Group buys from Geekhack?

[mkawa]

kickstarter has something like 10% overhead.

[inlikeflynn]

Why not just start using:
https://www.usps.com/shop/money-orders.htm
at least for the US people its only a $1.15 fee which is less than PP once you get over $40 anyways.
Its more secure than a personal check and even if USPS manages to lose it, you can cancel and re-issue it.
The recipient can cash it at their normal banks. Really the own negative I can see to it is that the sender has to actually go to a USPS location to get one.

Just a thought, but seems to avoid all the PP issues without introducing any new ones at least for US-to-US or US-to-EU transfers. It doesn't solve the EU-to-US PP problem though

[emptythecache]

they are slow. paypal payment is nearly instant, mailing a money order takes several days.

[inlikeflynn]

they are slow. paypal payment is nearly instant, mailing a money order takes several days.

yes that is true, but that appears to be necessary to avoid PP account closure for whatever reason they come up with. Most GB payment collection phases seem to take 1-2 weeks or more, so 2-3days for mailing probably doesn't mater to much in the end

unless everyone switches to another online option, like dwolla for example, we are stuck. Now dwolla is even cheaper than PP or the money order option, but you have to tie you bank account to another online service and its US only as well. And they also have closed/locked accounts for somewhat shady reasons similar to PP

We could always just use bitcoin

[emptythecache]

has anyone else looked into popmoney? it seems legitimate, like it's directly affiliated with a bunch of banks.

[Vax]

kickstarter has something like 10% overhead.

Still better than having groub buy organizers paypal locked down for months.

What fees does Kickstarter charge? Kickstarter collects a 5% fee from the project’s funding total if and only if a project is successfully funded. Amazon (our payments processor) also charges credit card processing fees that generally work out to 3-5%.

[litster]

for those wondering what the hell is going on with ChangDrew's group buy, email him at zhangaz@gmail.com. If you can, file a dispute on Paypal.

[AKIMbO]

for those wondering what the hell is going on with ChangDrew's group buy, email him at zhangaz@gmail.com. If you can, file a dispute on Paypal.

Care to elaborate? Is he screwing people?

[litster]

dude, read the thread.

[hashbaz]

Kickstarter has come up before. People have said that group buys don't really fit its model and they might not like our using their service to run them. But I don't think anyone has looked into it in detail.

Personally, I'm tired of living in terror of having my account frozen. I'm game for trying money orders.

[hashbaz]

I just sent this to Kickstarter:

I'm part of a computer keyboard enthusiast community called geekhack. One of the things this community does is pool our money to make large orders of custom-made keys for our keyboards that would otherwise be unaffordable to us as individuals.

I'm wondering if we could potentially start running these group buys on Kickstarter. I don't know a lot about your service, but my understanding is that what we do doesn't quite fit your typical fundraising model since we don't have a definite target amount to collect.

The way things typically go is this:

1) Decide on a design for the keys and advertise to the community
2) Collect orders from people in the community
3) Collect money from everyone who ordered
4) Place the group order with the key manufacturer
5) Distribute the keys

So instead of trying to fund a pre-determinded number of keys, people buy into the project and the amount of money we collect varies with the orders. Is this kind of project compatible with Kickstarter?

[The_Beast]

Money orders are nice for the sellers since the funds can't be frozen. However for the buyer, it's harder to dispute claims.


Honestly, if I had to buy a money order for everything I bought online, I wouldn't be buying as much online. It's a hassle compared to PP. I signed up for PP after joining GH, it's SO nice to make and receive payments. However I can understand how frustrating it would be to have your funds frozen, especially if you're counting on it to pay for shipping

[hashbaz]

I just sent this to Kickstarter...

So I received an automated response within minutes of submitting my question that in essence says "read our project guidelines kthx".

The more I think about it, though, the more I think Kickstarter isn't really compatible with group buys. We are not working toward a pre-determined target amount, and the amount each person puts in is not voluntary but fixed by the organizer and fluctuates depending on the number of orders. I don't think Kickstarter has a way to limit the project by number of contributors, or to adjust how much each person contributes after the fact.

