canadian or UK bank account to withdraw funds. (UK is in beta)
There are also limitations with what can be done as far as micropayments are concerned, although multiple small transactions can be bundled into one larger one. The docs do address this and suggest that micropayments will be added in the future.
_________________ Kulshi Mezian!
"Stranger from another planet, welcome to our hole. Just strap on your guitar and we'll play some rock and roll"
Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Posts: 1002
Location: Hollywood California
Posted: 07/16/13 05:15
I would rather pay pal, I never had a problem with pay pal, with a pay pal card I get my money instantly and don't have to wait on the brain dead banks for 7 days while they use your money for 7 days then charge you .
What I don't understand is
1. I never herd of foxy cart or the others you are talking about.
2. Jamroom had paypal from day 1 and no one complained .
3. What is the reason for not having a pay pal option since you already have the codes and all JR users already have pay pal ???
4.pay pal is a international Payments system, PayPal is Worldwide
https://www.paypal.com/worldwide/‎
Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 8792
Location: Ultrabubble
Posted: 07/16/13 05:52
Paypal is 3 - 5 banking days. All inter-bank transfers have this delay because of the clearing system that banks are required to use.
You have heard of foxycart, you have been talking about it on these forums for months now. All of your other points have already been answered (repeatedly) elsewhere.
I get that you don't understand, but as things have already been explained to you there is little that anyone can do about that.
Don't start ranting to muddy up the thread or your post will be deleted.
_________________ Kulshi Mezian!
"Stranger from another planet, welcome to our hole. Just strap on your guitar and we'll play some rock and roll"
My only beef about Stripe is that you must withdraw funds into your bank account, and if you have a Business Bank Account, then you are subject to hefty bank charges for the deposit.
I do think that Paypal is the most widely known of all the payment gateways, and end-customers (at least here in the UK) feel comfortable using Paypal to pay for goods and services.
I can't see Stripe or Foxycart being of much use for some site owners who have previously been used to the flexibility provided in JR4. e.g. Merchandise can be sold from any profile and the profile owner is in charge of where the payment goes to. What I mean is, CD(a) payments go directly to e.g. record company(a), CD(b) payments go directly to record company(b) etc. The payments go directly to the entity that is sending out the merchandise without any involvement from the site owner or their gateway account. Personally, I don't like the idea of collecting money for someone's CD and them not posting the CD, or taking far too long to post it. Either way in the case of problems like this, it would be the site owners who have the headache.
That being said, I'm sure many site owners will benefit by having a choice of payment gateways in JR5. No doubt Foxycart will be the obvious choice for some while Stripe can be suitable for others. For me, I'll just stick with Paypal and JR4 for now as it works well with my setup.
The great thing about JR5 is its flexibility, so when the time is right for me to change to JR5 I can at least make my own module for payments in just the way I want them to be, without changing the way my business is conducted.
Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 8792
Location: Ultrabubble
Posted: 07/16/13 10:26
Stripe can work really well for dividing payments between your site and its multiple profile merchants. Your site fees are deducted and their proportion of the cart goes to their stripe account. So you do not collect the fees for someone elses CD. So the site store would work in the same way as it does in jr4, except you can have multiple merchants items in a single cart. It is a lot more flexible than paypal in jr4 - by a very, very long way.
Thanks for the feedback Mick.
_________________ Kulshi Mezian!
"Stranger from another planet, welcome to our hole. Just strap on your guitar and we'll play some rock and roll"
You know looking at that link Michael the one thing I saw that was missing was PayPal Micro Payments. Since the first 100 transactions are included that may be a moot point but may matter to some.
I'm sorry for the lengthy thread & excuse me if I babble a bit (Steve) But in my humbled opinion, I don't mind supporting high potential projects such as JR & neither don't I mind supporting third party developers such as yourself. <opinion>But when you create a great system & you suddenly take a turn that force your supporters to take something new, stick with the old or get left behind when user support end; you put the entire project in a position that "could" be hard to recover from (in my own opinion).</opinion>
Now as for the suggestion by: Micheal, which led to your warm invitation (SteveX), I would like to give my two cents on a potential JR5 payments module that could "possibly" make everyone happy.. first, let's start with facts.
Fact: There are some JR sites that have enough members that generate enough revenue to cover the cost of foxycart
Fact: There are some JR sites that don't have enough members to generate enough revenue to pay for foxycart
Fact: Some JR site owners do not even accept payments & just choose to run a ad driven system only
Fact: Some JR site site owners like PayPal, some like stripe, some like foxycart & others like some unamed api.
Fact: People like options.
Solution: Why not just create a super payment module that allow site owners & or end users to pick what solution they want to use to checkout with? I mean, there's enough developers & there's enough code laying around; so why not? Why count out a solution just because the site owner/developer don't use it? Or why rule out a solution just because of the site owner or developers perception of credibility or profitability when it's all about the end users confidence in your service??
Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with profiting. Regardless of how you do it.. So I say this: let's not be forceful, lets not be one sided & please! let's not base payment modules on demand, profitability, credibility NOR "affiliates". Lets remain open, lets give options & watch how happy it makes everyone.
_________________ A possibility is simply a false perception of something u want. But belief is everything. So believe it, know it & you WILL soon own it
*disclaimer: a possibility is something that could happen vs. something thats destined to happen.
Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Posts: 8792
Location: Ultrabubble
Posted: 07/20/13 03:42
Thanks for the feedback RickStarr. I can understand what you are saying, and exactly where you are coming from when saying it.
But there is something you are missing: The FoxyCart modules are the "super payment module"s that you suggest as a solution. It deals with more payment providers than any cms could build in itself (even ones with millions of users like joomla), so it does provide many options for a wider variety of business models. So far it seems to be very popular with the majority - even without allowing for the multiple forum accounts factor, only a few people have expressed any dissatisfaction with it, and most of them have become more comfortable with it once they have looked into what it is and what it will do for them.
There are not enough Jamroom developers, and not enough customers, not by a long way. Hopefully the new payment options will bring more new people on board, at least enough for Jamroom to survive, maybe enough to become viable/profitable. Sure some customers will be lost as jr5 will not be suitable for them, but that's no bad thing - there are a handful of jr customers that any cms would prefer to be without.
So, back to the original point of this thread. If I were to develop an alternative payment module for the people who do not want to use foxycart, would you prefer it to be a less capable module using paypal, or a more capable module using stripe?
_________________ Kulshi Mezian!
"Stranger from another planet, welcome to our hole. Just strap on your guitar and we'll play some rock and roll"
