Hi all, I am looking for a payment processor that offers shopping cart + processing facilities. I can't use paypal but my buyers may use paypal or credit card for payments. After going through various options, I have shortlisted two - that are, Bluesnap (formerly Plimus) and Gumroad. I will appreciate if I can have some honest feedback about the two, including: 1. Can I create a single account with them and sell goods from multiple websites? 2. How do they handle refunds / claims? 3. How good, and punctual, they are in sending payments? 4. Both support paypal and credit cards? 5. Most importantly, which one is better than the other in terms of service and rates? Anything else that I need to know? Many Thanks.
I have a better opinion of Gumroad (depite the fact that they are newer than Plimus) simply because you can get them to respond to your issues and sort them out within a reasonable and rational time frame. I have had prior experience with Plimus as an affiliate (not seller) and sure enough, they do have a feature-rich payment collection and disbursal system that works well with Paypal, Credit Cards, etc. They also have a pretty good reporting system. However they have a few quirks like phone verification of buyers if they suspect something (which I find weird) and sometimes certain payments don't go through for reasons only Plimus can explain. Overall, they are fine as long as you're not in a niche that is prone to refunds or chargebacks. They are really very sensitive about this -- actually too sensitive -- and I've had an affiliate account with them shut down overnight without warning and a significant chunk of cash locked up inside. Not sure if they do this to vendors but the fact is, it wasn't a good experience at all... nor is mine an isolated incident (search around for other marketers' experince with Plimus). It took me over 3 months to get that money released.
Thanks for sharing the details. I have Googled about Plimus and found more negatives than positive reviews. Not sure if they have turned any better with the name change. Gumroad accept payment through credit cards and pay their sellers through paypal only. Something, that can not work for me as I can't receive payment through paypal.
To address a few of the troubles Natj had with BlueSnap could be relating to the specific account and product being sold. 3 months to have funds released is unusual and happens when refunds and chargebacks are received and money needs to be available to cover the costs for their customers when accounts are closed. Of course that is frustrating to any merchant needing the funds immediately and can cause for disgruntled feelings, this is why on the website it states the Reserve Holdbacks and reason since BlueSnap has to account for both Merchant and Customers welfare. I apologize that the experience was not satisfactory and with such reviews the company is improving each day with their client communication. Regarding our solution and your question flexibility is a big factor when choosing a platform that can combine all your needs while supporting your business model. The option of being able to make a charge such as a: periodic subscription, free trial, on-demand or per usage affects billing and sales. BlueSnap accepts credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, Wire transfer, MoneyBookers/Skrill to name a few in order for the Seller to reach the global market. The Buy Now/Checkout page in 23 languages and 64 currencies to reduce card abandonment increasing sales for the merchant Fraud protection and PCI DSS certification reassures the consumer their details are protected. In terms of rates, BlueSnap offers a very flexible fee structure taking into account the product price and overall account volume
Reference to your integration with Paypal, here is excerpt from an email I received from your support department few days back: Unfortunately, PayPal has decided to no longer partner with Plimus directly (you may create your own PayPal account and grant Plimus permission to manage it) with regards to the other options listed. You have the right to set the payment options at any time (they are not defaulted to all appear from the start). I wonder why the email mentioned Plimus where as now you're called BlueSnap. Confusing to me.
Sorry I apologize for the confusion. Our company name has changed to BlueSnap our product or platform is called Plimus. Regarding Paypal, we do work directly with Paypal but as the email states the Merchant has to have an account with Paypal in order for the customers to pay using Paypal because the funds go directly into the merchants Paypal account.