[hashbaz]

Response from an actual human at Kickstarter:

Thank you for taking the time to share your idea. Unfortunately, this isn't the right fit for Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a funding platform dedicated to focused and finite creative projects that offer tangible, personal rewards to an engaged community. Projects that do not meet this focus nor fit into one of our categories fall outside of our scope. If you'd like to learn more about our focus, you can visit our Project Guidelines here: http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines.

We wish you the best of luck as you continue to pursue your endeavor.

[Ragnorock]

Man I'm sorry you guys have so many problems with Paypal. They've basically been sucking my dick for the last 9 months rather than stomping on it. They upgraded me to a dedicated team with my own phone number to call and I had near $30k run through my account last month between the last round of group buys I ran with absolutely 0 issues. No holds, no verification, nothing, especially none of what Tsangan is going through right now. They aren't holding my money pending shipment notifications. At most they told me I'd have to round up 5 of you guys to call them and verify the transactions and the purpose behind them.

I guess spending a half hour letting them know in advance I was expecting an increase in volume over the next month with my estimates of how much it would be and having them notate the account was really worthwhile. I'm more worried about the IRS coming crying for the full value of the money going through my account, not the amount I take home.

[hashbaz]

Rag, that's actually ... amazing. So they are cool with the "buy in beforehand" model, as opposed to "buy and resell"?

[Acanthophis]

Seems they like to know it beforehand...

[Vax]

Rag, that sounds good! Now organize a Tri-Color B-Series QWERKeys DT keycap groupbuy

[Ragnorock]

Rag, that's actually ... amazing. So they are cool with the "buy in beforehand" model, as opposed to "buy and resell"?

Seems that way, or at least I was able to put it in a way that Paypal has managed to understand. At this point all I do is tell them to look at my history of over 1000 transactions without a single dispute. But yeah I have 0 issues with collecting the money in advance, sending the order in, and then withdrawing all the rest of the money to my bank account to pay for shipping.

@ Vex, I'm not sure if that is what you're talking about, but I am going to do a GB for the keys in this thread:

http://deskthority.net/deskthority-rela ... t3233.html

[shawn o]

Paypal is a great company and easy to deal with....if you call them on the phone and speak with them and work together through issues.

[i3oilermaker]

Rag, that's actually ... amazing. So they are cool with the "buy in beforehand" model, as opposed to "buy and resell"?

Seems that way, or at least I was able to put it in a way that Paypal has managed to understand. At this point all I do is tell them to look at my history of over 1000 transactions without a single dispute. But yeah I have 0 issues with collecting the money in advance, sending the order in, and then withdrawing all the rest of the money to my bank account to pay for shipping.

@ Vex, I'm not sure if that is what you're talking about, but I am going to do a GB for the keys in this thread:

http://deskthority.net/deskthority-rela ... t3233.html

I'm launching a nice little GB when GH comes back up.

[rainb1ood]

I just sent this to Kickstarter...

So I received an automated response within minutes of submitting my question that in essence says "read our project guidelines kthx".

The more I think about it, though, the more I think Kickstarter isn't really compatible with group buys. We are not working toward a pre-determined target amount, and the amount each person puts in is not voluntary but fixed by the organizer and fluctuates depending on the number of orders. I don't think Kickstarter has a way to limit the project by number of contributors, or to adjust how much each person contributes after the fact.

What about http://massdrop.com/ ? Is this something we could use to avoid issues with paypal?

[Ragnorock]

Rag, that's actually ... amazing. So they are cool with the "buy in beforehand" model, as opposed to "buy and resell"?

Seems that way, or at least I was able to put it in a way that Paypal has managed to understand. At this point all I do is tell them to look at my history of over 1000 transactions without a single dispute. But yeah I have 0 issues with collecting the money in advance, sending the order in, and then withdrawing all the rest of the money to my bank account to pay for shipping.

@ Vex, I'm not sure if that is what you're talking about, but I am going to do a GB for the keys in this thread:

http://deskthority.net/deskthority-rela ... t3233.html

I'm launching a nice little GB when GH comes back up.

What do you mean? A DT key group buy? Or just another group buy on GH... if so, what?