Billpoint vs PayPal (A Seller's POV)
Written: Jun 19 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Ease of use
Cons: Cost to sellers
|
|
|
| mustpar65's Full Review: BillPoint |
Billpoint works fine - but that's not the point.
As far as ease of use I would have to say that Billpoint, on eBay at least , is easier to use for sellers and buyers. However, it costs the seller money. There you have it in a nutshell. I have made payments thru Billpoint and received payments as well. The systems works fine, it's easy to use, it's fast and reliable.
Overview of the Service
Billpoint is eBay's official Credit Card Payment Processing service for their auctions. Winning bidders simply click on a link in the auction ad that they won to pay for their item. A seller can also initiate the transaction by clicking on a "sellers" link. The process is very simple and can be completed in less than a minute. Sellers and Buyers must be registered in order to use the service.
Fee Structure (From their FAQ)
>>Billpoint has different pricing packages which vary based upon a seller's payment needs, sales volume, history on eBay, and eBay account status. In general, Billpoint charges a flat fee ranging from $0.35 to $0.39 for credit card payments of $10.00 and less. For credit card payments over $10.00, Billpoint fees range from $0.35 + 3.5% per transaction to $0.39 + 3.9% per transaction based on the total amount of the payment.<<
Notice the deliberate obfuscation of having variable fees for under $10 purchases and a compound formula for calculating purchases over $10. Why is this fee structure so complex? The answer is that they want to obscure from the seller the cost of using Billpoint.
As a seller you will have to wait 3 days before eBay deposits the buyer's money into your bank account. This is annoying but in reality it is about the same with PayPal. PayPal only transfers money to a seller's bank account when the seller requests a transfer and it takes 3 to 5 days typically. So on average, PayPal probably benefits more from the "float" than Billpoint.
PayPal is Free and Therefore Better (duh)
If there were no PayPal and no PayPlace and no Payme.com then I would give Billpoint very high marks. But it costs the seller money! There is no getting around that simple fact. Any other considerations are secondary. It's like saying "Other than that Mrs. Clinton, how was Monica's performance as an intern?". The cost to use Billpoint is relatively low but *any* cost is more than PayPal's free service.
On the surface it would seems that for buyers it makes little difference whether the seller uses Billpoint or PayPal. The buyer pays no fee either way. But if sellers must factor in the cost of Billpoint into their opening bids then obviously the opening bid prices will go up. Either the buyer pays more or the seller makes less profit and eBay is the only beneficiary.
Should Sellers Offer Billpoint Payment Processing?
You may be surprised to hear this after what I said above but conditionally the answer is yes. But only to take advantage of the free listing days if there are any more. If you list enough auctions such that you save $50 to $100 in listing fees. The percentage of buyers that use Billpoint is still very small so if you can list a ton of auctions you can beat the system. But if they stop having Billpoint Free Listing Days, it's time to leave. Stay registered, just in case they have another Free Listing Day, but don't offer Billpoint in your auctions.
A Bargain at Half the Price (some good points)
Billpoint does provide a somewhat easier to use service than PayPal due to the integration with eBay. It is far cheaper to use than CCNOW which costs sellers a whopping 9 percent. So I would not say that Billpoint is completely worthless. Another small side benefit is that eBay newbies may be more inclined to trust a seller who accepts eBay's official credit card service.
If Billpoint charged a flat 15 cents for sales under $10 and say a flat 25 cents for sales over $10 then I'd say it would be worth the money. That may not sound like much but 25 cents times 2 or 3 million auctions a week is a very nice chunk of change. Not to mention the money eBay makes on the "float". The "float" is interest on the money earned while it sits in eBay's bank account before being transferred to the seller.
Summary
Billpoint is slightly easier to use for eBay auctions making it slightly more valuable than PayPal's service. But only on eBay. However the fees are more than twice as high as they should be. The boom economy of the 90s seems to be waning and at the same time competition between sellers is fierce. There are more sellers than ever before. Items that once drew multiple bids now often sell after receiving only a single bid at the minimum price. That last thing sellers need now is additional overhead.
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
mustpar65
|
|
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 2 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.