Hello, I don't mean to interrupt the conversation, but just in case you are looking for a third option here, I thought I would answer your questions: 1. Can I create a single account with them and sell goods from multiple websites? If they are digital goods, yes, no problem. 2. How do they handle refunds / claims? If we get refund requests, we'll send them to you for approval. *Only* if we strongly believe that an order is fraudulent or is about to turn into a chargeback would we refund without permission, and we'd explain it first. Because refunds do cost us in transaction fees, we charge 3.5% on refund transactions. On a refund transaction, the original transaction plus its transaction cost is refunded to you, you only get charged the 3.5% which covers our own transaction costs. 3. How good, and punctual, they are in sending payments? We can issue payments either once or twice per month, depending on your preference. Here's more information about our payment cycle: https://www.fastspring.com/faq.php#eleven 4. Both support paypal and credit cards? Yes, both are supported. 5. Most importantly, which one is better than the other in terms of service and rates? I think Plimus is a great service that offers a lot of features, and it looks like Gumroad has a very nice offering for a younger provider. Here at FastSpring, we just strive to give you the best customer experience as possible. For example, we generally respond to support inquiries within just a few hours, and often within minutes. We keep our pricing competitive and offer some useful features, such as multi-currency/multi-language order pages, PCI compliance, coupon code and addon offerings, etc. If you have any particular features you're looking for or any specific questions, please don't hesitate to ask. Best Regards, Steven
Steven, thanks for dropping by. Do you allow selling of excel spreadsheets, PDF documents and code snippets? How do you pay the sellers, and how frequently?
Spreadsheets and PDF documents, yes. Sometimes with code snippets we need to be more careful when reviewing, as they can be easily duplicated from somebody and then re-branded as their own. Of course, I'm not saying you would do this, but it's one of those unfortunate things that goes on in this industry. We can issue payments either by check, bank wire, PayPal or direct deposit (in some countries), either once or twice a month depending on your preference.
Don't use Plimus (or Bluesnap or whatever they change their name to next year). Their fees are the most excessive I've ever seen, and I've been doing affiliate marketing for 8 years now. Just last month (in May 2013) they changed their fee structure to charge affiliates a $10 PER MONTH "maintainence" fee. What the hell??? If you're making sales, then they already take their excessive 10% (on the average product price) cut from that, and if you're NOT making sales, then why penalize for it? All they do to "maintain" it is to send out a monthly report gathered from information already in their database. It's not like they have to hire someone to manually spend time going over your bank statements. No one else I've ever heard of charges a $10 a month affiliate account maintainence fee. Not Paypal, Pepperjam, Payloadz, etc, etc. Paydotcom charges 2 bucks, but only if you make a sale. I had a product on Plimus that had a few sales, but nothing spectacular, and then didn't make a sale for a few months, so they started charging me what they called a "dormant" account fee each month until I lost ALL the money I had made to them. I consider this to be a very sleazy tactic, as I'm a firm believer in getting paid for sales made, whether or not it's 1 or 100. People bought the product and used it, and Plimus got their slice of the pie, so why should the person who actually made the sale be the one who gets screwed?? And now they charge a $75/month merchant account maintainence fee! Avoid using Plimus/Bluesnap unless you enjoy selling things and not getting paid...
BlueSnap (formerly Plimus) has over a decade worth of payment industry experience powering the checkout process for eCommerce merchants worldwide. As stated, prior to the fee structure evaluation each merchant had been contacted, allowing the merchant to withdrawal their funds if unsatisfied with the change. The BlueSnap affiliate fee is below some of our competitors, such as LinkShare and Commission junction while still being able to offer a full service platform. The maintenance fees allow us to offer 110 payment types, handling of software downloads, taxes/VAT, an affiliate marketplace, BlueSnap offers quick integration, customized buy now pages, coupons, product bundling, PCI certified and much more making a complete solution for any merchant selling online. We regret that you will not be staying with us, Asmodeus and sincerely hope in the future you'll find our solution more suitable for your payment needs.
Well, if you want to experience yourself you join Bluesnap (or what ever next name) if you want to ask other's experiences with bluesnap ? Answer is :google is ur friend lot of forum and post have NEGATIVES about plimus, If you ask me? my friendly advice ,NO dont join. i hope my friend you find a real merchant without hidden or quick changing names or fees merchant setup. GoodLuck Its really True and got this gift from my first sale: Rest of money will be gone soon ......closing!!!!!!!!! anyways No More!!!!!!!!!
I use Gumroad and it is very good. I actually made a sale on their platform yesterday.Contrary to what someone said above, Gumroad does not pay only through Paypal. They pay U.S residents through Paypal but pay people from other countries through direct deposit to their bank accounts. Gumroad supports payment to 190 countries. I go into details in my eBook which you can get here: https://marketplace.digitalpoint.com/the-definitive-guide-to-unlocking-your-paypal-account.1437/item You can also get it at the link below if you don't have a Paypal account: https://gumroad.com/l/ZdLp I also cover all payment processors that can accept Paypal payments on your behalf and pay you by check or direct deposit. And I also give you some money transmitters as well as merchant account service providers that you can use to accept payments for your products.
PLYMUS/BLUESNAP are money sucker! I had $130 accumulated fund and just found that they cut $75 for maintenance fee. What the hell is going on with PLYMUS. I hate them and leaving them this month. Its just too much after cutting 10% out of each sale then cut so high fees. PAYMENT OVERVIEW FOR THE PERIOD BETWEEN 01-MAY-2013 AND 31-MAY-2013 ============================================================================ -------------------TOTAL ORDERS-----TOTAL UNITS-------------GROSS SALES--------------NET SALES BUYNOW TRANSACTIONS --Premium Review - Premium Review 5 5 $145.00 $130.50 ACCOUNT_MAINTENANCE_FEE --Merchant Account Maintenance Fee 1 1 -$75.00 -$75.00 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GRAND TOTAL $70.00 $55.50
Stay away from Bluesnap they have many issues, are not trusted by credit card companies and change terms on a whim to pocket all your cash.
According to an email I received from Gumroad, they offer bank deposit / wire transfer to US customers only. For non-US customers the only payment method is paypal.
Couldn't agree more - stay away from BlueSnap. They changed their terms in May without informing people and rip you off for 75USD per month. I've switched to FastSpring as soon as I found out (which was after the first withdrawal of the 75USD) and now they'll f*** me in June as well. Then they promised that they if I would close my account they would pay me the money owed, but just after I closed it they told me they're gonna hold my money for 3 months and then pay out monthly. WTF They're a bunch of unethical f**king stealers.
Plimus.. One sales = $99 Customers paid via Moneybookers (skriil) through plimus Can not withdraw to Payonner card First withdraw must be by Bank account fees $22 Entered my Bank account info.. Awaiting payment just to see how their system works and how much faster. Expecting payment to be transfer in bank May 2013 Wow.. Got this email BlueSnap Payment Report 01-MAY-2013 to 31-MAY-2013 $99.00 - $6 = $92 ACCOUNT_MAINTENANCE_FEE -$75.00 GRAND TOTAL $17.0 Note that all BlueSnap Merchants are charged with $75 maintenancefee – with the exemption of accounts that exceed $2,500 in sales. BlueSnap Payment Report 01-JUN-2013 to 30-JUN-2013 ACCOUNT_MAINTENANCE_FEE -$17.07 GRAND TOTAL $0.00 Note that all BlueSnap Merchants are charged with $75 maintenancefee – with the exemption of accounts that exceed $2,500 in sales. 1) You can setup paypal only if you have your own paypal account. if we have paypal account ? then why we need Plimus to process our payment for PayPal customers? 2) Customer can pay via Skrill (moneybookers) I think moneybookers charge $17 for all merchant account for non-activity. why we need plimus then $75 maintenance fees to accept skrill? anyways, that was our horrible experience, $99 is nothing but just a one sale the customer who paid this amount still happy with us and enjoying our services Beware!!!!
Yeah they're really a bunch of ripoffs. After the first discovery of the account maintenance fee, I immediately switched my setup to FastSpring. It took me only a day or so to get a payment page setup, change my licensing script, links and what not. The migration process was not easy unfortunately. I'm now in the process of migrating all recurring customers (approx 10 monthly and 20 yearly) manually, because at FastSpring they couldn't get the migration to work properly, but they were very helpful nonetheless. Another thing that's good about FastSpring is that you know who you're dealing with. They people at support have real names and are not just called 'Dan' or 'Joe', which I've found out means: 'Dan' = US 2nd line support, 'Joe' = overseas first line, barely able to read English - support. I've had about 30-40 emails back and forth with Plimus/BlueSnap trying to get this maintenance fee waived, but in the end that didn't work out. Cause obviously, they just want to take it and don't give a flying f*ck about you a a merchant. They also kept part of my funds and say they're going to hold on to them for 3 months (wtf?) in case of chargebacks/refunds. I told them any normal company would invoice me in that case, but of course they just want to have the money and charge you another 22usd payment fee. BlueSnap is a big ripoff. I can't say this enough and will probably keep telling stories like this for the next years whenever I see a thread popping up. Not because of the money lost, but because of the unethical behaviour behind it.